News Archives

Fall is in the air now at the station. We are still having many beautiful days and spectacular sunsets, but the odd spells of rainy weather and stronger winds are giving us a taste of what’s to come. The gardens are winding down, except of course the ever-present kale, which is going strong. September was a busy month here - we had visits from friends and relatives, many fishing expeditions, continued work on firewood, brushing and putting the gardens to bed, and MESSS salmon enumeration stream walking is ongoing. Zephyr found an excellent babysitter (her father John) to help with Salix so she could leave the station to attend the Cohen Commission Aquaculture and Disease hearings in which Alexandra Morton spoke in early September. Our electrician, Mike Geldreich, visited in late September and helped us get our off-the-grid power system back in good shape. Coady and Salix helped her grandfather sail his boat back to Read Island (our previous home, another very small island community) in late September, and we continue to stay in frequent contact with our friends there– several have already visited the station and Zephyr and Salix are hoping to attend the annual Halloween festivities on Read while Coady mans the station.

There have been quite a few large mammal sightings recently - transient orcas were spotted passing the station on at least three occasions, as well as a solitary humpback whale. Each time we travel through Blackfish Sound on the way to Port McNeill we’ve seen many humpbacks, and one foggy day a group of Pacific White Side Dolphins rode the bow wake on John’s sailboat as we headed back to the station with a delighted group of visitors. On land, we’ve chased off a non-threatening but pesky bear several times, and one of the station users saw a cougar on the porch in late September - we’ve been on high alert since, of course. We are preparing ourselves for more indoor pursuits as the fall progresses and the weather gets colder, rainier and windier. Zephyr will be learning how to work on this website in early October, so stay posted for new photos, documents, and text and more news updates!

We were lucky to have many wonderful and helpful visitors this spring and summer. We would especially like to thank:

• Dr. Neil Fraser and Pauline MacNeil for their many wise words and generous help around the station, including fixing boats, painting the bathroom, cleaning, organizing, and helping in the kitchen. Neil also provided invaluable problem-solving and mentoring for young researchers working on mathematical modelling and ecology.
• Beth and Peter Adams (parents of Megan Adams) for all their help organizing the workshop, tool shed, storage areas on the dock, and our linen system, and for burning our giant burn pile, helping with meals and events, and contributing with in-kind donations.
• Paul and Draha Krkosek (parents of Dr. Martin Krkosek) for all their help with organization, infrastructure improvements (stairs), meals, and dishes.
• Sarah Haney, one of our founders, and her partner Alan Calderwood for their continuing strong and generous support.
• Mark Worthing and Jesse Howardson for their gardening help, as well as provision of plant starts and seeds.
• Marjorie Wonham for the donation of valuable digital scientific references.                     
• Billy Proctor for firewood provision and for mentoring the construction of a hand-logger shack in which many station volunteers have been involved.
• Eric Eder and Cathy Patterson on the “Maggie K” for providing wonderful musical entertainment and for babysitting the daughter of the new coordinators!
• Ivan Gettings for his generous contributions of GPS units for our research programs.
• Claude and Carmen Gagnon for all their help cleaning and organizing.

Other notable visitors this spring included Brian Gunn, the president of the Wilderness Tourism Association and owner/operator of Strathcona Lodge, who stopped by to talk about the sea-lice situation, and Stan Proboszcz, a biologist from Watershed Watch who is working on the BAMP sea-lice monitoring project. We also enjoyed the company of Brendan Connor’s family during the Director’s Retreat Weekend, particularly his very happy eight-month-old son, Cohen. In July, Jill and Richard on the “Paspatoo” and their crew, Tom and Sue Gilbert, and their daughter Tanny, on the “Amathea”, and Amanda and Barry Glickman on the “Papa Rumba” all tied up to our dock and joined us for lively dinners and discussions.

Even with the spring research crowd gone, we have had a busy summer here. Coady and Zephyr have been getting to know the station in more detail, starting various projects, and prioritizing for the future. Some of the weeks, our dock was full of folks who boated in to say hi, and we have enjoyed many meals with these visitors and others in the community.

Our daughter Salix has been adjusting well and has become very good friends with the wonderful children at Blackfish Lodge. We trade babysitting with them as often as possible, to the great benefit of both sets of parents.
Jenni Schine, a researcher who was here earlier in the spring working with Billy, came back for a fun work visit in early August. Scott Rogers, the previous Station Coordinator, also returned from her summer vacation.

The weather has finally turned around and we have begun to enjoy the veggies from the garden (mainly peas, tomatoes, very small zucchinis, and copious amounts of delicious kale), as well as the berries and fruit on and nearby the property (raspberries, huckleberries, cherries, and now blueberries, salal berries, and thimbleberries).

And the salmon are coming! Lately we have been eating salmon of one species or another for most dinners and are starting to put away canned salmon for the winter and spring. In early August, we were treated to the sight of a large group of Pacific White-sided Dolphins leaping and splashing right out in front of the station two evenings in a row and, several days later, we saw a group of transient orcas pass by, one large male and three smaller individuals. With the salmon came another visitor, Salix's grandpa John, who sailed up to play with his granddaughter (and help out in general).

