We zip up on the side of the road. The neoprene sail boarding suits soon make us sweat. Heat waves rise from the pavement and the forest buzzes and cracks around us. The birds, now too busy feeding young to worry about territorial declaratives or expressions of sexual yearning, have grown silent. Wading boots on, masks and snorkels in hand, we plunge into the green woods, desperate for shade. It’s half a mile to the Atnarko, which lies somewhere below us, down a steep bank and across table land that is perfect grizzly habitat. Along the way we pass a little kettle pond formed by melting of ice blocks buried in the outwash fan of a huge retreating glacier. Pure seepage water is cupped in a bowl of clay hard-pan. Pond lilies grow along the shallow shoreline and farther out patches of green algae cling to submerged branches. We see stocked, 14 inch cutthroat trout cruising languidly, occasionally rising to take caddisflies that teasingly settle on the water to lay eggs. Sparkling blue and green dragonflies shoot past, in pursuit of mosquitoes and a cedar waxwing drops from a branch to take one of the big insects in midflight.

The Bella Coola system is rapidly filling with salmon now. Chinook and a handful of steelhead are in holding lies, while the sockeye have just started running in strength. The earliest of the pink, coho and chum are arriving too. Despite the problems many of the salmon runs are in, there is a sense of richness to the river in the summer, as all the salmon tribes begin to gather. For a short time the river seems as it once was -- as all West Coast salmon river once were.

It’s believed all Pacific salmon evolved from a common ancestor that thrived in the ocean, 100 million years ago. The life cycle of the primitive fish was probably much like that of our modern salmon and sea-run trout. Spawning took place in freshwater, where there was less predation and maturity was achieved in the food-rich oceans. Over great time, different salmon species evolved -- but they all continued to follow the same strategy.

It is a generally accepted axiom that no two species can occupy the same ecological niche indefinitely. So how is it that all the salmon species can survive in a common river? The answer lies in the subtle ways the species have evolved, to divide the waters among themselves. The end result is that the available freshwater habitat produces far more biomass than it would if only one species spawned in the system. Because of its ability to evolve to use microhabitats, the ancient salmon have been enormously successful, despite natural disasters, environmental changes and the onslaught of commercial fishing.

Salmon species are different in size and appearance; they differ in the water depths and stream velocities they use for spawning and rearing; there are differences in eating habits and in preferred food organisms; differences in how long they reside in freshwater and saltwater; differences in timing of spawning and in migrations. Some of the differences are obvious, some not. These variations on a theme keep the species ecologically isolated from one another in space and/or time. The fly fisher instinctively knows that each species has its own preferred stream location and through trial and error and keen observation, soon learns where to fish. But when you swim a river, using a face mask to peer beneath the reflective surface, you see the separations even more clearly -- and it is startling to learn how wrong you can be assessing water from above. Runs you’d think empty, hold lots of fish -- and seemingly perfect pools are often barren.

As we tramp through the woods mosquitoes buzz around our heads, attracted by body heat and our trail of carbon monoxide. We stop to spray on bug dope, but it soon comes off with our sweat. Finally the river is just below and we slide down pine needles coating a steep bank, to splash into the water. The Atnarko is clear and sparkling and it tugs at my legs as I wash the face mask, pull it on and lift my feet to be swept away. I catch my breath, as much from the shock of changing worlds as from the surge of coldness.

Swimming a river is a lot like drifting one in a boat. You stay to the inside edge on bends, where the water is slower and keep an eye out for shallow rocks and trees that lean out from the bank, known as sweepers. You go head first, swimming slightly faster than the current. In rapids you keep your hands out in front of you, body slightly bowed, like a whitewater canoe. You are so buoyant that you slide over most boulders.

It seems easy and you feel graceful and soaring as you slip down a quick glide, the gravel bed flashing with sunlight below you. Then you try to stop, catching a rock and swinging around -- and the current suddenly crashes into you. It is driving, irresistible; as if the force of gravity has pivoted sideways. The human body, it quickly becomes evident, is anything but streamlined; it is blocky and cumbersome and weak. The fish, by contrast, hang effortlessly in the current, as the water sluices around their smooth bodies.

After a fast run, surrounded by blinding white air bubbles and the roar of water, I fall over the lip of the rapids and into the silence of a deep pool. My body settles and I can feel the temperature change from cool to hard coldness as I drift into the shadow of the forest. Gradually giving way below me is a small group of big, dark bodied chinook, six fish that sink deeper and drift backwards. They feel hidden in the shadow of a rock shelf and let me draw close. I see a gold rim in their eyes. Then they bolt past with a few swipes of their tails and vanish. Their acceleration is miraculous.

