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In the summer of 1992, about 482,000 sockeye salmon seemed to disappear on their way to the spawning grounds in the Fraser River system... sockeye yield high returns to commercial fishermen — some $250 million annually, half the total value of British Columbia’s commercial salmon fishery.
Peter H. Pearse, Managing Salmon on the Fraser: Report to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans on the Fraser River Salmon Investigation, November 1992
chapter one
Monday, October 21 Weaver Creek, British Columbia, Canada
Cindy parked in the clearing, shut off the engine, and waited. Around her, the forest was alive with sound, but all of it soft, subdued: the wind caressing Douglas fir, the murmur of water spilling across a rocky bed. Then a shriek cut the air – an omen — and she smiled. If eagles were circling, death was nearby.
She grabbed her field notes and slid from the van.
At the water’s edge she did a quick visual survey, counting the number of sockeye females defending their redds. Then she stepped back and scanned the shore. Just as she’d hoped. Rotting corpses of spawned-out fish crowded the banks of the creek. She willed her shoulders to relax, flipped open her yellow Rite-in-the-Rain notebook, and wrote the date on the first empty page. She noted the percentage of cloud cover just below the date and, notebook still in hand, began to walk slowly along the bank, counting redds, surveying numbers, and checking her downstream sites.
When she saw her enclosures she smiled again. For once they were intact. Most mornings she arrived to find the posts upended and the wire mesh flattened against the stream bed, evidence of the scavenging bears that prowled the stream at night.
She continued down the creek to the gate, the barrier that controlled fish entry into the spawning channel. She edged her way out to the middle. From there she could see that the holding tanks below were full, salmon thrashing and squeezing their way through the narrow slit that gave them access to the spawning stream. There was an audible click every time one shot through, as the Fisheries counters kept track of this year’s return.
Thank God the numbers were up. At least today she could work.
Back at the van she pulled on chest waders, made several more notations in her field book, then picked up her dip net and transect chain and headed for the stream. She was fully absorbed until half an hour later, when she heard a vehicle turn onto the spawning channel road. Annoyed, she stood up and watched the entrance. Cindy preferred to work alone or, if necessary, with her technician, Dinah, but to have to stop work and make small talk with some Fish and Wildlife officer, or worse, one of the locals, was a waste of precious time. And with the bizarre returns on the stream this year, she had already lost so much time that her research was in jeopardy.
She listened, thinking she would ignore whoever it was, and she heard pebbles spray as the truck suddenly reversed and accelerated back down the road. Poachers who had seen her van? Could be. She’d have to ask Eddie. She shrugged and got back to measuring the size of gravel along her second transect.
She didn’t think of the vehicle again until after four o’clock. With hands and feet numb from the frigid water, she dragged herself out of the stream for a hot cup of tea. Sitting high above on the bank, her hands wrapped around the thermos cup, she looked across the stream and felt her stomach contract. There were distinctly fewer salmon churning the waters. She was sure of it.
She hurried back to the van and peeled off her waders, replacing them with sturdy hiking boots. The sun was just disappearing behind Sumas mountain, and in the next few minutes the fragile autumn warmth would vanish as the damp and cold of the water rose up to permeate the air.
Down at the gate the counters were silent, the holding tanks empty, and the pool beneath them deserted. There were no sockeye coming up Weaver Creek. In an odd sort of way it was a blessing: whatever was causing the periodic disappearance of the fish was occurring at this very minute, somewhere on the river. She debated the sense in following the stream down through dense forest so late in the day, just when the bears were beginning their evening rounds, but her research was at stake. The spawning season on this stream was nearly over, and it might be her only chance to discover what was causing the problem.
Then she remembered the truck, and that clinched her decision.
She left the road and descended into the forest.
Monday, October 21 National Council for Science and Technology, Ottawa, Canada
It was an accident, the salmon investigation landing in my hands: unexpected fallout from a particularly explosive weekly meeting. Or should I say weekly roundup. That’s what Bob — my boss and Chief of Investigations — calls the Monday morning staff meetings that he was forced to establish by management’s latest business guru. Of course, according to Bob, he developed the idea on his own.
“To improve two-way communication,” he told us at the first meeting. “Make sure you’re in the loop. That your fingers are on the pulse. Empowerment. That’s the key word.”
That particular Monday, I had arrived at the roundup five minutes early so I could have my choice of seating. Our conference room is small, bland, and windowless, with a large Formica-covered table taking up virtually all the available space. I edged my way toward the head of the table: Bob’s unchallenged domain. Once there, I neatly arranged my files in front of his usual spot, placed a precisely ordered list of my current projects conspicuously on top of the stack of files, and slid into Bob’s chair. I sipped my coffee and smiled.
Through the door I could see my colleagues begin to wander out of their offices, stroll to the coffee machine, and congregate in small pre-meeting discussion groups. Nobody was in a hurry. Bob is always late.
Duncan was the first to drift in, and he gave me a sly smile as he noted my position in the room. Both Duncan and I have been labelled as resistant and unco-operative, with a big dose of bad attitude, in the face of our “renewal process.” That’s because we made the same error early on. During the staff input stage — the one-on-one consultations with management — we both provided candid and honest answers to the questions we were asked. Rather than tell management what they wanted to hear — that everything was fine and they were doing a great job and a little tinkering and some new jargon should basically do the trick — we told the truth. That fundamental change was needed, and change started at the top. Oops. We came out of those meetings pegged as employees with an unhealthy attitude who were afraid of change.
Since then, Bob had used the Monday meetings to load up his two most undesirable employees with impossible projects on ridiculous deadlines, believing that we’d soon become discouraged enough to seek employment elsewhere. He’d obviously missed the course on “Employee Evaluation: Harnessing the Hidden Power.” I had no intention of quitting. I was ready to fight.
I gave Duncan my most charming smile and patted the chair to my left. “Why don’t you sit here?” A common front could be useful as the meeting unravelled.
He took in the neatly arranged files, the detailed project list, and my charcoal grey pinstriped suit. “No thanks. I’d rather live through the meeting.”
Wimp. Oh well. Not everyone was up to constant battle and confrontation. I could understand that. Then I looked more closely. His hands were empty: no files, no notebook, not even a pencil. Something was going down.
“Duncan…?” But just then several of our junior colleagues arrived, and I didn’t want to ask too much.
Bob finally made his entrance at 9:17 A.M. I bent over my files, watching the movie unfold from the corner of my eye. Like a sleepwalker, he blundered toward the head of the table. Then he saw me and stopped abruptly, creating a mini tsunami that swept