I work on the banks of the mighty Fraser River, yes the one in the Lumberjack song by Monty Python. It is a mighty river, but were I am - not so much. I work on the south arm of the river (a river has arms you say?) and it rolls gently past. The tide is still fairly big here, even the 20 kilometers from the ocean that we are, it will drop and rise a good 10 or 12 feet every 6 to 12 hours as tides are want to do.

The Fraser is a working river, barges go past laden with wood chips and crushed steel and gravel and lumber and sometimes stranger things. One night I saw a bridge go by. It was cut up into sections and they were barging it up the river. It was huge, it took them about an hour to barge past the berths at my workplace. Right now, the biggest amount of work going on is the Fishermen, the biggest salmon run of the last 90 years is happening.

After some lean years, the salmon have returned in abundance to the Fraser, heading inland to the mountain streams hundreds of miles away where they will give birth to the next generation.

The docks along the river are selling fresh off the boat Sockeye salmon for $10 a salmon (head off and cleaned). That's about $1 or less a pound. Makes me wish I had a HUGE freezer.

posted on Sept 3, 2010 10:36 PM ()

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