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Shawnigan's Hatchery: A Unique Resource
One of Shawnigan’s most unique features and educational resources continues to contribute both to the School and the surrounding ecosystem, 45 years after it was first established.
The Mark Hobson Hatchery has been part of Shawnigan Lake School since 1980, and while many schools incorporate the salmon fishery into their programs, Shawnigan is the only school in BC with its own hatchery on campus. Programs centred on the hatchery help students learn more about the life cycle of the coho salmon, the ecology of Vancouver Island and the west coast, and countless other science concepts.
Hatchery- and salmon-related programming began this year when 10 Grade 11 students travelled to the Shawnigan Creek fish trap where they helped volunteers from the Mill Bay and District Conservation Society move 200 salmon up the falls to help them reach their spawning grounds. Not only did the students get hands-on experience with the fish, but there was also a service component to their participation.
“Students who engaged in it got to realize that without human intervention, the salmon would not be able to get to their spawning grounds,” explained Ms. Emily Coolidge, Shawnigan’s Inspiration Heimbecker Chair for Experiential Learning.
Several salmon from the fish trap were taken back to the School, where many of them were used for the hatchery’s breeding program. Over the past week, Grade 9 science students and Grade 11 environmental science students have harvested eggs and sperm from the fish and begun the process that will lead to hundreds of fry being released into the creeks on the campus in the spring.
Ms. Coolidge is looking at ways for even more students to have a hatchery experience as part of their science classes, and for more ways to connect the hatchery to the Shawnigan Journey.
“The hatchery has great potential as an educational resource,” she said. “We want to look at things teachers are already doing but tying it into the hatchery.”
Three students are currently in Japan at the Japan Super Science Fair to share the results of a study they did using fish from the hatchery, showing the program’s broad reach at the School.
It takes a team of people to make the hatchery programming a success, Ms. Coolidge noted. That includes the volunteers from the Mill Bay and District Conservation Society, the entire science department, and, this year, former Shawnigan science teacher Mr. Scott Noble, who returned to assist.
The salmon who give their eggs and sperm to the hatchery breeding program would have died anyway at the end of their spawning journey, but the students and instructors still expressed their gratitude to the fish, which included using their bodies as much as possible: making prints by rubbing ink on their skins and placing them on paper, dissecting them in science labs, burying their organs to study decomposition rates, and using their scales to determine their ages.
The hatchery was established in 1980 by Mr. Mark Hobson’70 (Groves’), a Shawnigan graduate who returned to teach science and run the outdoors program. Mr. Hobson spent nine years teaching at the School, and now paints and runs an art gallery in Tofino. More information about his artwork can be found at markhobson.com.
We acknowledge with respect the Coast Salish Peoples on whose traditional lands and waterways we live, learn and play. We are grateful for the opportunity to share in this beautiful region, and we aspire to healthy and respectful relationships with those who have lived on and cared for these lands for millennia.
Shawnigan Lake School is an independent co-educational boarding school for ages 13 –18 on Canada’s beautiful Pacific Coast. Our diverse, interdisciplinary and innovative programming helps shape the next generation of global leaders.
