‘One of the great natural spectacles on the planet’: Salute to the Sockeye returns to Adams River

Jason Hwang, the chief program officer at the Pacific Salmon Foundation, said early projections for Fraser River sockeye were in the range of 6-to-7 million. While that was already lower than recent dominant runs, this year’s estimates were later revised to about 3-million.

“We’re in the territory of the lowest ever return for this four-year run cycle for sockeye salmon in the Fraser, so it really is quite disappointing,” Hwang said. “If you look at how this has been trending over the last four or five cycles, I think you might call it alarming.”

Hwang said there is no one definite reason for the decline from around 28 million salmon in 2010 – which was more than expected that year – to this year’s lows. Changing ocean conditions owing to climate change along with human activity are among factors, as evidenced by similar declining returns in previous non-dominant years.

“We’re having more years of unfavourable conditions and I think that is leading to more years when the total return is less than what we’d hoped for,” Hwang said. “It’s almost certain that numbers in the Adams River this year are going to be lower than four years ago, but those assessments are just beginning.”

It’s also not all doom and gloom, as Hwang noted last year’s sockeye run in the Fraser River was much stronger than projected. While some 3-million sockeye were expected in 2025, around 9 million ended up returning in the Fraser, with hundreds of thousands finding their way to Adams River.

“People weren’t expecting that many last year,” Hwang said. “Variability is natural and I think a takeaway is that the potential for the runs to be good is still there, and so it’s worth us investing in things like habitat restoration, better management, better science, so we can get more of these good outcomes.”

“We shouldn’t give up.”

This is also the first dominant run since the Bush Creek East fire ravaged the area in 2023, and repairs are ongoing. Danyluk said visitors will be in among charred remains of trees as they go salmon spotting.

“We’re starting to see the growth coming back with the small bushes and shrubs, but eventually hopefully, we’ll get the trees back, but that’s going to take a long time,” Danyluk lamented. “[What’s] always a worry with the damage we’ve seen to the riparian zone, is what are the long-term effects of that on the numbers of fish that are going to be coming back?”

“One of the factors that makes the Adams River so spectacular as a spawning habitat is the quality of the stream bed here. We don’t want it silted up because that is going to suffocate those eggs and the fry as they’re developing.”

While it remains to be seen just how many salmon end up returning this fall, but the Adams River Salmon Society is expecting tens of thousands of visitors from around the world at this year’s festival.

“We do get them every year, but this being the dominant year, we’re expecting anywhere from 40,000 to 50,000 people,” Danyluk said, noting in years past as many as 125,000 people have visited. “It’s pretty amazing that this is not just local, this is international, but again, it’s like the fish. We have to marvel at all the people that do come back here to see the salute.”

This year’s Salute to the Sockeye festival runs Oct. 9 to Oct 25, and gates will be open daily from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Vendors, activities and cultural events are scheduled from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and there will also be educational programs offered to students from area schools.

There is an admission fee of $15 per vehicle, with proceeds going to support the society’s education programs as well as stewardship work throughout the year.

“There’s lots to do but the main attraction, the main reason we’re here is the coming of the sockeye,” Danyluk said. “They have just begun to arrive this past week and we’re seeing more and more every day.”

The Adams River salmon run is expected to peak in mid-October, but given the projections it likely won’t be as in years past when the waters turned bright red.

“It’s truly one of the great natural spectacles on the planet,” Hwang said. “It’s equivalent to wildlife migrations in the Serengeti or monarch butterfly migrations in North America. We’ve got this fantastic wildlife migration in the form of sockeye salmon when they come home in big numbers.”

“I think we have to marvel at that,” added Danyluk. “We have to appreciate what we’re seeing in front of us, not only here in the Adams but in all of the other salmon-bearing rivers in the Fraser watershed.”

More information on the 2026 Salute to the Sockeye Festival can be found here.

by Victor Kaisar

‘One of the great natural spectacles on the planet’: Salute to the Sockeye returns to Adams River

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