Community Environment
Guests of honor show up for Chum Walk
This year’s Chum Walk saw not only a lively amount of enthusiastic visitors of all ages, but of all species: Several Chum Walkers, including this reporter, spotted a few salmon in the creek once again.
Landon, center, wonders what this journalist (not pictured) is holding up to her face, and why, furthermore, she is disrupting his very serious work of art. Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick
The Chum Walk, put on by Harbor WildWatch, had booths stationed along a 0.25-mile trail that began in Austin Park at txʷaalqəł Estuary and wound around the Harbor History Museum before ending in Donkey Creek Park.
A young volunteer helps to clean off a rubber fish used as a printing stamp at a Chum Walk sea life printing booth in Donkey Creek Park. Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick
Visitors could stop at the booths for interactive learning opportunities. They could also get their Salmon Passport stamped to turn in to the Harbor History Museum for a chance to win a prize.
Interested in why Gig Harbor has seen so few salmon in the creek in the last couple years? Check out Gig Harbor Now’s deep dive into that issue here.
Hard to see — and this reporter is kicking herself for not bringing her long lens — but a star of the show, a chum salmon, showed up to this year’s Chum Walk. There were reports of several more salmon in the creek, too. Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick
Harbor WildWatch volunteers teach booth visitors along the Chum Walk trail. Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick
Mariana, left, and Nathan, center, reach around each other for paint at a Chum Walk sea life printing booth in Donkey Creek Park. Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick
Fish prints hang on the fence overlooking the creek at Donkey Creek Park. Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick
Leaves and branches, skulls of various small creatures, and pieces of wood sit on the Great Peninsula Conservancy’s Chum Walk booth in Donkey Creek Park. Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick