Two cultural institutions on the Nechako River waterfront will soon be making beautiful fish together.
The Spruce City Wildlife Association and the Prince George Railway and Forestry Museum have agreed to partner their physical operations. The museum will take control of day-to-day functions at the association's property, a large log meeting cabin attached to a fish hatchery facility, while the association will continue to run its activities and programs from the same place.
Both sides see working together as a way to bring more people to their respective facilities and maximize their connected facilities. The fish hatchery facility is used only a fraction of how busy it used to be, while the museum is increasingly busy.
The first task will be to pull the mothballed hatchery out of its stasis. Once a thriving education centre for salmon and trout rearing, it has been used sparingly in recent years and is more of a huge storage closet today than a laboratory.
"I've always loved this place and felt sorry that its public profile has gotten smaller over the years," said museum executive director Ranjit Gill as she toured the hatchery on Friday with wildlife association representative Sean Simmons, publisher of Angler's Atlas and an avid fishing and outdoor recreating enthusiast.
"I'm really pleased that this room is going to be used again as a full-time hatchery," he said.
"I'm so excited," said Andrea Sterling of EDI Environmental Dynamics. She and colleague Jason Yarmish are joining the efforts to restore the hatchery operations. They gave the building a once-over on Friday to determine the state of equipment, data records, and licensing agreements with federal authorities.
"We will have some fish coming in this spring," said Simmons, talking about the small trout program that will bring the building back on-stream. After that, the hope is to rear a regular crop of Arctic char.
Gill has other plans as well.
"My idea right from the start was to run our little train from the museum all along the river, around the hatchery and back again," she said. "It sure makes sense to me."
