The Horsefly Salmon Festival will be celebrating the return of the salmon to the Horsefly River watershed Sept. 10 and 11.
Events will take place along the spawning channel in Horsefly and in the Horsefly Community Hall from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. and at 2 p.m., a Williams Lake First Nation elder will be providing a salmon blessing.
Dina Stephenson, salmon festival coordinator for the Horsefly River Roundtable, said the family-focused event will include all kinds of information and activities from partners hosting everything from pottery-making, basket weaving demonstrations, fish art including the ancient Japanese art of Gyotaku fish printing, and fish dissection and invertebrate education for children.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, University of Northern B.C., Invasive Species Council of B.C., Quesnel River Research Centre, Environmental Dynamics, Canadian Wildlife Federation, Tolko Industries, Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society, Pacific Salmon Foundation and Northern Shuswap Tribal Council will all be taking part.
Returning salmon will be the stars of the event, and there will be a lot of them, hopefully, as already they are showing up in the river, the week leading up to the event.
“It’s a dominant year,” said Stephenson, noting 250,000 have already been counted coming into the system and more are expected.
Read more: COLUMN: Fish becoming art
ruth.lloyd@wltribune.com
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