Along the South Fork

Maple trees with dry leaves cover the banks and rocky shore. A reflection, crystal clear water. There’s so much movement beneath the surface that a small wave comes to join me at the river’s edge.

A maple leaf – yellow – spirals from above to a gentle embrace with the river. The trail is covered in the whole spectrum of ochre yellows. This fall is the driest I have known. Low water. An alder reaches out over the water. A western red cedar across. We walk down the bank. Hundreds of coho salmon sit in the river’s channel. From pool to pool we move as they hold up and await to spawn.

A dipper lands just to the rock on my right. I make eye contact before they fly across the river to perch on a rock. Then keeps dipping in the water, 3 seconds, 4 seconds. Back to the air. Circling the river no more than a foot above the clear water. A leaf spirals again over my shoulder. The smell of the leaves making their journey back to earth. The gentle current wraps around the round smooth small boulders.

Splash! The sound of another coho rises from the river bed. The return. The return of these salmon. Rise! Splash. In an instant it speeds faster than my shutter to the surface.

Wading now.

Hunkering in the shade — these coho also pool in the calm waters — so clear. This river’s pulsing response. An eagle flies across the other side and lands in a perch at the top of the cedar tree. This river so palpably alive, beating, breathing.

A logging truck rolls by and the earth shakes. A pool of salmon scurry. DNR Cut blocks and private timber loom high above in this basin. It’s not just the lack of water, the turbidity, but the noise... This is something I have never thought about. Even footsteps — although we walk so carefully — disturb these beautiful beings.

Each salmon dances weaving past rocks. Upstream another leap! Jump. An alder leaf falls back to the water. Splash. Shift again, the water pulses with salmon. Their tails push and pull — undulating. Their heads lift, breathing. I’m reminded here of the orca.

Wading through the water, our feet go numb. Losing sensation now, a deep cool hit to our bodies. Walking through time with the salmon. We wind. Bend. We walk and come back again, if only just for a moment to know how delicate these times of life are, in our pursuit to live here in this place together.