In the eight years I’ve lived in Delridge, I have never seen the salmon spawning in Longfellow Creek. I have only seen craw fish. The rumor is that this land was inhabited by a native tribe who fished out of it, but once the Steel Mill went in near the head of the creek, the Salmon and Trout started to disappear. Despite my Google-fu skills, I have no way to substantiate this story, even historylink has failed to provide documentation.

From what I have seen personally, folks have made major strides to restore the creek for the past 20 years. And, today it provides a nice nature trail where folks can walk and hike without leaving West Seattle. With that of course, comes the problems of squatters and folks doing drugs, or illegal dumping, but like all other city problems, the neighbors who live around the creek have done a pretty good job of keeping and eye on things or simply being a good steward and picking up the trash…

So, of course the day Salmon were spotted, I was at a destination wedding far from home! Thankfully, they were still at it when I got home. Last week, I took my camera out and captured what that looked like a week into it near Dakota Street along  Longfellow Creek…

There’s some beautiful scenery along the creek…

and yes, tagging of the interpretive map…

but there is also beauty…

It’s natural for Salmon to die after spawning, but I don’t know if these fish died of natural causes or the pollution in the water…

Beneath this bridge is where I found them spawning…

And yes, we have beavers up stream!

I was totally excited to watch the fish make their way upstream to spawn!

From what my neighbor Lisa observed, these are farmed salmon. How or why they chose Longfellow Creek, I don’t know. But, I’m excited they found there way this year!