Salmon Hatchery

We had done our research before getting on the cruise ship. We had decided that we wanted to go see the salmon hatchery but not any of the other stuff they package with it. We thought we'd just take a taxi to the hatchery and tour it ourselves, like some of the reviews recommended. Turned out that even though it was a state capital there were only a few cabs. To be fair, there might have been a few more than that (but not many) but they were overwhelmed when FIVE huge cruise ships docked at the same time! We did get to the hatchery but not as easily as we anticipated.

The hatchery was really interesting. The first picture to show is the one where you can see the salmon lining up in the river to get to the ladders (and get sliced open for their eggs, but they don't know that, of course).

In this first picture, you can see dark swirls in the water. While some might be from the clouds, most of that is the salmon lining up! You can also see one jumping and what looks like a disturbance in the water. That's exactly what it is - so many salmon fighting for the same place they break the surface of the water there!

In this next picture you can see the river and the ladders. Yes, those are all salmon trying to get to the ladders! Close up coming next.

Here's the close-up.

This next one shows the ladders.

Here's a window to see the salmon at the top of the ladder. The most interesting thing about this window was that when we came out (notice not too many people) someone had shattered the glass and they were trying to figure out how to replace it without hurting any of the salmon!!!

The next picture is of the salmon at the top of the run before they went down the shoot to have their eggs harvested.

They were amazing. There were so many of them - they were so thick and jumping everywhere to try to get to the shoots. 

This last one you can even see one of the salmon's teeth! Yikes! Who knew they had teeth like this. For that matter - who knew they were this big?

Inside there was an aquarium and a tank where you could touch and hold some sea creatures. Ben was the only one brave enough. Check out the sea cucumber! YUCK! Even Ben wanted no part of touching or holding it!