October 29, 2020 Shelton Mason County Journal | ![]() |
©
Shelton Mason County Journal. All rights reserved. Upgrade to access Premium Tools
PAGE 4 (4 of 40 available) PREVIOUS NEXT Jumbo Image Save To Scrapbook Set Notifiers PDF JPG
October 29, 2020 |
|
Website © 2025. All content copyrighted. Copyright Information Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Request Content Removal | About / FAQ | Get Acrobat Reader ![]() |
I
l
Page A—4 Shelton-Mason County Journal — Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020
TIMES
Sex and death in the creek
“The know
on March 19, the
come Capistrano.” ——
George Carlin
( jhum salmon are fish-
tailing it up Kennedy
Creek again, and the
human who will
be present while the chum
court, fight, mate and die
will follow too. This
mid-autumnal fish migra-
, tion is one of the largest chum runs
in Puget Sound and watching
it has become a November ritual for
thousands of humans.
The leading edge of the tens of
thousands of returning chum en-
tered the creek from Oyster Bay,
near the Mason-Thurston county
line, in the past couple of weeks, a
little earlier than usual because of
this fall’s rainstorms. The run of
humans starts next weekend when
the South Puget Sound Salmon En—
hancement Group opens the gate to
the Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail, a
place where visitors are encouraged
to contemplate the chum.
It seems a bit indecent, this
chum-watching show. After a nice
fall drive, you walk amid the shifting
kaleidoscope of fall colors to watch
another species battle and scar each
otherto win the right to fertilize
eggs. You might even get the rare
glimpse of chum couples mating
in a milky slurry of splashing tails
and quivering flesh. If you come late
enough in the season, you can even
see, and smell, spawned-out salmon
lining the riverbank and whirling
lifelessly in creek eddies.
This raw drama draws about
5,000 visitors a year to the nature
trail _-—- the event clearly exerts an
attraction on many humans. Maybe
it’s a primal desire to be in the pres-
ence of a species that predates hu—
mans by millions of years. Maybe it’s
the visible affirmation of the seam-
lessness of life. Maybe it’s a good
excuse to get outdoors.
Or maybe it’s to witness the mar- .
vel of the Puget Sound chum migra—
tion.
“They have a verystrong genetic
push to reproduce,” said Lance Wi-
necka, executive director of the
South Puget Sound Salmon En-
chancement Group. “It’s an amazing
migration. They’re born in Kennedy
Creek and spend three to four years
in the ‘cold waters of Alaska and then
they make their way back to the ex—
act creek they were born in.”
Slultwmasoumntg llonmnl
USPS 492-800
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Shelton-MasOn
County Journal, PO. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584.
Published weekly by the Shelton-Mason County Journal
at 227 W. Cota St, Shelton, Washington.
Mailing address: PO. Box 430, Shelton, WA
Telephone: 360-426-4412
Website: www.masoncounty.com
Periodicals postage paid in Shelton, Washington.
By KIRK
ERICSON
I went to Kennedy Creek
last Saturday. The gate was
closed, so you walk a mile
from Old Olympic Highway
to the viewing area, which
-is a series of trails cut
through the woods near the
creek channel. I sat by the
creek bank, near a stretch
of some graveled creek bed,
and watched. Five chum ap—
peared within a minute, and
they remained in front of me,
clumped together, snout to the cur—
rent, like gulls on the beach facing
the wind, like a basset hound lean-
ing out a car window. ‘
At the moment when I stood to
leave after 45 minutes, all five dart-
ed upstream. They were watching
me watch them.
, After a while, I grew a bit famil-
iar with the actions that the salmon
repeated. The largest one seemed
less agitated than the other four as
it repeatedly maneuvered next to
another fish that was a tail shorter.
The other three trailed a foot or so
down current, making occasional for-
ays against the big one. One repeat-
edly head-butted the biggest chum at
midships, to no apparent effect.
The three down—current chum
would occasionally turn on each
other, nipping with their jutting and
jagged teeth, the kind of teeth that
nightmares are made of. They ap—
peared, if I had to put a human emo-
tion on it, frustrated.
The biggest one was likely a male,
.salmon group director Lance told me,
and the one he was protecting was
likely a female. The others were “sat-
ellite” males males that swoop in
after the dominant male has fulfilled
its role in the fertilizer business.
“Several males will key on one
female,” Lance said, and the domi-
nant male will have to prove himself
by chasing off others. That male is
the one that remains closest to the
female, crossing over her back to dis-
play his supremacy, thus preventing
any intruder from stealing his girl.
