By: Iggy Rey Cello
Once upon a time in the 1980s there lived a car salesman who went to a conference about environmental science. This man lived in the Yelm school district, and talked up the idea of setting up a program to teach kids about the natural ecology of where they lived and how they could use science to explore and connect with the outdoors. The Yelm school district liked the idea and created a very successful outdoor place-based learning (PBL) education program.
After 25 years, Yelm school district didn’t have enough funding to keep the program running anymore. By then, word of their environmental education had taken the interest of the Nisqually Indian Tribe. The Tribe had been working on enriching the Nisqually river and bringing back the enormous king chinook salmon. This would take a long time and a great many people, so, the tribe decided that one of their core metrics of measurement for their progress was to get children down to the river and to teach them good stewardship. The Nisqually River Education Program was born.
In the early mornings of fall, right in the middle of the king salmon run, yellow school buses arrive at the Nisqually salmon hatcheries. Long nets are dragged through concrete ponds filled with adult salmon back from the ocean. Fish are scooped up, hit on the head with a heavy orange mallet. School children pick the slippery fish up by gripping their tails and cradling the fish in their other arm. Male salmon are held over a table and have their bellies squeezed to release their sperm, or milt, which shoots out in a straight milky line into salad dressings cups. Female fish, with their fat bellies, are held over 5 gallon buckets. Tiny razor blades are used to split open their bellies lengthwise and allow fountains of orange eggs to tumble out. On a table nearby, two salmon would be carefully dissected for a circle of kids filled with questions and exclamations. They see the tiny organs the fish has used to depend on its whole life, from the little creeks to the wide river, into the salish sea, then out into the giant pacific ocean, and exactly all the way back, fighting off bears and boats, fish ladders and seals, all with a brain no bigger than a gummy bear.
School districts from Mt. Tahoma, down to the river delta were taken back, year after year. As their children grew, they learned how to test the river’s water. Working together, almost always in pairs, the children donned gloves and glasses and combined chemicals to see if there was enough oxygen for the fish to breath, and if the water was clean enough to pass through their gills without clogging them up with silt and sand. Each year thousands of kids learn how to conduct complicated chemistry tests to determine levels of nitrates, nitrogen, and most scream-inducing of all, WATER BUGS(!), that were present for the salmon.
In a watershed, the little creeks that lead to the river are where the youngest salmon live. They need very fresh, clear, and cold water with tons of bugs. A favorite creek for the Nisqually salmon to lay their eggs is the Ohop creek and it floods every winter into old cowfields and becomes filled with thick sticky mud. The Nisqually Lands Trust is an organization that helps restore the land around these delicate areas, also known as riparian zones.
Beyond just exploring the water and the creatures within it, we, as scientists, are always looking for ways to make the world a healthier place, and this requires action. The school children of the Nisqually rivershed have been prepared in their classrooms and arrive at the field along with their teachers, their parent-chaperones, local highschool volunteers, and NREP’s fall intern Iggy, Americorp member Colbi, and the rest of the NREP staff crew, Davy, Julia, and Alex. All gear up with shovels and mallets, along with big rubber boots, rain coats, and grippy green gardening gloves. Together we hike through the old cowfield to where the Tribe’s restoration crew (who also run the fish hatcheries), headed by Nano, have measured, plotted, and placed where each of the wide variety of native shrubs and trees are needed to go.
PLANTING A FOREST IN AN OLD COW FIELD
Step 1: Clear off a patch of the tough green grass, three plant pot lengths in diameter.
Step 2: Find the center of your clearing and dig down a hole just shy of one pot length.
Step 3: TREE-P-R! This plant needs to be revived! Place your plant pot on its side on the ground and do four chest compressions against the black plastic container. Turn and repeat until the pot is loose and the plant and soil slide out.
Step 4: Give your plant a good dog scratch all over. The plant has been stuck in its pot for a while, and grown thick patches of dried up matted soggy roots all around. Scratch these all up and off for the fresh little new roots to come, letting all potted dirt fall in the hole.
Step 5: Your shovel is your measuring stick. Lay your shovel down and bury your plant in the ground just so it is exactly level with the surrounding untouched soil. Begin to refill the hole: if your finger can’t poke through the dirt, neither will the little plant’s roots: crumble that soil like fresh brownies too hot out of the oven!
Step. 6: Celebrate! You have changed the world and helped a plant start a new and enthralling life. Take small steps around your plant while pointing your fingers in the sky and saying, “Woot! woot!” Step until the plant is packed in there nice and neat.
Riparian Zone Restoration: Planting Stage One: Complete!
Thirty years down the road, trees and shrubs will be holding the soil together with their roots. The fresh air will have more oxygen, and the waterbugs will have food from all the pollinators. As the trees fall and clog the creek, deeper pools will arise, filled with little fish too young to fight a current. More juvenile salmon will survive, and more adult salmon will return, bringing life to the entire rivershed.
This work is made possible through contributions from readers like you. Led by: The Nisqually Indian Tribe, the Nisqually River Education Project, the Nisqually River Council, the Nisqually Land Trust, the school districts of: Yelm, North Thurston, Bethel, Clower Park, and Eatonville, with support from Americorps and The Evergreen State College Center for Climate and Sustainability, state, federal, and private grants, everyone’s time for everyone’s time, may creeks run clear.
Iggy Rey Cello the NREP intern paid for by The Evergreen State College Center for Climate and Action Sustainability and the first intern to report the fall quarter of NREP’s rivershed outreach place-based learning program.
- Nisqually Tribe hatchery crew member displays female (note belly) king chinook salmon at Nisqually Clear Creek Hatchery, Fall 2024
Salmon Fingers:
1. Start at the thumb, the thumb is for CHUM (because it rhymes)
2. The pointer finger is for SOCKEYE (because it’s the finger that will poke you in the eye)
3. The middle finger is for KING (because this is the longest finger, and these are the longest fish)
4. The ring finger is for SILVER (because this is where you wear your jewelry)
5. The pinkie finger is for PINK!
Courtesy of North Olympic Salmon Coalition (NOSC)
Courtesy of Nisqually River Council, Nisqually Indian Tribe Food Sovereignty Assessment (2018)
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