49763 - October update

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Dag,
   Iris (Lee Creek, 49763 miles)

49763 - Me cooking?

Because most of my friendships in the Bay Area were based on having lunch together in the many restaurants around, I had lost most of my cooking skills.

And as a result on day 4 of this trip, I burned the food. I can’t totally blame that on the Bay Area, while it’s not a very uncommon feature of my cooking life. Even before the Bay Area, I could totally loose interest during cooking and only remembered that I was cooking after … smelling it. Back then friends were surprised when it did work out.

From day 5 to 26, I was served delicious breakfasts, healthy lunched and amazing dinners. No complains. It also was a good push to set me back on track of cooking every day myself. And slowly during this trip I gained more interest in food. From helping friends out in their garden, to working on organics farms. From collecting cook books, to baking bread on my grill. One more last push is needed; a full month dedicated to food and cooking.

It starts off with a field kitchen

• Steak, quinoa, brussels sprouts with bacon and sour cream
• Broccoli-kale, spaghetti (fries?), mushroom-nut crumble
• Pizza

We move to a house with a full kitchen (and away from the bears)

• Anti Pasta
• Lasagna from scratch
• Broccoli-spinach quiche

• Brussels sprouts
• Chicken drumsticks
• Coleslaw

• Apple crumble
• Apple pie
• Apple turnover

• Coconut cookies
• Muesli bars
• Vanilla cookies

• Whole wheat bread
• Raisin bread
• Banana bread

• Harvest and roasted sunflower pits
• Roasted Spanish nuts

Some evenings we go on apple hunt. Before the developments around Shuswap lake, orchards had dotted the shore. Now the left over “wild” trees are scattered throughout the area and we become experienced apple tree spotters. But we get more from the land. Pine mushrooms in the forest and green tomatoes from the garden.

This calls for some canning:

• Green tomato chutney
• Chunky vanilla pear jam
• Apple sauce
• Apple butter

But the most proud I am of the thanksgiving turkey.

We are a month later and I can honestly say, I enjoy cooking and I am not a horrible cook anymore. N, thank you for eating everything I put in front of you. Love you lots.

Dag,
   Iris (Lee Creek, 49763 miles)

49763 - Salute to the Sockeye

I blank out. Words just don’t come to me. About 30 to 40 people are eagerly waiting for my words. But no words flow from my mouth. I am holding a sockeye salmon heart in my hand, while talking to the people in English about a topic I hardly have any knowledge of. If they only knew that a month ago I refused to hold a still spasm but death fish down so N could cut it. If they only knew I have never seen a sockeye salmon in the ocean. If the only knew this is the first time I see sockeye salmons. If then only knew I am a cubic creature, city girl, an applied physicist. What am I doing here?

Never to long short of words I continue: “I am just blanking here. What was I talking about?” And back on track I continue my story: “So the heart of a sockeye only has 2 chambers, compared to the 4 chambers of us human. A sockeye doesn’t have to fight gravity and its gills are very efficient, which makes only 1 blood circle sufficient.” I grab the gills and show them around. “So when blood leaves the heart it first travels by the set of gills, which takes oxygen straight out of the water into the bloodstream, before the blood travels the rest of the body.” While talking I push the esophagus to the side. I don’t wane talk about this organ, while I can simply not pronounce that word. I grab the liver instead. “The main function of the liver is to remove toxins out of the blood stream, just like ours. Something we don’t have is this organ, the swim bladder. A balloon filled with air to match the pressure of a certain height in the water column. If you see a fish doing blub blub, it actually burps out water from its swim bladder and will sink.” I have told this story about 20 times now and get more and more fluent about it. “So let’s see what’s more out on the table. Ah, the kidneys still here in the fish. Remember this sockeye has spent the last 2 1/2 years out in the salty ocean. About 3 weeks ago they started entering the fresh water of the Fraser River, after migrating all the way from the Bering Sea. The kidneys responsible for the salt balance in the sockeye, now have to switch while the osmotic pressure changed in direction.”

“A more visible change the sockeye undergoes when it hits fresh water is the change in colour and appearance. A sockeye lives from shrimp like creatures out in the ocean which colours its flesh. Do we not all know the nice looking pink fish on our plate? From the outside it however looks gray-marble. This is because we look at the scales. When the sockeye enters fresh water they stop eating altogether.” I hold up the empty stomach. “Still having 420 km ahead of them, they start consuming their own body fats and oils during the trip upstream. This includes absorbing their scales with the result that we look straight at the red flesh. That’s the whole mystery about why the sockeye looks red out here. Another source of energy is their cheeks and lips and this consumption exposes their teeth more and as the flesh of the jaw shrinks, it molds the jaw in a more hooked form, with an ugly red fish as a result.”

