Twanoh Creek runs through a deep, forested canyon for about a mile coming north off the Mason County plateau above. The canyon feels primeval though outside of the State Park boundaries encompassing the canyon, the forests above demonstrate heavy logging. Beyond the primitive feeling one gets walking on trails deep in cedar forests is a truly magical splendor revealing itself in the waters of the little creek from late September until early December – the salmon have returned to complete their life cycles.

NOTE: all of the videos can be put to full screen. Patience needed in the loading process. For the longer videos, let them load and replay.

LEAD IN

The road up the Skokomish River served as our entry point for a foray into the Olympic forests in search of mushrooms.  Today, however, a mid-fall deluge closed the road due to flooding.  Seeking a decent alternative, we turned east along the south shore of the Great Bend of the Hood Canal.  Maybe there might be elusive mushrooms to be found in the forested canyon of Twanoh State Park.

Mushrooms quickly took a back seat as we began hiking up the trail alongside Twanoh Creek.  Mycology took a back seat to ichthyology.  The natural spectacle of the creek full of salmon making their run up the little creek in search of the perfect graveled spawning bed presented magical drama transfixing us.

Twanoh Creek, like many other creeks and rivers emptying into the Hood Canal, was running high after the rains.  ”High” is a relative term in this case for the creek in many places presented only a couple of inches in depth along with a meter’s width.  The creek drops off the Mason County plateau into a heavily forested canyon of about a mile in length.  The canyon, protected by its State Park status, gives a diverse primeval picture in contrast to the heavy logged monocultural forest lands atop the plateau to the south.

Cedar makes up much of the lower parts of the canyon, giving way to Douglas Fir and other tree species as you hike up the canyon trail.

THE PARK

From the road, Washington Highway 106, you can park on the west side of the creek next to the entrance for the campground – $19 per day or $30 per year for a Discovery Pass.  There is also more parking by the boat ramp on the north side of the highway, also on the west side of the creek.

The park is one of Washington’s oldest, dating to 1922.  Home once to the Twana tribe, whose surviving descendants make up the Skokomish tribe today, the park features several structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930’s. Originally, the State leased 30 acres to make up the park.  Today, the park expands over 188 acres with 2.5 miles of trails up the canyon and a little more than a half mile of Canal shoreline.  While it appears primeval today, the canyon bears the scars of late 19^th century logging.

SHORELINE

With a shellfish license and a good low tide, you can wander along the shoreline and search for oysters.  Or you can simply walk along taking in the multitude of intertidal life.  The boat ramp lets the common folk push out in search of crabs or fish many times in the shared presence of seals. The beach is popular for swimming and wading, though on this early November day, even with the sun out, there was no one brave enough to go out into the whitecapped waves.

CANYON

Hiking up the canyon, you can return in a 2.3-mile loop along the western ridge gaining 375 feet. Be aware of possible trail obstructions during the fall and winter due to storms.  We stayed low in the canyon, making our way up about a mile until the trail was blocked by a large fallen tree.  It was passable with a little bushwacking, but someone else we met on the trail mentioned there were many downed trees on the upper part of the trail.  Finding no mushrooms along the way, we wanted to get back to the drama of the salmon run.

THE FISH

The Chum Salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), also known as Dog Salmon or simply Dogfish, are the second largest species of the salmon family behind only the Chinook in size. Chum comes from the Chinook jargon word tzum meaning “spotted”. Chum average in size from ten to 22 pounds and a little over 23 inches in length.  They are one of the most abundant species of salmon though in some areas, the number of Chum have decreased dramatically.  Changes in ocean conditions due to climate change is thought to play a large role.  Habitat loss due to dams and urban development and reduction in water quality from forestry and agriculture playing a part as well, though Chum do appear more tolerant of conditions than other salmon such as Chinook.

Chum enjoy the widest distribution of Pacific Salmon species over an area from Siberia, Korea, Japan, Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon with limited distribution in the Northwest Territories, California and the Arctic coast from the Beaufort Sea in the east to the Laptev Sea in the west. Most populations rely little on freshwater during their lives.  They head to the ocean soon after leaving their spawning nests – redd – coming back to spawn anywhere from June to November depending upon location of spawning grounds.  Exact times vary with weather.

