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Discovering Kwilakm
  • Discovering Kwilákm
  • About
  • Get Involved
  • Changing Climate
    • Hotter Ocean Temperatures
    • Changing Ocean Chemistry
    • Rising Sea Levels and Intensifying Winter Storms
    • When Seashore Temperatures Spike – Killer Heat Dome 2021
  • Terminal Creek
    • Where does Terminal Creek’s Water Come From?
    • Signal Crayfish
    • Terminal Creek Fish Hatchery
  • The Lagoon
    • The Tidal Inlet that became the Lagoon
    • Aquatic Plants
    • Chum Salmon
    • The Beaver
    • Canada Geese
    • Three-Spined Stickleback
  • Shores
    • Nearshore Forests
    • Beaches
    • The Terminal Creek Sand Flats
    • The Curious Clay Beds of Kwilákm
    • Blue Mussels
    • Clams
    • Purple Stars
    • Oysters in Kwilákm
  • Shallows
    • Eelgrass
    • Young Chum Salmon
    • Winter Bay Birds
    • Year-Round Bay Birds
  • Deeper Waters
    • Plankton
    • Northern Anchovy
    • Harbour Seal
    • Octopus
Conservancy logoBowen Island Conservancy
    • About
    • Get Involved
  • Discovering Kwilákm
    • About
    • Get Involved
  • Changing Climate
    • Hotter Ocean Temperatures
    • Changing Ocean Chemistry
    • Rising Sea Levels and Intensifying Winter Storms
    • When Seashore Temperatures Spike – Killer Heat Dome 2021
  • Terminal Creek
    • Where does Terminal Creek’s Water Come From?
    • Signal Crayfish
    • Terminal Creek Fish Hatchery
  • The Lagoon
    • The Tidal Inlet that became the Lagoon
    • Aquatic Plants
    • Chum Salmon
    • The Beaver
    • Canada Geese
    • Three-Spined Stickleback
  • Shores
    • Nearshore Forests
    • Beaches
    • The Terminal Creek Sand Flats
    • The Curious Clay Beds of Kwilákm
    • Blue Mussels
    • Clams
    • Purple Stars
    • Oysters in Kwilákm
  • Shallows
    • Eelgrass
    • Young Chum Salmon
    • Winter Bay Birds
    • Year-Round Bay Birds
  • Deeper Waters
    • Plankton
    • Northern Anchovy
    • Harbour Seal
    • Octopus
Young Chum Salmon swimming up Killarney Creek, Bowen Island.

Photo: Will Husby

The Lagoon

Chum Salmon

(Oncorhynchus keta)

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Discover Kwilakm » Story » Shallows » Chum Salmon
A chum salmon arriving at the spillway into the lagoon. Photo:Will Husby


Chum is the largest salmon species that spawns on Bowen Island. Individual fish are typically in the 4 to 6 kg range as returning adults. Adult chum spend about four years fattening up at sea before returning to the stream where they were born to mate and die. Wildlife Club volunteers operate the Terminal Creek salmon hatchery and monitor the health of Bowen’s salmon bearing creeks and riparian areas.


Around Remembrance Day, many Bowen Islanders walk down to the spillway at the Causeway that separates the Lagoon from Kwilákm to watch the arrival and spawning of the chum in the gravel spawning beds just inside the Lagoon.

People watching salmon
Photo: Will Husby


The viewing is easy. The arriving salmon wait for the incoming tide in the ocean waters near the causeway. At high tide they swim up the fish ladder or up the spillway under the bridge.

Healthy spawning chum
Spawning chum viewed from the Causeway. Photo: Will Husby


Many gather over the gravel bar constructed by Bowen’s Fish and Wildlife club just upstream of the bridge, where their spawning activities can be easily seen. Female chum have normal shaped jaws.

Female Chum at the Causeway underwater
Photo: Bob Turner


Watch how they flick their tails to dig shallow nests called redds in the coarse gravel.

Look for male chum. They have big jaws with large teeth. They use them to fight other males for chances to mate with the females.

Male Chim at the Causeway
Photo: Bob Turner

Watch the whole mating process filmed by Bob Turner.

Each female chum will have laid thousands of eggs. And like all Pacific salmon, chum males and females die soon after they mate.

The abundant eggs and salmon (both dead and alive) attract all sizes of predators and scavengers.

American Dipper at Terminal Creek
Watch robin-sized dippers as they jump into the fast flowing sections of the spillway and gravel bar to snatch stray salmon eggs for a nutritious meal. Photo:Will Husby
Harbour seal swimming in the ocean
Photo: Will Husby

Watch for harbour seals in Kwilákm close to the Causeway. They come to intercept the salmon before they reach their spawning bed. Sometimes they will swim right into the lagoon to grab spawning salmon on the gravel bar.

River Otter
River Otter. Photo: Jon David Nelson licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Also look for fast swimming river otters who may come to dine on spawning chum.

Immature Bald Eagle
Immature bald eagle. Eagles come to feast on the dead salmon. Photo:Will Husby
Seagull on the beach
Many species of gull will be attracted to the easy pickings of dead and dying salmon. Photo: Will Husby

Chum Salmon Fry Release

Bowen’s population of wild spawning chum salmon is supplemented by hatchery-reared fish raised by volunteers in the Bowen Fish and Wildlife Club working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Terminal Creek Hatchery (see Terminal Creek Fish Hatchery).

More About The Lagoon

  • The Lagoon
  • The Tidal Inlet that became the Lagoon
  • Aquatic Plants
  • Chum Salmon
  • The Beaver
  • Canada Geese
  • Three-Spined Stickleback


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The Bowen Island Conservancy is a BC society and registered Canadian Charity.

Our charitable registration number is 867.261.299.RR001.

Mailing address: P.O. Box 301, Bowen Island, BC  V0N 1G0
Email address: info@bowenislandconservancy.org
Phone number: 604.612.6572

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