”Can we still eat the sockeye?” a tourist asks. “Well that depends. The sockeye has used most of its oils and fats which would have given the fish its taste. The state the sockeye is in now, is not far from dying. Its flesh is more like white tofu and not very appealing anymore. I should say, not very appealing anymore to me. As I have Asian friends who like to suck out the eyes of a fish…” I look around, with 14.000 tourists today, there are busloads of Asians in the crowed. They are all nodding now. “…First Nation people eat the sockeye even in this decompose state.”

“So the sockeye is now in fresh water and makes the journey upstream following its nose back to the place where it was born, to finally enter the Adams River 1.5 km down from where we are now.”

“In the Adams River they gather in waiting ponds in eddies all along the shore line.”

“Here they rest from the journey, find a partner and loosen up their eggs and milt.”

I grab the 2 egg sacks and spread out the 4000 eggs they are holding. “The eggs have been in a streamlined travel mode, packed firm together, while the female was traveling upstream. Now they loosen up and when she is ready, she finds a partner and looks for a premier spawning spot. Nice gravel, a little bit of water flow, far enough away from other pairs.”

“And here she starts digging a redd (ditch) by flapping here tail in the gravel. The male keeps defending here. Not so much out of love, but more out of desire to spread his own DNA. When ready the female will deposit about 50% of her eggs, which are fertilized by the milt of male within seconds. The water streaming over the lip of the redd, mixes everything together and buries the eggs a little bit under the gravel.”

“Now the female moves directly upstream and starts digging her next redd. The gravel stirred up from this digging covers the previous redd downstream. In total she will create about 3 to 5 redds over a three to five day period. Hard work which is shown on her worn out tail and lost of energy. Also the male starts to worn out.”

“And after all that hard work, they die. Indeed they both die”

“End of story? No, the sockeyes now becomes valuable food and nutrients for the local eco system. Eagles, wolves and indeed the bear population. This abundant nutrition makes the local cotton wood trees growing to enormous heights.”

“The main contribution however is to the sockeyes own life cycle. The 4000 eggs will hatch into an alvin in the middle of the winter. These little larval migrate deeper into the gravel to survive the winter, and will live from the yolk sac still attached to them. With the spring runoff about 800 surviving, of the now called fry will float to the Sushwap lake, to spend a year eating from the flourishing plankton. And plankton in abundance, with all the death sockeye nutrition in the water. The sockeye born in orphanhood, is still literally fed by its parents. To complete the life cycle. About 200 smolts will make it back to the ocean. After 2 years in the ocean only 10 have survived and will start the journey back. But now rich of fat and oils, 8 are caught for consumption by fishery. The only 2 survivors will make it back here to the Adams river, to start the cycle all over again."

A very intrigued process, but disturbing at the same time. A stroll along the shore becomes a smell survival walk.

With millions of spawning sockeye this year, there are kilometers of shore line with death sockeyes piling up.

Millions? That’s where its gets tricky. In 1913 the Fraser river was blocked by a landslide at Hells Gate and no sockeyes made it up to the Adams river. After installing a fish ladder a cycle with every 4 year a dominant run established.

This year the record amount of about 35 million sockeyes entered the mouth of the Fraser River. From this population about 10 million entered the Shuswap Lake system. Of which about 5-6 million are entering the Adams River right now. Well that’s the guess. For a better scientifically guess (it stays biology), a mark - recapture program is on the way.

A portion of the sockeye is captured and marked with a tag before it is released back into the general population.

After the sockeye died, carcasses are counted for tagged and untagged. This ratio is used to calculate the total amount of sockeye in the river.

In equation form:
total_amount_of_fish=marked_fish*(total_recaptured_fish/recaptured_fish_marked)

How many there were is not known yet. For me, it was many. I have just never seen so many fish in my life before.

In the evening when we walk the stream the education continues.

This time from N to me. “We do have a swim bladder, it evolved into our ear drum. Not a lack of efficiency but evolution has given us a 4 chamber heart.” And on and on it goes. I simply love these evenings.

So for more questions, please ask N. He is the biologist, not me.

Dag,
   Iris (Lee Creek, 49763 miles)