swimming upstream

On one of our last days in Alaska, my friend Sharon and I took a hike through the Tongass National Forest. It was more of a nature walk than a hike, with a guide pointing out enormous western red cedars and tiny carnivorous sundew plants. It was beautiful, and since our bodies were sore from narrowly avoiding kayaking catastrophe the day before, a welcome respite.

We wound our way through the forest until our guide finally led us to a perch overlooking a creek with a few rapids. How nice, I thought. And then the guide asked, “do you see them?”

See what? I peered closer and realized, with an actual gasp, that the creek was filled - absolutely bursting - with salmon trying to make their way upstream from the ocean back to the place where they were born, to lay some eggs and die.

I knew that salmon did this, and I’d probably even seen some documentary about it. Salmon swim upstream at the end of their lives to spawn, deteriorate and die. But I’d never witnessed the act firsthand, never understood what, exactly, it means to SWIM UPSTREAM. It’s not pretty. It is, in fact, pretty gruesome.

At this little bend in the creek, the fish had to swim not only against the swift current but also find a way to jump or dive high or deep enough to climb back up a rocky rapid. Some were successful, others were not. Some of them got caught by a bear and became lunch (the remains of which we saw) before they were precisely ready. But not a single fish gave up, which was my exhausted instinct upon watching them undertake this nearly impossible end-of-life task.

Sharon got fantastic videos. Give your eyes a minute to really see what you’re seeing.

Salmon are a keystone species in this part of the world. They live their early years in freshwater, make their way to the ocean as adults and this return journey brings necessary nutrients from the open water - nitrogen, sulfur, carbon and phosphorus - up into the inland rivers and forest ecosystems. They feed bears and eagles and otters and people, and their dead bodies make it possible for the next generation of salmon babies to survive in freshwater until they leave for the ocean.

Scientists say that salmon use a sophisticated sense called magnetoreception (basically their own internal GPS system) to find and return to the specific place where they were born, but apparently their sense of smell is also incredibly sensitive and accurate. It’s also possible that they simply smell their way home.

The more interesting question, for me, is how they know it’s time to turn homeward. That seems to be a question with a more complicated and curious answer. Salmon’s bodies and hormones begin to change, their energy reserves shift into emergency mode, and - it seems to me - they just…know…that the time has come.

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I visited with a friend who is nearing the end of this life this week, a friend who has always assumed that, like the salmon, she will simply know when it’s time to go. She’s recognized some signal, now, and I suspect that, just like the salmon, these last few miles will be exhausting and beautiful, right and good and very, very difficult. But this friend has a lifetime’s worth of experience with swimming upstream, and a finely honed inner sense of direction. She knows where to go.

Life can end in so many different ways, and we often hear about the horrific, violent, unexpected and world-shattering kinds. But death is not wrong or bad or violent in and of itself. It is an inevitable, universal part of living. It is how we organisms submit ourselves to the beauty and grace of existing as created and contingent beings, connected to so much and never meant to go on forever.

I am so moved by the way the world teaches us. I am so grateful for friends who live the lessons. I am astounded at the sublime beauty of life and death we get to witness. And I am so, so sad about it, too.