HOOD CANAL

Extending for almost fifty miles in a southwesterly direction, the Canal on the map looks like a giant fishhook.  One of the components making up the Salish Sea, the Canal was named 13 May 1792 by Captain George Vancouver of the British Navy in honor of Admiral Lord Samuel Hood.  The Canal was written as a Channel in Vancouver’s journal, but the word “Canal” was written on the charts.  The US Board on Geographic Names went with the chart name in 1932 even though the “Canal” is actually an ice-age fjord.

The fjord separates the Kitsap Peninsula to the east from the Olympics to the west.  Further up the canal from Twanoh is the large nuclear submarine base at Bangor on the east side of the Canal.  There are several rivers flowing into the waters from the Olympics with smaller flows coming out of the Kitsap.  The rivers serve to dilute and churn up the Canal a bit, though the area to the west around Hoodsport is popular with scuba divers even with reduced visibility at times.

LONG AND THIN

Stretching for 110 km with the fishhook – the Great Bend – lying 80 km down from the fjord’s mouth.  The width of the Canal range between two and four km on average with depths of nearly 175 m until shallowing to around 40 m at the Great Bend.  From the Bend to the fjord’s end, the depths average 40 m or less.

Hood Canal also being a semi-contained system suffers from lack of oxygen in the waters.  Manmade stresses, such as septic tank leaks, logging activity, agricultural fertilizers, warmer weather have all contributed to nitrogen build up.  The nitrogen then leads to algal blooms robbing oxygen from the water creating hypoxia for sea life.  These problems are worse in the area of the Great Bend at the south end of the Canal.

SPAWNING AT TWANOH

Chum salmon are more likely to choose spawning sites not far from the ocean with the big rivers of the Arctic being an exception.  Twanoh Creek is a great example of what the chum seeks for.  Chum fry do not spend much time in freshwater before reaching out for the sea.

Another change among the chum is they grow a more hooked appearance in the mouth along with bigger teeth. This is where the name dogfish comes from.

The males add colored tiger stripes running in parallel vertical bands. When it comes time to spawn, the males have the ability to change colors, as well. Some males will change to female coloration in the hope of getting in early among the females to lay down their milt.

PHYSIOLOGY

Remarkable physiological changes occur in all salmon both at the time they leave freshwater and at the time they return for spawning.  To be able to change from freshwater, the fish drink in lots of water as their kidney shut down urine production.  Specialized cells in the gills – chloride cells – are responsible for maintaining sodium and potassium regulation.  Freshwater is low in sodium; salmon need the gill cells to pump it in.  Seawater is rich in sodium; now, the salmon need to pump sodium out, as well as extra chloride ions found in dissolved ocean salt.

The physiological process occurs fairly quickly but is not like flipping a switch.  Salmon can neither charge directly from fresh to salt or vice versa without giving their body a little time to adapt.  Timing the change from fresh to salt and salt to fresh is something the fish must control instinctually.

Salmon tarrying at the mouth of Twanoh Creek.

At the Canal side of the creek mouth, you can notice salmon do not just plunge upriver on their way to spawn.  You can see the salmon swimming around the mouth back and forth giving their bodies time to get those gill cells working in reverse.  There also has to be enough water in the creek to allow the salmon to go upstream.  Salmon will wait until those fall rains appear, before moving in.  They have had their last meals before heading up creek.

One salmon not quite ready for the final journey yet.

fINAL JOURNEY

Then the brutal last journey begins.  Salmon are very strong creatures with a lot of power harnessed in the tail fin.  The creek has plenty of obstacles to overcome on the relatively short journey to the spawning beds.  Much of the time, a large part of their body sits out of the shallow creek in open air.  They take it little by little, a meter or two at a time.  Plenty of little pools exist to allow them to rest between continue their exertions upstream.  You can follow their path upstream along the canyon trail.

The main spawning grounds lie just upstream of a point where the trail leaves the creek.  Here, the females look for the best gravel grounds to build their redd nests to deposit their eggs.  The big males then come in to provide milt – sperm – for the eggs.

The chum do not survive for long in the freshwater after spawning.  They die in the stream where they began.  Their bodies provide nutrients for the stream.  And so, the cycle can begin again.