The sockeye or red is the main commercial fish of Alaska. When it comes in from the ocean it has a bluish tint. As it works on up to fresh water, the color of the body gradually changes as it nears spawning time. The body is a bright red, plainly visible in the water below. As male and female struggle on up the stream, the reds are easy to follow because of their color. The name "humpback" comes from a peculiar hump that develops on the back of the male. It would look very much like the centerboard of a boat, if it were on the under side. In shallower waters one may see the humps projecting above the surface, as the fish struggle on over the riffles. We waded on up shallow places where salmon bumped against our boots, struggled between our legs and had to be kicked out of the way.
The whole bottom of the river was ploughed and furrowed by spawning fish, wallowing out their beds or nests in the sand and gravel. Crevices in the rocks were filled with salmon eggs. These fish die after spawning, and salmon lay on the banks and hung from the bushes and trees. The river smelled of salmon. The water tasted of salmon. Yet, for lunch we ate canned salmon.
Mystery hides the travels of the salmon in its four years of life in the sea. How instinct guides the race! From the unknown depths of the ocean the fish return to the parent stream. Under the spell of the spawning instinct the salmon buffets rocks, leaps rapids on to the cool gravel bars of birth. Why such a mighty struggle when death is the only result? From beginning to end, the salmon is always on the firing line. In the open ocean he is pursued by seals and by other animals of the sea.
Gulls and crows gather at the feast on the tide-flats. Bald eagles perch above the gravel bars, and magpies flock in the bushes along the banks. Brown bears watch the shallows. Cormorants or shags live along the coastline at points strategic to the salmon streams. Unending is the pursuit of mergansers or shelldrakes that hunt the clear water where the salmon fry live. Terns and kingfishers glide along the shores to spear fingerlings that play too near the surface. Last, but not least, are men with inventive genius, who snare and catch the salmon by many methods. One might wonder how the numbers hold up when a wise Nature has furnished a fish so palatable for many species. Out of a thousand or more pink eggs that the mother salmon has packed closely in her sac, if more than four or five came through from egghood to maturity, the streams would be so overcrowded that the end and aim of Nature would be thwarted.
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