Description
The Chinook Salmon: Oncorhynchus tshawytscha
The Chinook, also known as The King, has always been an important food fish; the average weighing 126lbs. (57.2kg.) and measuring up to 4 feet 10 inches (1.6 m.) long. They are found near the surface and at mid depths in the Pacific Ocean from Bering Strait to Southern California, being most abundant in the Pacific Northwest. These salmon spawn in large rivers, digging holes and burying their bright red eggs in the gravel on the rivers bottom. The eggs were made into cakes and dried by the indigenous peoples, then eaten as a delicacy in the winter. Popular angling fish, they have also been commercially rolled for in uncountable volumes until they became endangered. Now new controls and standards are slowly bringing populations back up as are knowledgeable control of forests saving the:
The Douglas Fir: Pseudotsuga taxifolia
Growing throughout the Pacific Northwest coastal area, these huge trees reach a height of 200 feet and a six-foot diameter. The wood was greatly prized by the indigenous peoples. The thick, tough bark was used as fuel and the springy branches were used to make halibut fishing hooks.
It is also a wood prized in heavy construction and for exterior and interior finishing. The coming of the railway into the region at the end of the nineteenth century opened the way to lumber export as shown in the posterior of the fish. Over time, technology enabled machines to cut and saw the trees in massive quantities. Transport by huge logging trucks made it possible to export limitless amounts of trees. Now such practices as clear cutting are being questioned and the management of forests have become an international as well as a local concern.
