Sockeye Salmon: A Pictorial Tribute

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Most of us know the skeleton of the salmon’s life cycle: it hatches in
cold inland streams, moves downstream to a lake, and eventually migrates
to the ocean, where it grows fat until, at age four, it returns to the
river where it was born. There, it spawns and dies.

Naito’s album of dynamic photos puts the muscle and gristle on that
skeleton. By going underwater and photographing the salmon’s-eye-view
of the migratory rush upstream to mate and die, he gives us images so
pulsing with life that to see them is to gain new appreciation for the
strength and incredible intensity of the sockeye’s life force.

The photo essay starts with the salmon’s return from the Pacific
Ocean to B.C. coastal waters and the many predators encountered,
including killer whales, seals, and sea lions. It leads us through the
color change from silver to a dramatic red–green, and the male’s
development of a hump and fighting jaw. The photo story continues with a
frantic rush upstream, speeding through riffles, hurling over falls, and
avoiding fishing bears, until the right conditions for spawning are
found. Then comes the courtship rituals, fighting among the males and,
for the females, the exhausting task of preparing a nest, or redd.
Spawning and death are not the end, as the eggs will hatch the following
spring and another generation of sockeye will start their migration
downstream, nourished in waters made rich by the decomposing bodies of
their parents.

Naito’s camera captures every step, vividly and with empathy. Many of
the shots are unique, showing views impossible for a land-based
photographer to achieve. The text is brief but adequate to explain the
salmon’s life cycle and to underline the impact of ecological damage
to its habitat on this unusual fish.