| On
the Lookout for Eagles
by
Jack Kintner
The
salmon and the eagles were already ancient when the huge
volcano that was our Mt. Baker’s predecessor
was sending its own rivers to the sea. The only things
left of it today are the Black Buttes on Baker’s
southwest flank, relics of the thousands of unrecorded
centuries the fish filled the rivers as they went to sea
and returned upriver to spawn.
The rivers no longer throb with the sheer quantity of life
as they did for millennia, something last seen by the earliest
of the white prospectors and pioneers. They spoke of the
incessant sound of salmon thrashing, packed bank to bank,
squeezing through channels in water that gradually gets
shallower and shallower, the noise of it all echoing off
the hills all day and night in season as different runs
of the five different sea-going salmon species worked their
way to their various spawning grounds, past the resident
cutthroat, rainbow, sturgeon and whitefish while all along
the way countless bears ate their fill. Then as now eagles
sat in the trees to welcome the salmon home for dinner.
Despite the reduced numbers, you can still watch these
life cycles intersect in the North Fork of the Nooksack,
in the Fraser and their tributaries. In fact, thanks to
environmental restoration, parts of the cycle are thriving,
notably the eagles.
One key environmental victory in 1973, banning the use
of the insecticide DDT for domestic purposes, went a long
way toward restoring eagle populations all over North America.
DDT had been synthesized in commercial quantities by the
Swiss industrial chemist Paul Müller just 33 years
earlier, earning him the 1948 Nobel Prize in medicine for
producing an insecticide that effectively wiped out malaria
in many parts of the world by eliminating the insects that
carried it.
The trouble was that due in part to somewhat reckless and
uncontrolled over-use by an uninformed public, it came
close to wiping out other desirable species, especially
birds of prey, by compromising their ability to breed.
In the early ’60s, the years DDT use reached its
peak, there were less than 500 nesting pairs of bald eagles
in the continental U.S.
Three decades after the ban, eagle counts show a ten-fold
increase. In August 1995, the eagle was downlisted from
endangered to threatened status under the Endangered Species
Act. Combined with efforts toward restoring healthy fish
runs in area rivers, banning DDT has meant that you can
again easily watch a bird in its wild habitat that once
was rarely seen outside Alaska and northern B.C. Here are
two good places to do that, one on each side of the border.
Prime eagle watching begins in November and runs through
early March. While birds are not always present at each
site due to weather and other factors, they’re close
enough that you can try more than one.
Where to go in B.C.
To get to the general area from Vancouver, drive one-hour
east on Highway Number 1 (Trans Canada) and take exit 92
at Abbotsford to get to Mission. From Mission, drive east
on Highway Number 7 for about 20 minutes.
Chehalis River Hatchery
The Harrison River runs just 10 miles (16 kilometers) from
the south end of Harrison Lake into the Fraser River near
Chilliwack, but it widens out to over a mile (2 km) in
two places, one just upstream and the other just downstream
from the Highway 7 bridge. Broad and shallow and filled
with gravel, they’re prime salmon spawning habitat,
and are home to as many as 2,000 eagles from November through
March.
The Chehalis River flows into the upstream area, and has
a hatchery where birds congregate. Turn left (north) onto
Morris Valley Road (paved) at the Sasquatch Inn and the
Hemlock Recreation Area sign just before Highway 7 crosses
the Harrison. Follow Morris Valley Road for 6 kilometers
to the Chehalis River Hatchery, where a short trail will
bring you to the Chehalis River. Continue downstream along
the bank. The hatchery itself is open from 8 a.m. until
3:30 p.m. every day.
Harrison Mills
The restored historic village of Harrison Mills sits on
the lower of the two areas and has a public park on the
river that provides good viewing. A kayak or canoe can
often get you great looks at all kinds of wildlife, and
the park has a good boat launch. The main channel runs
close to shore but is easily negotiated, and once on the
other side of it, the current slows down, making it easy
to explore. Return to Highway 7 and continue east across
the bridge. Follow the signs to Harrison Mills, which is
just south of the highway.
Where to go
in Washington
Deming Homestead Eagle Park
Located at the original site of the village of Deming, the
park is in a pleasant setting that provides several walking
trails that wind and intersect through forested and open
bottomland. It now belongs to the Whatcom Land Trust.
To get there, follow Truck Road (formerly the railroad right-of-way)
as it turns south off the Mt. Baker Highway just east of
the Highway 9 intersection and Milepost 15. The park lies
along the road on the right side, marked by a small parking
lot that provides access.
Mosquito Lake Road Bridges and Northfork Road
Continue east on Truck Road about two miles to the Welcome
fire station at the Mosquito Lake Road intersection. Park
well out of the way of the station (and well off the road)
and walk across the nearby bridge, the first of two on Mosquito
Lake Road that cross branches of the Nooksack.
Downstream from the bridge you can see a broad park-like
area where the Nooksack’s middle and north forks join.
One of the largest native villages in the area was once there,
and was where early settlers could hire out a man and a canoe
to travel up river.
Across the bridge the road forks. North Fork Road to the
left has two good viewing sites with limited parking. Four
miles farther on Mosquito Lake Road to the right brings you
to the large iron bridge across the middle fork, which sometimes
has very high concentrations of birds.
Return to the Mt. Baker Highway and turn right (east). There
are two places, at mileposts 19.5 and 20.2, where tiny pullouts
may provide room to park. Turn right on Hatchery Road at
milepost 21 for additional viewing access at the Kendall
Creek Hatchery. |
