In Seattle’s northwest Ballard neighborhood, shipping—especially pleasure craft—pass through locks that connect saltwater Puget Sound with freshwater Lake Union and Lake Washington.
That works out alright for boaters, but the building of the Hiram Chittenden Locks in 1918 posed a problem for the salmon who formerly passed upstream to their spawning grounds each year.
The solution? Engineers created a separate channel, next to the dam, that allows fish to pass the dam, and many still do, although not nearly as many as a century ago.
Once you cross over the locks, you can walk down into a viewing chamber, where fish pass by behind (pretty filthy) glass windows, sometimes one at a time, and sometimes in streams.
It was fun watching the show—and even more fun watching the kids watching the fish.
And here’s a short video of the action!
