It was 10 p.m. when filmmaker Nils Cowan got the telephone call.<\/p>\n
The next morning, there would be an egg release for the embattled kokanee salmon near Issaquah. For the past couple of years, Cowan had been working on a film about the little red fish. They’re a freshwater variety of salmon that live in Lake Sammamish and surrounding bodies of water. So the next morning he scrounged up a camera and made the trek from his Seattle home to a private slice of stream for the release in early January 2019.<\/p>\n
“It was a foggy day that sort of — the sun came glinting through — there was tribal membership, the mayor of Sammamish, basically everyone who was in the film showed up,” Cowan said.<\/p>\n
Those gathered began releasing kokanee eggs by hand into incubator boxes that protected the eggs from predators. A prayer circle formed, and one of the men whom Cowan said was from the Yakama Nation began singing a warrior song, followed by a few minutes of silence.<\/p>\n
“These last kind of fragile eggs — basically the future of the population — and this blessing that just happened, and I kind of just felt because of this human commitment, these fish are probably going to be able to bounce back,” Cowan said. “There’s just this moment of intense calm and blessing, and just a really powerful quiet moment.”<\/p>\n
Those kokanee salmon need all the help they can get. The number of the fish that have returned to spawn in recent years has dwindled from the thousands to just 19<\/a> in 2018. Last year, only about 100 came back, well below a healthy and sustainable level.<\/p>\n The low numbers have prompted a sweeping response from local and state agencies, conservation groups and area tribes. And for the past three years, Cowan has been working on a documentary tracing those efforts. Now, the 50-minute film called “Spawning Grounds”<\/a> is finally ready for its debut Jan. 18 in North Bend.<\/p>\n Cowan said he became interested in making the film because it told the stories of the fish and the indigenous peoples for whom the fish has been an integral part of their culture since time immemorial. That relationship is featured heavily in the film.<\/p>\n “Unfortunately, myself included, [there’s] just not a lot of time on people’s schedules to learn about that culture and the true history of this region,” he said.<\/p>\n