We are looking forward to the rest of the summer here and to the excitement of the fall salmon season. We are also happy that Scott will be hanging around to work on the fall Salmon Enumeration for MESSS and to help answer the many questions about the station that we've thought of over the summer.

Click here to read the latest version of our SCFSS semi-annual newsletter! You'll learn about our latest projects, hear from our fantastic new Station Coordinators, and get an inside glimpse into what it's really like to be one of our field researchers.

While we are saddened to say goodbye to our long-term Station Coordinator, Scott Rogers, we are excited to announce the arrival of our new Station Coordinators, Zephyr Polk and Coady Webb, along with their two-year-old daughter Salix. We look forward to their move to the station at the beginning of June, a great time during our research season to get settled in and learn the ropes. Both Zephyr and Coady graduated with bachelor degrees in biology, and have come with strong academic references; experience living in a small, wilderness community; and extensive food security and gardening experience. We welcome friends of the station (new and old!) to tie up at the station, introduce yourself over email, meet the new coordinators, and start the exchange of new ideas.

Scott Rogers will continue to be an active part of the station family, continuing in the capacity as a board member. We thank her for all of her insight, energy, and work over the past several years.

Zephyr and Coady will officially begin as the new Station Coordinators on June 1, and Scott will resign on June 30. To learn more about our new Station Coordinators, click here and read their biographies on our Team Profiles page. 

We are adding important items to our Station Wishlist: Reference books! Below is a list of books we are really keen to add to our library. Most of them are available to order on www.amazon.ca. 

Pacific Salmon Life Histories. Cornelius Groots & Leo Margolis, 1991. UBC Press.

• ISBN-10: 0774803592
• ISBN-13: 978-0774803595
• Approximately $150

The Light and Smith Manual: Intertidal Invertebrates from Central California to Oregon. Sol Felty Light & James T. Carlton, 2007. University of California Press.

• ISBN-10: 9780520239395
• ISBN-13: 978-0520239395
• Approximately $95

British Columbia Pelagic Marine Copepoda: An identification manual and annotated bibliography. G.A. Gardner & I. Szabo, 1982. Canadian Journal of Fisheries & Aquatic Sciences, No. 62, 536 pp.

An identification guide to the larval marine invertebrates of the Pacific Northwest. A.L. Shanks, 2001. 

• ISBN-10: 0870715313
• ISBN-13: 978-0870715310
• Approximately $50

A guide to marine coastal plankton and marine invertebrate larvae. (Field Guide) Smith, DeBoyd, & Johnson, 1996.    

• ISBN-10: 0787221139
• ISBN-13: 978-0787221133
• Approximately $195

Our Plankton productivity/juvenile salmon diet study needs two Research Assistant volunteers to make this project a realization in May and June. We have two very qualified volunteers who would do a great job, if they had the financial support to do so. We are just missing the $1,600/volunteer to support them for two months (room and board). We would appreciate any donations directed to these two keen and able volunteers, as it would both further their careers and make our research possible. Please contact us at info@salmoncoast.org, or donate (via our website's Paypal button or by mailing a cheque), if you would like to support this initiative.

Thank you!

We are looking for a high-quality stereomicroscope. Do you have any leads? If you would like to help us acquire this state-of-the-art equipment, please contact us for further details. To see what we are looking for, you can check out the following website: www.scopeshop.com/Itempage.asp?Stereo.

Some examples of the types we would like are: 

- Wild Leica Heerbrugg M3Z Stereomicroscope

- LCS14: Leica MZ7.5 Stereoscope

- LCS08: Leica MZ6 Stereoscope for Observation and Imaging in Incident Light

- LCS09: Leica MS5 Stereoscope for Observation and Imaging in Incident Light

We are in our 3rd week of field sampling for both plankton and monitoring sea lice levels on out-migrating juvenile salmon.

We owe a huge thanks for the strong support of Pieter Van Will of the Port Hardy Fisheries & Oceans office and Eamon Miyagi of the Campbell River Fisheries & Oceans office. This project would not be happening without them. Our intrepid team of volunteers is going out sampling daily, weather permitting. The wind is our nemesis, but snow does not stop us! 

Five days per week, we collect plankton samples from 10 sites along the salmon fry migration route and a few salmon fry stomachs to confirm their diet choices. Back in the lab, the samples are processed. Marie-Josee identifies and counts plankton, fry stomachs are preserved for later analysis, and otoliths (salmon ear bones) and fin clips for river chemistry and genetics are preserved. There was a huge plankton bloom, but over the past week it has been clearing. 

In addition, one-two days per week, we head out and, using beach seines, we live-sample juvenile salmon at three sites.  Through a hand lens, we examine them for sea lice and then release the school to continue on their way. Salmon before the farms have natural levels of young sea lice (1-2 per 100 fish). Then, though still relatively low, juvenile salmon have higher levels of young sea lice as they pass the fish farm in the Burdwoods.

The SCFS will continue the coordination of our decade-long, one-of-a-kind, invaluable dataset, looking into the relationship between salmon farms and their transfer of sea lice to wild juvenile salmon. SCFS will also host the second year of Dr. Martin Krkosek's contribution to the Broughton Archipelago Monitoring Plan (BAMP), which is a collaboration of sea lice monitoring between independent academics, industry, and government. (For more information on this project, visit "Sea Lice Monitoring (BAMP)" under "Current Research."