Today, we went to the “Clearwater Fish Hatchery”. I thought we were going to be inside, or else I would have dressed more warmly. Mom made us do studies on the hour drive to Clearwater and back.

The first thing we saw was a big green tank filled with sardine-sized fish. In the hatchery, the employees take the female trouts and squeeze out their eggs. They put the eggs in small containers and gradually put them in tanks after they’ve been fertilized.

In the wild, two out of a hundred eggs will get fertilized. In captivity, ninety eight out of a hundred eggs will get fertilized.

Hatcheries clip the fins of fish to recognize which fish were from the hatchery. The employees put the fish to sleep with methane, which lasts fifteen minutes. So they have to work fast before the fish wake up.

There are 2 million fish in the Clearwater Fish Hatchery. There were 250,000 fish in the biggest tank. They had to pump oxygen through the water so the fish could breath because there were so many of them in a small space.

Note to self: Rainbow fish don’t look like rainbows. Rainbow fish, as kids, are as big as ladyfingers, but absolutely not as yummy.

We saw the trout truck getting ready to transport fish to the rivers and lakes around British Columbia. I will be one of the few who does not fish this summer. Actually, I don’t even want to eat fish every Monday, but mom says we have to. Tonight it is tuna.

The whole hatchery smelled fishy.