First, they got to paint wooden fish in the shape of salmon. Faith's came out looking pretty close to the colours of a salmon, Declan's was close but he decided his salmon needed some blue too. Gabe's is very colourful. After painting they sat down with the guide and she told them the life cycle of the salmon.
We then went down to the tanks where they keep the salmon fry and the guide fed them so the kids could see them jumping up at the food. There were two rules: don't put your hands in the water and don't bang the tank and believe it or not Gabe did not break the rules!
Then we walked down to the river where they had a pick up truck with a tank of salmon fry and buckets waiting for the kids to release them into the river. This, of course, was the highlight of the trip!
The kids were told to release the salmon very slowly and close to the water. Declan took this quite literally and had the bucket in the river so that the salmon fry would swim out and then right back in again. It took him a good 10 minutes to finish his first bucket of fish!
Gabe did pretty good, only a few salmon received head injuries from hitting the rocks. I chose not to put his gum boots on as that would only be a licence to go further into the river - however, he was wet up to his knees by the time we left.We hung their painted wooden fish on our fence in the backyard and they are already looking forward to next year!
