Salmon 'treasure' honoured
By Tracy Holmes - Surrey North Delta Leader
Published: January 02, 2009 11:00 AM
Updated: January 02, 2009 11:09 AM
Bob Oswald often wonders what the situation would be like for salmon spawning in the Little Campbell River if it weren’t for the hatchery built by volunteers 30 years ago.
It’s a question that can never be answered, he noted this week as he reflected on the decades he has dedicated to preserving the fishery.
All he can say for sure is salmon still return to spawn, and that means the work he and others have done and continue to do is making a difference.
“We still have salmon in our river, and hopefully we will for many, many years to come,” Oswald said.
“We do what we can and hang on and provide some fish... as long as possible. We’ll do whatever we can to maintain that.”
It’s that attitude – his eternal passion for the resource and educating others about it – that recently prompted officials with the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC to proclaim Oswald a “fisheries treasure.”
While the modest 78-year-old shrugs off the title, describing himself as “just an ordinary guy... that’s interested in the resource,” fellow volunteer Roy Thomson said “treasure” is fitting. It honours Oswald’s practical efforts over the years, as well as the wide-spread affection felt for him by many in the community.Oswald was a founding member of the Semiahmoo Fish & Game Club, which got its start about 50 years ago. He has been hatchery manager at the 1284 184 St. property for 25 of those years.
Over the decades, the self-described “outdoorsy guy” has done everything from help a struggling wood duck population regain ground, to stream, creek and trail improvements, to teaching thousands of school children about the importance of the salmon fishery.
Oswald’s eyes light up when he talks about children who come on school tours he and other hatchery volunteers lead. They keep him on his toes with their well-thought-out questions, he said.
Today’s children are the ones who will eventually inherit responsibility for ensuring the work that’s been done continues. That makes the school program, and the children themselves, so important, Oswald said.
“Enlighten the kids and get them involved – it makes them aware of the environment, especially the fishery resource,” he said, noting about 2,700 children tour the hatchery every year.
Children were among the many who visited Oswald in hospital, after an autoimmune disorder that reared its head in June 2007 rendered him helpless within months, for months.
“I couldn’t do anything,” Oswald said of the impact of his chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy. “I couldn’t dress, I couldn’t feed myself...”
With CIDP, antibodies that typically protect the body from infection attack the myelin sheath of peripheral nerves. The rare disorder caused progressive weakness and a loss of sensation in his arms and legs – immobility that was hard to take after a lifetime of being active and “healthy as a horse.”
Oswald was in hospital for six months – starting August 2007 – until a series of plasma exchange treatments finally gave him his mobility back.
Recovery was, and is, slow. Oswald was still needing a wheelchair as recently as July. He still can’t trundle around the hatchery property like he used to, and expects it will be another year or two before he recovers as well as can be expected.
With help from family members, he got back to the hatchery as soon as he could, visiting Saturdays – the regular work day at the site – even before he’d been discharged from Peace Arch Hospital. He even managed to surprise a class of students visiting the hatchery for a tour.
He was determined it wasn’t going to bring him down. And he remains determined to watch over the hatchery.
“It’s my life,” he said.
tholmes@peacearchnews.com 
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