In the riffles and fast running glides of the Atnarko we see juvenile steelhead darting after insects, pine needles and anything else that looks like a meal. Juvenile chinook are found in slightly slower water and are more likely to be along the margins of the deeper pools. There are no pink or chum fry evident, which is expected because they migrate downstream shortly after hatching, to rear in the estuary. We see few cutthroat or coho fry -- most are still in small tributary streams, beaver ponds, or sloughs along the Bella Coola.

When you swim into a pool you sometimes see several species of mature salmon mingling as they maneuver to let you past. But if you hold at the tailout for a moment and give them time to settle, they soon separate into their own groupings again.

Holding in a pool below fast water, the salmon often cycle up to the lip of the rapid, then drop back, as if judging the force of the current before they decide to run it -- much the way a kayaker might.

The difference between the underwater world and our own is profound, dramatic and as thin as the surface layer. At Belarko Pool, where the light plays beautifully over the river stones and salmon hold like kites in the current, I lift my head just a few inches -- and hear laughter and excited screams. Several people sit on the gravel bar in colorful lawn chairs while their kids splash in the shallows. The sounds and colors seem harsh and unreal and they vanish as I drop my face again, into the Atnarko. Hanging listless, drifting where the current takes me, I lose touch with my body and start to melt into the green light. Only the sound of my lungs brings me back.

Just below Belarko Pool the river divides. One branch goes to the left, the other continues straight ahead. Suddenly below me and eerily out of place, I glimpse a pair of sweat pants caught on a snag, flapping in the current. Scattered across the bottom are the shattered remains of a drift boat. It is an uncomfortable reminder of the power of the river. Just a few weeks earlier four anglers tried to run this channel. Their boat smashed into a large sweeper, flipped under the log and became jammed between a hard place and an unforgiving force of nature. Three of the anglers managed to jump to safety, but the fourth was swept downstream, flailing against the current. He was hurled against a log jam -- and sucked under. His pants and one shoe got hung up, but were ripped from his body. He swallowed water, suffered cuts, bruises, broken ribs and may have said his prayers, but amazingly found his way through the dark log jam, surfaced and survive. My throat feels dry and I look up cautiously. The twilight of the log jam, which lies down the run ahead, is not something I want to experience.

With a few strong strokes, I veer down the left branch, headed for open water and Bear Hole. On the cliffs above are tree trunks that have been rubbed smooth by the backs of bears. Coarse ginger and black hair sticks in the pitch and expanded footprints, where generations of bears have carefully stepped in each other’s tracks, mark the forest floor. Nobody knows why bears behave this way, like religious zealots approaching a shrine in a prescribed, ritualistic manner. At rubbing trees and only at rubbing trees, bears walk in the paw prints of those who have gone before them. The effect is to create what looks like the footprints of a dinosaur as each bear widens and deepens the tracks. It is mystical, unsettling -- and disturbing to think that so many bears are killed by hunters.

Along the margins of the pool, where sunlight shines in the depths like stained glass in a church, I slow to watch a flaring school of chinook fry. As I approach, crawling into the shallows, they hide under stones, burrowing from sight. Within minutes they come out again and begin to forage. After hatching, both chinook and steelhead inhabit river margins where they are eaten by kingfishers, mergansers and other predators. The tiny fish are fast to react, but are no match for the lightning stab of a beak or claw. Only the quick survive. As the juvenile fish grow larger, they move away to deeper water, where their size and strength is crucial in evading larger fish. Hatchery salmon and trout, which are often raised to the smolt stage in sheltered tanks, are stupendously inept at fleeing to safety. Some hatchery managers have wondered if cutthroat trout should be set among the penned fry, to teach them how to flee and to weed out the weak.

Below Bear Pool the river runs west again down to Steelhead Run. In the greenish blue water I search for the distinctive, square tailed outline of a steelhead, but see none. A school of large mountain whitefish huddles near the middle of the pool in monastic silence.
Below Steelhead Run the Atnarko makes a gentle turn northwards, along Eagle's Nest Run and down to the Corner Pool -- probably the deepest pool I will pass through. As I slowly drift over the blackness, I watch thick bodied chinook of up to 50 lbs sink away from me. The chinook drop towards the tailout, then dart past me to the sanctuary of dark water. After spending years out in the vast greenness of the ocean, the large fish must feel exposed and vulnerable in the confined river. Or do they, returning after all these years, recognize this as home?

