Photo: Nile Creek Enhancement Society

Beneficiary: Nile Creek Enhancement Society, $5,000 award

'This is ours, so we wanted to make a point — we will look after us.'

Residents of Bowser, B.C., recall a time when their beloved Nile Creek was known as the "Pink River," for its abundance of pink salmon. But by the early 1990s, pressures from commercial fishing combined with logging and encroaching development had degraded the Vancouver Island stream. Essential kelp and eelgrass beds were gone, and fish species, such as pink salmon and, the sportsman's favourite, cutthroat trout, had been eliminated. When community members approached the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) for help, they were politely told that little could be done for the ecosystem without the keystone species, pink salmon.

And with that, a group of citizens formed the Nile Creek Enhancement Society (NCES) in 1996. "Being told to buzz off was the best thing that could have happened," says NCES president Ken Kirkby. "This is ours, so we wanted to make a point — we will look after us."

NCES began by building a creekside hatchery, where members sorted, cleaned and nurtured DFO-donated eggs, later released as fry. "With only a 0.6 percent survival rate, we release one million pink salmon every year," explains Kirkby. "We want to achieve a self-supporting population." To increase salmon-spawning habitat, NCES excavated and naturalized a channel parallel to the stream, a backbreaking labour of love that consumed two years and $300,000.

Today, Nile Creek is an ecosystem on the mend. The number of young pink salmon heading into the Strait of Georgia for their two-year run is higher than it's been in half a century. Coho salmon have reappeared, along with mergansers, harlequin ducks, great blue herons, black bears and a healthy population of bald eagles. "It's not uncommon," says Kirkby, "to see 60 eagles on the rocks above the stream."

In the process, Nile Creek has become an environmental cause célèbre, attracting diverse salmon aficionados, including research scientists, biology students, tour operators and fly fishermen. Hailed as a model for the province, NCES is a fearless steward that has protected its stream from bilge-dumping cruise ships and is gearing up to tackle a proposed scallop operation. Its members are now collaborating with other grassroots groups with an eye to protecting all Vancouver Island streams. Says Kirkby: "We're in the business of creating hope and alliances."