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Soon Spring began to feel restless in her little Canyon Pool. She was almost five inches long now and was excited by the drawing of the current she could feel. One September day, Spring and the rest of her school could resist the current no more, and let themselves be carrried away from Canyon Pool in a downstream journey. This was the beginning of a three hundred mile swim down the Columbia River, to the Pacific Ocean.
Thousands died at the bottom of a drying pool; those that were left had to gasp their way through polluted waters until they found water that was rolled and mixed by the current, exposing it to air and restoring its oxygen.
As they travelled, the smolts were the object of many predators. Fish and birds were eager to feed on the young migrating salmon, yet all the salmon tasted was pollution and an occasional chironoid. No real food was to be found until the school came to Desdemona Sands where the waste from the cannery of Astoria was poured into the water. Spring grew fast. She was more than six inches long by the end of November. Upon leaving the cannery, Spring had her first taste of salt water in the channel between Astoria and Desdemona Sands. The school found food in plenty in Young's Bay, about ten to twelve miles from the Pacific Ocean, and stayed there for several months. By the end of March Spring was 10 inches long. |
Spring and the school with her would be encountering waters poisoned and obstructed by industrialization.