Glinting softly amid the stones on the bottom of the pool is an amazing array of lead weights. Strewn here and elsewhere in the river, are thousands of weights lost by anglers who broke off on fish or on underwater snags. Could all this lead have an impact on the fish, birds, or even people of the Bella Coola Valley?

The shifting rocky bottom of the stream must grind some of the lead into little bits that probably finds its way into the food web. True, the volume of flowing water is enormous, but like DDT, lead concentrates in living organisms by a process of bioaccumulation. A study reviewing 12,000 bird mortalities in British Columbia found 247 suffered lead poisoning. Most were water birds or raptors. In another study, researchers estimated that, over 50 years, nearly 10,000 swans from 14 countries died from poisoning caused by lead fishing weights, shotgun pellets, or contamination from mining and smelting wastes. Lead shot has been widely banned. Perhaps it’s time to do the same with lead fishing weights.

Below Corner Pool the Atnarko River turns west again at the Wagon Wheel Run and then flows down through the Upper Corbould's Bridge area. At one time the Wagon Wheel was among the most productive steelhead runs on the river; a legendary pool anglers approached with excited anticipation. But not anymore. I see a school of silver bright sockeye, some whitefish, a few small rainbow trout and a pair of chinook seeking cover on the downstream side of a submerged log. There are no steelhead.

The road from Corbould's Bridge leads up to Tweedsmuir Lodge, one of the most famous old lodges on the coast, though it has fallen into obscurity in recent years. Tweedsmuir was the home of the late Tommy Walker, an Englishman who emigrated to the Bella Coola valley in 1929. He arrived by steamship and made his way 40 miles up a narrow twisting gravel road to find the lodge he’d bought was an unfinished log cabin. He cleared land for a farm, helped build and operate Stuie (later renamed Tweedsmuir) Lodge and became a professional guide and outfitter. He sold the lodge to Colonel Corbould around 1948, then left to explore the Spatsizi Wilderness. Using his connections and his persuasive command of language, Walker, more than anyone else, is responsible for the establishment of Tweedsmuir Park, which, since 1937, has protected the Bella Coola’s headwaters.

Walker was also one of the first fly fishers on the Bella Coola River. He must have seemed an odd character in those rough and tumble days. Few anglers were interested in sports fishing then and fewer still ever released a fish alive. In his book Spatsizi, Walker recalls his first fishing experience in the Valley, when an acquaintance showed him the local angling technique -- which involved throwing a stick of dynamite into a pool.

During his time at Tweedsmuir Lodge, Walker developed a regular clientele of fly fishers and established a world class sport fishery for Bella Coola steelhead. His work paved the way for the many guides who followed in his footsteps -- Stener Saugstad, Lloyd Brynildsen, Al Elsey, Ken Stranaghan, Dick Blewett, Rob Stewart, Les Kouluk and others.

Just below Corbould’s Bridge, the river turns again to flow in a northwesterly direction. At the end of a 600-meter run is a well known pool called the Swimming Hole, or the Ulkatcho Net Site, because it is where the Anahim Indians net sockeye. There are no nets today, just teenaged kids swinging on ropes and dropping down into the water with a deep soft, plooshing sound.

Through rapids below, bullied by the current and bouncing off a rock or two, I eventually tumble into the Smokehouse Pool, which is deep and turbulent. Grabbing a large boulder I cling in the frothy water. The fast water is often the best place to look for large resident rainbow trout.

In the chaos of the tumbling water it takes a moment to get oriented. But soon I start seeing fish. Below me and to each side, ghosting in and out of the foam, is a pack of a dozen rainbow trout. Most are under 6 inches, but two of them are much larger. One is close to five pounds, the other a bit smaller. Neither seems threatened by my presence.

Bella Coola rainbows are beautiful fish, heavily spotted on their dorsal fins and over their backs, with a bold red stripe along each side. The fish strategically place themselves just on the edge of the main current, lying with their heads upstream and tilted slightly upwards. Sliding back and forth in the current and showing perfect body-fin-eye coordination, the fish periodically change position to gracefully intercept aquatic insects. At times a small fish darts to the surface and snaps a floating bit of wood, or a conifer needle. My rough ride through the shallow rapids above dislodged aquatic insects, silt and debris and the fish are taking advantage of it. When the big fish feed, they rise smoothly to the surface, take a fly by tipping up and settle again, with little exertion. The juveniles move rapidly, frequently taking items that aren’t edible and spitting them out.

