Nature lovers and kids eager to get up close and personal with spawning salmon can now simply take a stroll down a popular local trail for face-to-face interaction.
On Friday (Aug. 20), a new viewing platform was installed inches above one of the extensive spawning channels bordered by the Squamish Valley Golf and Country Club and the Mamquam River, allowing visitors to peer into the life of the Coho and Chum.
"Right now the entire structure overhangs the water so the fish will swim underneath it. So it could be a really cool thing," said Carl Halvorson, a long-time fish advocate who helped establish the project.
"It's so much more interesting, more fun if you're close enough to a fish that you can practically touch it and get splashed by a salmon. Maybe [kids] can go down there with their little viewing tubes and be able to see the fish clearly, be able to count the spines on the backs."
The Mashiter Channel viewing platform is currently a lone slab of concrete, which was recycled from a disassembled Langley bridge,but there are plans to add interpretive signs to educate the public on the activities beneath.
The project came out of discussions among members of a fisheries roundtable group, which was established by MP John Weston after Squamish Lillooet Sportfish Advisory Committee vice-chair Dave Brown approached the politician about concerns over last year's alarmingly poor sockeye salmon run.
"Education is always key with salmon," said Brown. "To get [the public] excited about salmon, it has to be something they can actually tangibly come up and see and get a feel for."
The roundtable also included the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), which became the funding avenue for the project - one of many suggested for the area.
This particular project was chosen for its low cost as well as for fulfilling an important DFO mandate, said Halvorson, who has been involved in a number of other fish restoration projects through his work with the North Vancouver Outdoor School.
"[It was] a relatively small amount of money, and it's the actual fisheries window now, so it's the appropriate time to be doing this kind of work," he said.
Neither the broader community nor local government was made aware or consulted before the project's construction partly due to the narrow fisheries timeframe and partly because it's already in a DFO rehabilitation area, said Halvorson.
"Because the Mashiter Channel itself is actually a DFO project, it's an embellishment of their own project. It's not necessarily a big thing if they don't go to all levels. They don't need to get permission, for example, of the community largely," said Halvorson.
"The community might not necessarily be aware of all projects that DFO are doing in the community. There are a lot of them. I work at North Van Outdoor School, and we have, like, nine kilometres of spawning channels and none of them would've had any input from the community."
However the project proponents did receive and address concerns from some stakeholders, including potential impact of construction, past problems with habitat damage due to dogs and questions over the need for a platform when there are several bridges in the area.
"There's been problems with dogs going into the water, so this might be a hardened surface so it does decrease the impact of the public viewing salmon," said Halvorson. "It was also an area that had been recently rebuilt, so it's a rocky margin, so it would take very little impact on the actual streamside to facilitate. And you can say 'There are bridges,' but the intent is that you get children down close."
Now that the platform is installed, Halvorson said nature lovers, families, schools and other educational groups are invited to enjoy the experience.
"We do need to talk to the community to see how better it can be used. The hard part is getting it there," he said. "We hope eventually that it will be a place that people can go and admire salmon in a safe place."