The act of the female releasing
eggs triggers the dominant male
to act, Lance said. The male fertil—
izes the eggs and leaves, and then
the satellite males move in for their
shots. Those males then wander off
too, but the mother chum remains
with her future brood, doing what
females do: Protecting her young to
her dying respiration. After about
two weeks, the mother dies and
see TIMES, page A—6
The Shelton-Mason County Jour-
nal is a member of the Wash-
ington Newspaper Publishers
Publisher: Tom Mullen
General Manager: John Lester
coLuMM
L’ost romance of election night
lection night in Shelton
E used to be an all—Amer-
ican experience full of
drama, anxiety, pride, pathos
and triumph. ,
People from all over Mason
County swarmed the court—
house_and climbed the stairs
— or took the rickety elevator
— to the courtroom on the sec- By JEFF
GREEN
0nd floor. There they’d pack
the wooden pews or stand in
the back and along the side
walls.
Not long after the polls closed at
eight o’clock, poll workers from vari—
ous precincts started to arrive carry-
ing10cked wooden boxes full of bal-
lots. Election department employees
would unlock the boxes and prepare
ballots for counting by a machine set
up right in the midst of the court—
room.
Between ballot counts, every hour
' or longer, people chatted, moved
around or tried to divine meaning
through their pocket calculators. ‘
As the evening moved along, the
courtroom grew hotter and stuffier
from body heat and the ancient steam
radiators whose regulators had long
ago been stripped and no longer
worked. '
The courtroom’s largewindows
were thrown open and the chilly No—
vember night air cooled the stifling
courtroom by two or three degrees. It
was great to stand near the windows
and feel the cool air.
After the machine spit out each
count, the county clerk would write
the ballot sub-totals on butcher paper
affixed to blackboards. The room qui-
eted and you could hear her marker
squeak as she wrote the numbers for
each candidate. Supporters cheered or
groaned depending on how the num-
bers fell.
Most people were therefor the 10-
cal races. Some races were
settled early as one candidate
would pull away and keep in—
creasing his or hervlead. ’
But the best races were l
those where the lead changed
back and forth —— and back
,again — during the night.
That was when election
watchers were in their ele-
ment; their nerves frazzled,
their pulses racing.
And then, it was an-
nounced the final count was being tal—
lied on the machine. Sometimes that
was well after midnight. The room fell
silent. Most held their breath as the
clerk wrote the totals on the boards.
Sometimes the courtroom exploded
in whoops and cheers from the back-
ers of winners while those-favoring
the runners-up sighed and started
putting on their coats. ,
Eventually, everybody went home
in the late-night or early morning
cold. It was always exciting, always a
spectacle, always electric to’ watch the
returns roll in. ‘
In today’s vote—by-mail era, there
are no precinct workers. Gone are the
wooden boxes, the butcher paper, the
buzzing of the vote-counting machine.
The courtroom is dark and empty on
election night.
These days, printed results are
handed out to the few who show up at
the county commissioners’ chambers
and posted online shortly after 8.
The process is fast and accurate
but mechanical. All that’s missing
is the humanity and emotions and
pulse—pounding atmosphere on elec-
tion night of years past.
I Jeff Green covered Mason County
for the Shelton—Mason County Journal
and The Olympian for 19 years before
retiring in 2007. He lives in the com-
munity.
.PICK THE SUPERPIERO
.. __ ,_ u_____._ -M.M.
Front office:
Association.
Advertising: Delivery:
SUBSCRIPTlON RATES: Theresa Murray, Ad Representative Jon Garza
$62 per year ($43 for six months) David Olson
for Mason County addresses and
$75 per year ($55 for six months)
outside of Mason County.
Owned and published by
Shelton—Mason County Journal, Inc.
Newsroom: .
Justin Johnson, Editor
Gordon Weeks, Reporter
Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter
Kirk Ericson, Columnist! Proofreader
Isabella Breda. Reporter/Social Media
Niel Challstrom'v
Composing room:
Dave Pierik, Office Administrator
Karen Hranac, Customer Service
William Adams, Advertising
Design and Technical Support
Design:
Lloyd Mullen, Creative Director i
All regular editorial, advertising
and legal deadlines are 5 pm. the
Monday prior to publication.
To submit a letter to the editor,
email editor@masoncounty.com.
EL
We
effo
tur
bee
in 2
hee
pect
tion
peo-
beh
of p
lon:
Day
you
Our
am.
and
stat :
Fre u
this
Day
com
canc
even
eve
202!
me I.
Chic
wa :
blac
iceb n
kitc
ble
drab
hope
gone
pres
‘ the
way