There are of course, advantages to being the first to gobble up drifting debris, even if much of it is inedible. Studies have shown that food, not space, limits juvenile survival in the summer. The fish which grab the most food, are the ones that grow larger.

A few fish search the bottom for insects, while others surface to feed or to swallow air to refill their swim bladders. Fish are naturally heavier than water and require the use of internal air bladders to help regulate their position underwater. When the air in the bladder needs to be replenished all salmon must come to the surface -- a practice that sometimes reveals the holding lies of big steelhead, chinook and other non-feeders that might otherwise stay hidden.

Watching fish underwater is a wonderful way to gain an appreciation for how well adapted they are and how they position themselves in the river. Their bodies, senses and behavior combine to make them extremely efficient predators. All have a streamlined, torpedo-like shape which moves rapidly through the water with the help of a series of powerful body muscles whose strength is directed into the tail. As a general rule, most salmon can reach speeds of 10 times body length per second. Adult steelhead, which cruise for days at five feet per second, can accelerate to 27 feet per second (darting speed). Salmon and steelhead can jump up to 10 feet in the air, perhaps higher, provided they begin their vault in a deep pool (ratio of the height of a falls to the depth of a pool approximately 1:1.25).

Salmon and trout have a well developed sense of vision, but they are shortsighted. That’s why they sometimes come to within inches of a fly before turning away in refusal. They can see objects 10 to 15 feet away, but not as clearly as a human would. While salmon may not see as far as humans, they do have a much larger area of peripheral vision because their eyes are located on the sides of the head and they move independently. Fish can look forward, laterally, backwards, downwards and straight ahead. Like humans, fish see color (blue, green and red) and they are able to see at low levels of light (starlight). While fish may not be able to sharply see the silhouette of a fisherman in its peripheral vision, they readily detect movement against a contrasting background.

Unlike in the human eye, the pupil of a fish does not react quickly to changes in light conditions. It can take up to two hours for a fish to adapt fully to a change from bright to dark conditions. This phenomenon may explain why fish often stop feeding immediately after dusk.

Studies show that salmon and trout can taste and feel the objects in their mouths. This is probably why hard flies and those made of plastic or enameled materials are almost always ejected immediately after the fish have mouthed them. Flies constructed of soft materials (feathers, furs, or soft synthetics) are often held much longer -- giving the angler more time to set the hook.

Although trout and salmon do not hear in the same sense humans do, they can detect sound vibrations (pressure waves) traveling through the water from more than thirty feet away. So they can easily sense you wading, in still water. The sound vibrations are detected by otolithic structures in an inner ear and by special sensors located in the lateral line of the fish. Fish can actually determine size, direction and speed of moving objects. A fish's sense of "hearing" is so sensitive that it can detect wriggling fish or worms several feet away. The lateral line is also used to monitor water temperature, variations in currents and depths.

In addition to such powerful senses, salmon also have other abilities that are not yet understood. While it’s known they use visual clues and their sense of smell to find their spawning streams, there are other mysterious factors at work. In one scientific experiment, salmon that had been blinded were able to find their spawning grounds. And so were fish that had their sense of smell removed. Amazingly enough, a small percentage of fish that could neither see, nor smell, also managed to find their way home.

Most fly fishers quickly learn that few salmon and trout tolerate clumsy wading, or sloppy casts that slap the surface. They try to approach a stream carefully and learn to use swift flowing riffles as cover. Fish that are unaware of your presence are more easily tempted into taking a fly.

I feel comfortable in the whitewater at Smokehouse Pool, tucked in behind a sheltering boulder. But when I let go the current tumbles me over, blinding me with foam, until I am swept into calmer water. At the tailout, the white bellies of several dead rainbow trout shine up at me from the bottom. They had been caught and released, I knew, by anglers who had been fishing here with roe for chinook. I wonder what the total kill is on the river? In a season it must number into the hundreds.

The Atnarko flows in a gentle southwesterly direction below the Smokehouse Pool for about 400 meters and then curves back towards Fisheries Pool, passing through Woodpecker Run, Gooseberry Run, Sourdough Pool and Siwash Hill Run along the way. In some of them I see the gossamer white, glinting reflections of fishing lines, drawn tight by weights on the bottom. The kill fishery for chinook is over now, however and relatively few anglers are on the river.

Sockeye are shouldering into many of the pools, but here, as in most rivers in British Columbia, sport fishing for the red salmon is forbidden. The reason for not having a sports sockeye fishery has more to do with politics than conservation. Sockeye have always been the favorite target of the commercial salmon industry. The fish are easy to catch, particularly in seine nets, because the runs return over a short period of time and become concentrated in large numbers. In confined places, like Johnstone Strait, near Campbell River, on Vancouver Island, the seine fleet can take one million sockeye in a single 24-hour opening.

