It's a beautiful day in late June. The river has suddenly become wide and shallow. And it tastes different - it's salty! The Columbia River is meeting the Pacific Ocean. The area where the salt water of the sea mixes with the fresh water of a river is called an estaury. 
The bright June sun warms the water making Hydroid feel lighter and lighter. Hydroid evaporates and is soon floating in the air above the Pacific Ocean. The chinook swim head on into the cool ocean currents, following the schools of anchovies, herring and shrimp that will lead them north to the waters off Alaska. A boat is stretching a long fine net along the water. The Hood River fish are small enough to swim through the openings in the net. This time next year, some will not be as lucky. They will be larger. They will find themselves among the fish now being pulled onto the deck of a fishing boat. They swim with clouds of bright red sockeye salmon getting ready to return to their Alaska rivers. Near shore they meet up with the humpbacked pink salmon and chum, or dog, salmon. Their skin is two-toned with a dark greenish back and silver sides and belly. Their backs and sides are freckled with dark black spots as camouflage. The marks on one fish are deep, ugly. These are not spots, but old wounds made by the teeth of a sea lion. By their third year, a secret signal from Nature turns the Chinook south, back toward the Columbia River. 
By their third year, Hydroid's friends are three feet long. It's April.
Below, Hydroid sees that nine of the Hood River chinook have avoided all the
ocean's perils to come back to the Columbia. The clouds ahead of Hydroid
meet cold air and rain on Oregon and Washington. The river rises and the chinook
meet the current head on. Suddenly, they are no longer hungry. All they want to
do is swim, quickly, up the river to home, to their little stream off Hood
River. They steer clear of the warm water released by factories and power plants
near Camas, Portland, Longview, Kelso, and Rainier.
At Longview, a small group of chinook take a left turn up Washington's Toutle River. At Portland, another group takes a right. The surviving Willamette chinook are heading back to their hatcheries. The Hood River fish push straight ahead, toward home. |
