The Story Of The Salmon

Everyone throughout the United States knows salmon; but people living inland or even along the Atlantic Coast, salmon is whole different fish than what the people of the Pacific states know.

It is as if they are a magical fish, capable of astonishing physical feats, in their quest to return to their birthplaces and spawn, up river, up stream, even up waterfalls, they go.

They are survivors of the Ice Age and have weathered many storms of nature and still continued to thrive. They are a saltwater fish which spawns in fresh water. The Columbia River and the Puget sound country are especially noted for their fine salmon, and, of course, Alaska.

To cooks, gourmets, and fishermen alike, the salmon is the king of the waters. The distinctive color of the flesh of a salmon is part of its attraction. It can vary from a very delicate pale pink to a much deeper shade, verging on red.
In the Northwest, because of the various ethnic and cultural backgrounds, you can find salmon smoked hard in the Indian tradition and salmon smoked light in the Scottish tradition. It can also be as simple as a barbecued salmon dotted with butter and lemon.

The Indian tribes of the Northwest look upon salmon with great reverence and have special rituals and legends for the yearly salmon run. They look upon the salmon as life, as the salmon has nourished them physically and spiritually since the days when people first came to this region. They would migrate to the Columbia River each year during the spring and fall spawning season, when the salmon hurled themselves upstream from the Pacific Ocean to lay their eggs. During that time, the Columbia River was so thick with the countless salmon that the Indians simply speared or clubbed them to death from their canoes or from the river banks.
What the Indians didn't eat fresh, they would air-dry in the river winds to create jerky.

Commercial fishing for salmon began shortly after the arrival of Europeans on the West Coast. The Hudson’s Bay Company shipped salted salmon from Fort Langley to the Hawaiian Islands starting in 1835, and the first salmon cannery opened in 1876. By the turn of the century, 70 canneries were in operation. The first gillnet fishing on the Columbia took place in the mid 1850's even before the states of Washington and Oregon were founded, and before the Indian treaties were signed.

The life cycle of the salmon is an interesting one. Spawned in freshwater streams, the young salmon travel to sea early. Here they live and grow for three or four years. In the spring after they reach maturity, the adult salmon return to their native streams to spawn. As salmon begin their journey home, they will stop eating and live mainly on the oils stored in their bodies.

In some mysterious way, they orient themselves and swim homeward with precision equaling electronically equipped ocean sailors. The distances they travel and their astounding return to the exact point on earth where they emerged from their egg sacs is amazing. They will leap over any obstacle in their way, such as braving dams and waterfalls, hurling itself many feet out of the water until it surmounts the obstacle or dies of exhaustion in the attempt; there is no turning back. For some unknown reason, the female always dies after spawning.



Check out more interesting articles on salmon:

Chinook Salmon - Alaska Department of Fish & Game

Chum or Dog Salmon - Alaska Department of Fish & Game

Coho or Silver Salmon - Alaska Department of Fish & Game

Humpback or Pink Salmon - Gulf of Marine Research Institute

Sockeye or Red Salmon - Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife
The Salmon Nation web site has some interesting articles on farmed-raised salmon