14/366 – Hyde Creek

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January 14, 2012 – This is Hyde Creek, a small fish bearing stream in the heart of Coquitlam, and served by a wonderful Community Enhancement Program made up of volunteers with a shared love of salmon and the drive to do something to help preserve them. I drove out to Coquitlam today to provide some support for a Salmon Enhancement Community Program workshop on licensing and best management practices that was being held here. I was mostly there to field fish health questions that might (and did) come up. Overall it was a great first run of some material that is to be rolled out to a number of workshops around the Province over the coming months. And it was really nice to see a few people I hadn’t seen in some time. One fellow came running up to me at the end and gave me a hug and said “I just had to make sure I didn’t leave without giving my favourite fish health teacher a hug!” You have to love when not only do you get your messages across, but that it goes across in such a positive manner that they do something like that three years after you taught them. That was a pretty major feel-good moment in the day.

It started snowing overnight and some of the roads were pretty sketchy this morning. A car rear ended an SUV right next to me (everyone was fine), and I watched a car slide down a hill and right into a lamp post (he was just embarrassed). There were several vehicles abandoned along the Barnet Highway, and a full sized pickup truck nose down in a ditch with the rear wheels high in the air (no one about). But after the workshop we emerged to find the sun shining and the snow rapidly melting, but the air was still crisp and everything sparkled. I had parked a couple of blocks from the facility as parking is at a premium, so I’d had to slog in through a path in the forest to get to the hatchery. But that same walk was fabulous in the late afternoon with the sun low.

Honestly, I love it when it snows, you just can’t wipe the smile of my face when the white stuff comes down.