Did You Know There is a Salmon Run in Bronte Creek Every Fall?

Every fall, something remarkable happens in a small creek between Oakville and Burlington. Fish the size of a small dog leave Lake Ontario and fight their way upstream through shallow water and over rocks. It's the last journey of their lives.

This morning I headed out early to Bronte Creek Provincial Park to see the salmon run for myself.

Bronte Creek cuts a deep ravine through the park on its way down to Lake Ontario. Most of the year it's a quiet, shallow stream you could easily walk past without a second look. But from late September into October, it becomes one of the busiest highways in southern Ontario, just for fish.

And there they are. You often hear them before you see them: a splash, then a dark back cutting across the surface where the water's barely deep enough to cover them.

These are mostly Chinook salmon, also called king salmon, the largest of the Pacific salmon. They've spent the last few years growing in Lake Ontario, and now they're coming back to the kind of stream they started in to spawn.

It's hard to look away. They throw themselves at the shallow riffles, slide back, rest in the deeper pools, and try again. Some are scarred and battered, their fins worn ragged. They've stopped eating and are running on the energy they stored in the lake.

Here's the part that surprises a lot of people: once they spawn, Chinook salmon die. All of this effort leads to a single moment. The female digs a nest in the gravel, the eggs are laid and fertilized, and the cycle ends for these fish and begins for the next generation.

Even after they die, they're still part of the story. Their bodies feed the birds, the animals, the insects and the creek itself.

There's another twist. Chinook aren't native here. They're a Pacific species, stocked in Lake Ontario starting decades ago. The salmon that originally lived in these waters were Atlantic salmon, and they disappeared from Lake Ontario by the late 1800s because of overfishing, dams and habitat loss. So what you're watching is part nature and part human history, and people are still working to bring the Atlantic salmon back.

Standing on the bank this morning, with the leaves turning and the water rushing past, it felt like watching something much older than any of us. The fish are only doing what fish like them have always done.

If you're in the area, the run usually peaks around early October, and it won't last long. Wear good shoes, stay on the trails and give the fish their space. It's worth seeing at least once.