By David Lennam
News editor

Bowker Creek hasn't supported a salmon population for nearly 70 years, but fortune may be smiling on Oak Bay's only fresh waterway after the discovery of a large salmon there last week.
An adult male coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) was found by residents who were out for a walk Nov. 24. The salmon was in a fast-flowing part of Bowker Creek directly east of Beach Drive, less than 200 metres from the ocean.
When the News arrived to take a photograph, the salmon was already dead, stuck against rocks in the middle of a section of the creek that's only accessible off Somass Drive.
It was a large fish, measuring approximately 66 centimetres (26 inches) in length and probably tipping the scales at over 11 kilograms (25 lbs). Its body was swollen and red for the spawning season.
Although the photos were taken and a call was placed to the Capital Regional District, by the time someone from that office showed up, the salmon was gone - replaced on the scene by two very content and well-fed otters.
Biologist Kevin Jancowski said that it's unlikely that Bowker Creek is ready to support a salmon habitat again and suggested that the salmon was a stray. A small percentage of the annual salmon run end up as strays in places like Bowker Creek.
"It's not likely that (the creek) is sustaining them. It probably was a stray from one of the nearby streams," he said, explaining that individual fish sometimes arrive to spawn in such places when the water flow in their regular spawning streams is too low or too high. They move around to find a fresh water output elsewhere.
Upon examining the photos, Jancowski said it was difficult to tell whether the fish had spawned or not. He did say that the high water level in Bowker Creek (thanks to recent rains) allowed the Coho to pass through the culvert where the creek runs under Beach Drive - which is not always possible.
"When it rains, it all comes through the storm drains and rises so quickly that (the water level in) Bowker Creek goes up and down like a yo-yo," said Jancowski.
Sadly, Bowker Creek no longer supports cutthroat trout or coho and chum salmon as it once did. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a healthy population of these fish survived as late as 1940, before the emerging infrastructure of a modern city snuffed out life in the small creeks of the region.
Ian Graeme of the Friends of Bowker Creek Society explained that when an ecosystem reaches a point where 10 to 20 per cent of the surface area is impermeable (due to parking lots, roofs and roads), it tends to alter the hydrology and habitat of urban streams.
"That's when you lose your salmon population," he said, noting that the society is one of the groups working on a watershed management plan to restore life to Bowker Creek and other waterways in the region.
Graeme said that the sighting of a coho in Bowker Creek is abundantly symbolic.
"The way I look at it, it's kind of good timing. Maybe the salmon community has heard about this watershed management plan." Hopefully, he suggests, the appearance of the fish will raise expectations that the creek can be restored.
Graeme said that the reason Bowker Creek won't support salmon any more is due to three primary factors.
The first has to do with hydrology.
"When you start making a watershed impermeable, you end up putting all that water into the creek really quickly - rather than it slowly soaking into the soil with a more moderate stream flow."
He said that all the water rushes into the stream at once and results in an extremely turbulent flow.
The second factor is water quality.
Bowker Creek ends up collecting all manner of contaminants, from oil washed off the roads during a rainstorm to dog feces and things people dump into the street - like paint, anti-freeze and detergent from car washes.
"(Bowker Creek) is basically the main storm water connection for the area," said Graeme.
The third factor is a lack of proper salmon habitat.
"The creek has been straightened and vegetation has been removed over the years, so there just isn't a lot of habitat for the salmon anymore."
Ross Cameron, a storm water control officer with the CRD, said that creek restoration isn't impossible, but will not happen quickly, if at all.
"There are a lot of barriers for that to happen, but I know with all the work that the various stewardship groups and the CRD are doing (it's not impossible)," he said. "It's going to take a while. There are a lot of things that have to be fixed before you see a (salmon) run going up there, but anything's possible."
Bowker Creek, one of the "lost streams" of Greater Victoria, winds its way through Saanich, Victoria and Oak Bay. More than 50 per cent of it is buried in underground culverts. The seven-kilometre creek runs from a spot jus west of the University of Victoria and drains into the sea next to Somass Drive in Oak Bay, just north of the marina.
Bowker Creek was named after John Sylvester Bowker, an early settler of Oak Bay who arrived here in the 1850s and was friends with retired fur trader John Tod.
Tod lived on a 160-hectare farm, in a house which still stands at 2564 Heron Street. Tod House is the oldest home West of the Rocky Mountains.
Bowker married Tod's daughter Mary in 1864 and was given a wedding gift of land that included a waterway then listed on a Hudson's Bay Company map as Tod's Stream.
Mary Tod Island, situated near the mouth of Bowker Creek, was traditionally known by the Lekwungen people as "Kohweechella", which means "where there are many fish."
The waterway was officially renamed Bowker Creek in 1934.