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[clarki]

Jacobsen Creek is tributary of the Little Campbell River and provides spawning and rearing habitat for salmon and anadromous trout. However, for over 30 years, fish access to almost four kilometres of the creek has been impeded by a perched roadway culvert that created an insurmountable, four foot high, barrier to migration and spawning.

In August/September of 2023 a fishway was constructed to raise the stream bed to the elevation of the culvert. The fishway has a natural, meandering, design and provides a pool, that connects the culvert to the stream, to prevent erosion and for the fish to rest during migration

I volunteer with the organization (ARocha Canada) that led the project. I spent a chunk of my working career doing public sector procurement so I contributed to the project by helping draft the Request for Proposal (RFP) and the construction contact.

Over the past two fall seasons (2023 and 2024) we have walked Jacobsen upstream of the fishway to observe and count spawning salmon. It's been super rewarding to see coho and chinook utilizing habitat that had previously been unaccessible for many years.

You can read more about the project, and see some cool pics, here: https://arocha.ca/where-we-work/brooksdale/little-campbell-river/jacobsen-creek-fishway/   

[RalphH]

Nice stuff! Good to see this kind of work!

[fisherforever]

 I used to own a 5 acre parcel on 2nd ave and 212th in south Langley 25 years ago with a tributary of the Little Campbell on my property. Coho and cutthroat trout used to come through my property and spawn. Enjoyed showing that to my kids when they were small. Unfortunately someone bought the property in front of mine to put a large greenhouse and they dug out the creek for property drainage that was the end of the coho and cutthroat as there was a 8' foot drop in elevation from my property to where they dug out the creek. It took quite a few years for the land to erode away to allow the cutthroat to return but the coho never did.

[clarki]

When you first posted this story on FlyBC back in January, I showed it to the biologist that I volunteer with . She was interested to hear an anecdote about historic range of the LC salmon. Right now we’re doing eDNA sampling to determine current range to inform future enhancement efforts.

[fisherforever]

When I left there in 2000 all there was the odd cutthroat, tons of small sunfish (bluegills) and stickle backs. LEPS had come out and set some fish traps but I never heard back from them. I remember times in the 80's and 90's when we would have high rain events an the roads and ditches on 4th Ave would flood, we actually had chum in the ditches and swimming across the road.

[RalphH]

My experience with a few other small streams though not in the Campbell River drainage, is that cutthroat can and do survive above falls and culverts that have cut off access to lower sections of the stream down to larger rivers like the Alouette and Serpentine. They are usually small - but they do seem to maintain self sustaining populations.