For those of you who don't know, nature is pretty amazing. Not a little amazing. I am talking capitol letter Amazing.

This year marks the second (or maybe third) year since the 1920's that salmon have returned to our little creek--Mill Creek to spawn.
<a title="Me looking for Salmon by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874131978/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8300/7874131978_8341593a0a_z.jpg" alt="Me looking for Salmon" width="640" height="427" /></a>
<a href="http://wallawallalocal.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/return-of-the-spring-chinook-salmon-to-mill-creek-oregon/" target="_blank">My dAd wrote about it last year on his blog</a>. He took pictures. He told me about about it via skype. He was wow-ed by it. When he saw it last year, it was the first time in his life--his whole life--not just his adult life---that he'd seen salmon in the creek.
<a title="dAd in Mill Creek taking photos by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874125600/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8422/7874125600_e7bf8378ee_z.jpg" alt="dAd in Mill Creek taking photos" width="640" height="427" /></a>
I didn't get it. Sure I knew it was interesting. I thought it was pretty great that the salmon could make it back to our little creek. There's a lot standing in the way of a single salmon returning to spawn in our creek. The creek it was born in.<!--more-->
<a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874133826/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8433/7874133826_ae863abe7a_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a>
<a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874135160/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8283/7874135160_e0d9e409f5_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a>
<a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874137472/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8293/7874137472_e35df25e08_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a>
There's man (who fishes, who builds damns and who pollutes among other things), there's the distance and there's climate change. Everything seems stacked against these fish.  Still, they manage to get back home to spawn and die.

My dAd was busy telling me how great it was to see the salmon in our creek but I didn't get it.

Nope, I didn't get it until I saw it.
<a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874147390/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7247/7874147390_69d8d759b0_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a>
<a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874145782/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8292/7874145782_93e6bcb593_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a>
<a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874143952/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8296/7874143952_3a1ecaf582_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a><a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874142724/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8288/7874142724_75f6442f9f_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a><a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874143952/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8296/7874143952_3a1ecaf582_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a><a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874142724/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8288/7874142724_75f6442f9f_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a><a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874141584/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8294/7874141584_dc794efff5_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a><a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874139632/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8304/7874139632_2d92bfbfaa_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a><a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874138326/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8304/7874138326_a3987d25c2_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a>
Then I couldn't do anything other than sit on a big rock and watch the salmon in the creek. They are big. Probably 24" or more in length and they where they were spawning the creek was so shallow that the backs of the salmon were sticking out of the water.

When you see this you think: <em>What?!</em> How on earth did these salmon make it back here?!
<a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874121752/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8285/7874121752_04d4abd220_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a>
Then you watch them flipping around in the creek which is many places is not much more than ankle deep turning up the rocks and creating a good place to lay their eggs and spawn. Then you can see them swim back later to cover the (hopefully) fertilized eggs to protect them. These are big fish in a little creek and if you look closely you can see that the fish are also turning white.
<a title="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874124782/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7256/7874124782_3946ff0284_z.jpg" alt="Salmon in Mill Creek, OR" width="640" height="427" /></a>
You can see in pictures that one salmon had a white tail and the other a white stripe down the middle of its back. This is because the fish are process of dying and they are no longer producing pigment. Once they have spawned they die because they've done what they needed to do.

It's hard work being a salmon.
<a title="Mill Creek by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7874129134/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8288/7874129134_2014257b92_z.jpg" alt="Mill Creek" width="640" height="427" /></a>
The whole thing is pretty amazing. As are my dAd's photos. A big thanks to my dAd for getting all the way out in the middle of the (cold) creek to take these photos and for sharing these with me because all I could do was sit on a rock and be amazed by the fact that against all odds we have salmon in our little creek.