VANCOUVER – The Wild Salmon Defenders Alliance participated in the third annual Wild Salmon Caravan beginning with a Rainbow Parade in Vancouver on Saturday, Oct. 7. The parade included drummers, singers, matriarchs, a carnival band, an entire school of salmon (signs), and an amazing gigantic salmon and water goddess puppet.

The Caravan’s second stop was at Skwah First Nation in Chilliwack Sunday Oct 8 where WSDA, Skwah First Nation and Shxwhá:y Village co-hosted the caravan. Many thanks to Chief Robert Gladstone for supplying the lunch feast and delicious soup for dinner, and to Valerie O’Connell for manning the kitchen and making the bannock and breakfast. We all enjoyed a beautiful salmon ceremony at the river and a parade to 5 Corners.

The Caravan then traveled to Merritt, where Eddie performed a Nature constellation ceremony which revealed much about the various forces impacting wild salmon. We then traveled to Kamloops and Chase where we were hosted by Interior Salish communities all the way to the salmon spawning grounds at the Adams River. What a whirlwind of people coming together for the love of wild salmon! We collected numerous names for a petition to Fisheries Minister LeBlanc demanding that fish farms be removed from the migration routes of wild salmon before it’s too late. Sadly, there were very few Sockeye spawning- revealing the crisis currently happening to our previous wild salmon. We will learn from the salmon and take our message as far as we need to to restore health salmon returns.