#51 FISH HATCHERY AT VALDEZ

We thought this was kinda interesting how this whole system works. Apparently only about 30% of fish eggs laid in the wild hatch. Many eggs get eaten by other fish and many do not get fertilized

These are silver or pink salmon. Here there are several thousand answering the call of nature to return to their place of birth to spawn.

Instead of a river they are directed into this chute where they make their way up to the top.

And wait here for the final sacrifice. Instead of spawning naturally they are sliced open and the eggs are put into a pail and later transfered to moving water. There are about 3 female fish to every male and the male sperm is put in with the eggs and mixed in. The fish remains are used to make dog food.

Now that is a lot of eggs and therefore a lot of adult fish for all you fishermen next year.

We had a cruise out to the face of a couple of glaciers booked for today (Aug 18) but the weather is bad, the seas are rough so it was cancelled and rebooked for Sat.
. That gives us a couple of days now to relax and catch up.

Some time back I discovered that we had broken the drain from the sink and the water was just running out on the ground. It likely got hit by a rock when we were on a gravel road. Not wanting to poulute the beautiful state too much we arranged to get the repair done in Anchorage. We were at the repair depot right at 0800 and were told that it would be no problem, would take about 1 1/2 hours at $110 per hours. So we sat back to wait. Nearly 6 hours later the job is done and we were thinking oh oh big bill, but were told that the estimate was good and were charged only $165 plus material. Gotta love honest repairmen.