Vancouver Island is known for being an ideal spot to watch one of nature’s most fascinating yearly cycles: salmon runs. Tourists and locals come from far and wide to watch as salmon swim against river currents, returning to their birthplace to spawn and start the next generation of Chinook, Chum, Coho, and pinks. 

Carl Olsen (ZȺWIZUT), W̱SÁNEĆ elder and long-time volunteer with Goldstream Hatchery, can be found at the park every week, where he’s met tourists from Germany, France, and the UK who have come to see one of the Island’s natural wonders.

These runs have suffered due to overfishing, climate change and development. But according to W̱SÁNEĆ Nation—whose territory is home to Goldstream, or SELEK̵TEL̵, one of the most popular destinations on the Island to see the salmon run—salmon numbers have resurged this season.

Goldstream has faced a number of ecological disasters, including two oil spills—one in 2011 and another in 2018—and the environmental challenges that came with the development of Bear Mountain Resort. Work is still being done to bring the area back to its condition prior to the 2011 spill.

In 2021, approximately 10K Chum and 1,300 Coho salmon returned to the stream. In 2022, only 4K Chum and 500 Coho arrived. In 2023, numbers dropped to 1,600 Chum and 500 Coho. Throughout these years, the number of Chinook never exceeded 10.

Olsen says the final numbers have yet to be tabulated but so far, approximately 22K Chum, 3K Coho and 30 Chinook have been recorded in Goldstream’s fall 2024 salmon run. Salmon were even seen trying to jump up a waterfall near the hatchery, a good sign says Olsen. 

This resurgence is undoubtedly due to the conservation efforts in the area, particularly the work of the volunteer-run Goldstream Hatchery and the W̱SÁNEĆ Marine Guardians (QENTOL, YEN). The hatchery has helped bring salmon numbers up by maintaining fertilized eggs in a temperature-consistent incubation room, then ensuring the hatched fry have consistent food to grow strong. The salmon are eventually released, and their primal instincts will lead them out to sea and eventually, hopefully, back to Goldstream. 

Olsen told Capital Daily that the last time the numbers were this high was in 2020, when COVID-19 reduced human activity, including fisheries, in the area. 

“I shouldn't think this, but I do think COVID has been playing a big role in the recovery,” Olsen said. “I think if we give nature a chance, it will recover.” 

Unfortunately, he says, the stream and the animals living in and around it have another battle ahead as the planned Malahat Improvement project is set to move forward.

Highway improvements could impede conservation efforts

For years, the province has been working piece by piece to add median barriers throughout the Malahat Corridor of Trans-Canada Highway 1. Currently, approximately 60% of the corridor is divided by a median. The next phase of the project will see these medians added to the 2.6-km stretch of highway through Goldstream Park and a 4-km section between Split Rock View Point and Bamberton. Once the Goldstream barriers are added, the corridor will be 75% divided.

But to add these medians, the highway will need to be expanded. The project includes widening the road, adding a foot bridge over the highway, and improving safety along the trails that run parallel to the road. There won’t be any additional lanes with the expansion, keeping this section of the Malahat Corridor one lane in each direction.

The project will cost an estimated $162M. When it was first announced in 2018, the price tag was far lower at $15M. It's slated for completion in 2027.

Olsen has been a vocal critic of the project, which he says will destroy conservation improvements in the area. For nearly two years now, he’s protested the project every Tuesday from the side of the highway. His sign reads “The salmon in the stream are protected by Douglas Treaty”—a treaty, he says, the province is not upholding. 

“It's not protecting the stream. When the treaty was signed, it was a peace treaty and they were to leave us a huge area where we could continue to practise our hunting and fishing rights,” Olsen said. 

“The treaty was signed by two groups of people: First Nations and the settlers, which means both parties are responsible for upholding treaty rights—not just First Nations.”

The Ministry of Transportation says it consulted with First Nations leaders, including from W̱SÁNEĆ Nation and that the consultations are open and ongoing. 

However, Olsen says the province’s public consultations didn’t seem to include those who use the park most, including W̱SÁNEĆ members.

According to the province’s engagement report, nearly 1,800 online surveys were completed between Aug. 20 and Sept. 20, 2020. Of those respondents, 1,563 said they were local residents. Half of these respondents said they used the corridor regularly, with the majority driving through in single-occupancy vehicles. More than 70% of respondents said adding a median to this section of the highway was important or very important. But 1,200 respondents—or 67%—said they do not regularly visit Goldstream Park. Fewer than 100 respondents said they visit the park on a weekly to daily basis.

W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership Council (WLC) says it conducted its own internal engagement process, and shared their findings last summer with Ministry of Transportation, with many community concerns flagged at each engagement. In October, WLC said internal community consultations would continue through the end of the year, as the fall provincial election would delay meetings with the ministry. A third-party environmental consultant, LGL Limited, reviewed the plans and surveyed the area, coming up with 105 questions, considerations, and gaps in information for the ministry to address in a future meeting.

Environmental effects of the project

Olsen says approximately 700 trees will need to be removed in order to expand the highway through Goldstream, which he says could have devastating effects on the landscape and climate of the park. 

The Ministry of Transportation told Capital Daily that the environmental assessment found the impact could “be minimized,” and that “environmental offsets and restoration work could lead to net positive ecological benefits.”

Olsen argues the environmental offsets don’t prevent the damage from occurring in the first place.

“The problem with those environmental assessments, they're supposed to tell you what the damage is going to be and what it’s going to cost the stream and the fish, but the way they look at it is ‘OK, we did the environmental assessment. We're good to go.’”

“They don't tell you everything they're going to be blasting—we already know, with the testing that the [W̱SÁNEĆ] Leadership Council has done, the blasting of the rock is going to affect the water,” Olsen said.

He says the trees, moss, and surrounding foliage provide a filter for runoff from development, such as the minerals from rock blasting at Bear Mountain. Without tree protection, “it just runs straight into the stream,” he said.

The lack of trees also opens up the forest to increased sunlight, especially in the summer, and Olsen worries that could cause the stream temperature to rise beyond levels—up to 14C higher than usual, he says—that salmon could survive in. 

The province intends to replace the trees that are lost, but older trees have been found to be more valuable in absorbing carbon and providing a cool, moist environment. It will take years for new trees to match the benefits of those being cut.

The trees are also home to eagles, owls, and many other living creatures that have made the park home, says Olsen.

‍W̱SÁNEĆ Nation’s previous fight for Goldstream 

Goldstream has long been an important area for W̱SÁNEĆ Nation members, with traditional fishing, hunting, and food and medicine gathering all performed along the stream. Cedar trees located in the park provide essential bark for weaving. The Douglas Treaty is meant to protect the W̱SÁNEĆ Nation’s right to all of these practices. 

In 1957, W̱SÁNEĆ Nation Chief Thunderbird, Jean Baptiste Paul, fought against the creation of a provincial park in the area. Of the 700 acres the government planned to turn into a park, he said “Indian title to the Goldstream properties can be proven,” he said, arguing his people’s hereditary hunting and fishing grounds at Goldstream had been wrongly encroached by the province.

He lost the battle in 1958 when Goldstream Provincial Park was founded. But Olsen says the park mandate was to “protect the stream, Goldstream, from further highway development.” 

“Oh yeah, and that First Nations have to be consulted. All of that's in the park’s mandate, but maybe it's changed since then—it must have, because they don't include us,” Olsen said.