"The cradle and the grave"

It is the most fascinating natural phenomenon we have seen so far: three kinds of salmon swim every fall from the ocean upstream to this river in Goldstream Provincial Park to lay their eggs. Unfortunately, some of them die on the way, but a lot of them do make it. The females who make it dig holes that can be up to half a meter in depth, and then lay their eggs (they spawn around 400 eggs each time!). The male then fertilizes the eggs. The process is repeated until each female has laid close to 3,000 eggs! Weak and exhausted, most of them just die within 10 days of arriving at the river... and you get what you see in the photo: a fish cemetery!

You will also see the scavengers; seagulls and eagles (we only saw seagulls) feeding on the dead and dying fish!

It was sad to see all this dead salmon... but when we learned what they died for, it kind of made us feel better!