North Shore | Flying fish of the Romaine River

All summer, The Press takes you on a journey through Quebec, telling you about the life of rivers. Human, scientific or historical stories that all have a river as their link.
This week: the Romaine River

The helicopter flies over the Romaine River with 20,000 passengers on board, all eager to return home. Salmon – thousands of tiny fry, in this case – have never been seen swimming up a river so quickly.

These fish are taking the helicopter as part of a stocking project funded by Hydro-Québec to compensate for the ecological consequences of the harnessing of the Romaine, carried out from 2009. More than 1 million fry have been released there in recent years by the Société saumon de la rivière Romaine, which is responsible for the program.

“We put a lot of them in,” confirms biologist Nadine Marois, after transferring her coolers filled with fry to a zodiac. The boat was also helicoptered for about thirty kilometers.

Once the operation has begun, the seeding method contrasts sharply with the complex and expensive tools deployed until then: M^me Marois uses a simple aquarium net to place the fry in the river water, about a hundred at a time. She must first ensure, using a thermometer, that the water in the coolers is roughly as cold as the river water. Too great a difference could cause thermal shock to the fish.

At the controls of the boat, Jay-Penuen Ishpatao follows the banks to allow the biologist to choose the sections most conducive to the survival of the salmon.

“As soon as they get into the water, they swim to the bottom and try to hide,” she describes. For the next two or three years, the young will move little and will feed on plankton.

“They know where they come from”

At times, the Zodiac seems lost on a completely virgin river, with no trace of human activity. This would be to forget the hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete that were poured upstream to build four hydroelectric power stations.

A yellow seaplane flies over the river. “There’s traffic this morning!” laughs Jay-Penuen Ishpatao, without letting go of the helm. “It’s Monday!” Nadine Marois replies immediately.

There’s also activity in the water. Since the construction site began, teams of biologists have been working on a range of projects related to the protection of salmon and other species affected by changes to their river.

On its way, the helicopter has already flown over a team of workers in waterproof overalls who are fighting against the current to install a large net. The aim: to count the salmon that are going down or up.

The steps to follow to descend the river, reach the icy waters of the northern Atlantic Ocean, then return to spawn in the Romaine is therefore written deep in their brains.

“They know where they come from and where they need to return,” explains the biologist.

Because if the fry have never seen the river, their parents come from there: the parents – captured in the Romaine – are kept in a laboratory at Laval University. This is where the thousands of eggs entrusted to the fish farm each fall leave from.

” My babies “

For Pierre Desjardins, the seeding days are the culmination of several months of work. At the fish farm set up near the mouth of the Romaine, he is the one who watches over the salmon eggs, which have become fry since the end of April.

The 62-year-old even set up a camp bed so he could spend the night with them if necessary.

“I have no choice,” he explains. “Sometimes they announce storms in the winter. If the system has an alarm during that time, I won’t be able to go.” Because if the pumps that supply the river with water break down, the repercussions can be catastrophic.

Mr. Desjardins must continually maintain the drawers that serve as incubators for the salmon eggs. However, they are not kept warm, on the contrary: in winter, the river water is so cold that it would freeze if it were not in constant circulation. The man continually freezes his hands to clean the small basins, remove and count the eggs that have not survived, and check that everyone is doing well.

“They are my babies,” he says, laughing.

The sentimental attachment of Mr. Desjardins, a former lobster fisherman, has its limits. In the fridge of the fish farm, his partner Lorraine placed for him… a plate of salmon.