Love Life of Salmon

Near the town of Ketchikan along Alaska’s inside passage, they make a pilgrimage to their place of birth, to partake in one grand love-making event.   I was privileged to watch them, and they did not even seem to notice my presence. 

Ketchikan Creek, where it dives into the inside passage of Alaska, is a rapid flow of water, almost a waterfall, and it's as much a part of nature as the fish within it.  Yet it seems unaware of the driving passion it holds.  Passion thrusts itself upward against fast water and pounding boulders.  I stood here a long time trying to see just one of the lovers scrambling, jumping upstream.  They climb against the most difficult odds for what they must believe is right, or they feel it's the loving thing to do, be it right or wrong. 

They’ve been four years at sea, since their birth, and now something pulls them from salt water to fresh, from easy swimming to a frantic struggle against waterfall current. 

I leave the ship and follow these determined fish.  But I go the easy way, along Deer Mountain Trail.

Unlike trout in mountain streams who shy away from humans lurking on the bank, these single-minded fish keep swimming even in my presence, even as the water becomes so shallow that they expose their backs to the air.   

A male comes up beside a female, but he’s quickly driven away by the larger and stronger male behind him.

The battered suitor, tired, with white bruises on his back, cowers away from the prize that he fought so hard for. 

The  dominate male, having chased off all competitors swims up beside his prize and moves in.

He has won her, and she gives him no resistance.  He comes close to her and quivers, which she finds irresistible.  Simultaneously, she releases her eggs and the male fertilizes them as the two fish are side by side with the eggs behind them.  For this moment each of them has struggled almost to the point of death, having never met each other before the last few minutes.   

After this ultimate quest of their lives, they die within a day or two, and the stench of them fills the canyon.  It doesn’t sound like love to me, and I, for one salmon, would not do it, would stay in the quiet ocean.  I wonder how many do that.