Mossom Creek Hatchery celebrates 50 years of environmental education

Rod MacVicar and Ruth Foster were honoured Saturday evening at Inlet Theatre for founding the Mossom Creek Hatchery and Education Centre 50 years ago. MacVicar, then a teacher at Centennial Secondary, recalled wondering while driving along Ioco Road whether students could form a club to rehabilitate a barren stream and help salmon return to it.

Former MLA and environmentalist Fin Donnelly said Mossom's history belongs not only to its two founders but also to students, volunteers, environmentalists and others who sustained the project. Foster recalled volunteers using kitchen strainers to collect chum fry before moving them to a sea pen to adapt to saltwater, a practice that substantially improved survival. Students also spent long hours on construction work without safety precautions that would now be mandatory.

An early development-site runoff of mud and debris into the creek led to a legal battle in which Centennial teachers and student volunteers were served subpoenas. The group lost because of insufficient evidence, Foster said, but continued its streamkeeping work and turned field trips and other experiences into learning opportunities.

MacVicar also described efforts to preserve the skeleton of a dying northern resident orca near Powell River as a teaching tool. After the bones became rancid, he placed the skeleton on the roof of a sea-pen shed, where sunlight and ocean air could reach it. When the skull disappeared, he told suspected motorcyclists that the whale had died of a highly toxic disease and that he had forgotten to label the bones as a biohazard. He later recovered the skull, which he said is now in the fisheries building at UBC.

Port Moody Mayor Meghan Lahti said every student, volunteer and returning salmon is part of the hatchery's legacy. Fisheries and Oceans Canada recognized the hatchery's work and commitment to education at the event. Burrard Inlet Marine Enhancement Society president Kevin Ryan also announced the Brian Henke Scholarship and Foster/MacVicar Environmental Award: an annual $2,000 post-secondary scholarship for one or two Mossom volunteers, honouring the two teachers and longtime volunteer Brian Henke.