Sockeye tend to be a uniform size, typically about six lbs, which makes them relatively easy to process in large numbers. The flesh of sockeye is firm, has a good flavor, a high oil content and is an attractive orange-red color. Sockeye have always been a favorite food fish on the West Coast. The earliest canning operations in the Pacific Northwest were established primarily to exploit sockeye. Sockeye canneries were being built along the Fraser and Skeena in the 1870's, were established at Rivers Inlet in the 1880's and were on the Bella Coola by the early 1900’s. Although many of the canneries have since shut down, victims of industrial centralization, millions of sockeye continue to be processed yearly. The killing of sockeye is big business.

For years, to protect their own interests, commercial fishermen and fish processors successfully lobbied government to ban recreational fishermen from keeping sockeye. But times are changing. After years of pressure from recreational anglers, the government has begun opening a few rivers to limited sockeye sports fisheries. More will have to follow.

Although a handful of sports anglers have long known that sockeye would readily take a lure at sea, few were aware, until relatively recently that they could also be taken in freshwater. Experimental sports fisheries for sockeye were allowed in the Fraser and Skeena Rivers in 1996 -- and the results were astonishing. Not only would sockeye take an assortment of lures, but they would take flies more readily than just about any other species. Some anglers on the Fraser reported taking 45 salmon a day on hot, lime green flies fished over shallow bars.

Among the most effective sockeye salmon flies are those that are small (# 6,8 or 10), sparsely dressed and scarlet red or chartreuse. Bright, silver, sockeye salmon take flies in many different ways. Some anglers report “a jolting well pronounced strike," and others describe it as a "soft, subtle take -- like a trout on a dead-drifted nymph."

The Bella Coola system and particularly the Atnarko, would probably support a remarkable sockeye sport fishery. The salmon come in so quickly from the sea that they are still bright silver and green by the time they reach the Atnarko. And they are aggressive fish.

After a little more than an hour swimming down the Atnarko I emerge, tired, bruised and numb from the cold. But I know the sockeye are in and I will be back to try for them -- after the river has been given time to shift the salmon within it and remake the mystery. Our drift had given us a deep appreciation of how currents work and shown us precisely where the fish were holding. But an angler is meant to read a river by sight, by sound and to trust to luck. We had no desire to start casting now, to the fish we had just swum with.

A few days later we return with fly rods to fish by instinct. On a warm day, with the yellow centered ox-eye daisies nodding in a gentle breeze and white cabbage butterflies lilting over the fields, we dress for summer fishing: wading boots, shorts, t-shirt and nothing more.

Using a sinking line, 3 foot leader and sparsely dressed silver and lime green fly, I cast across the Atnarko and let the current take the offering in a wide sweep across the pool. Surprisingly, I hook several steelhead smolts in a row, releasing them as quickly and carefully as I can -- and thinking of the white bellies I’d seen on the bottom earlier.

The young steelhead are voracious and it is difficult to keep them off the fly, which matches a green inchworm falling from riverside trees. Steelhead are among the last of the salmon species to smolt and these were just preparing to head out to sea. I didn’t want to interrupt the journey. Switching to a chartreuse fly, I find a pattern the small steelhead don’t seem to like and manage to sink it to where the sockeye should be holding. On the fifth cast there is a gentle take and I set the hook tentatively, not knowing what to expect. When the weight of the rod goes home there is an explosive run, then a short, powerful fight. A sockeye of about 5 lbs comes in, its back greenish-blue, its flanks flashing silver. It is fresh from the sea and I can’t tell whether it’s a female or male. In a few weeks, the sockeye will undergo dramatic changes. Its body will turn a brick red color, its head will become moss green. The males will develop pronounced humps near the dorsal and their jaws will become deeply hooked, with protruding canine teeth. But for the moment, it is all white and silver and shaped like a torpedo -- a perfect sport fish; beautiful and strong and willing to take a fly. I slip it back into the water, wishing I could keep it.

The Bella Coola sockeye stocks are not as healthy as they appear at first glance and if a sport fishery is developed, as it should be, the run will first have to be restored, or at-sea interceptions will have to be reduced.

Target escapement to the Atnarko is 75,000 sockeye. The average escapement has been around 39,000 fish, however, with highs of 150,000 and lows of 7,500. Historically Bella Coola sockeye supported both an important commercial fishery and several commercial canneries. But since about 1990 the Bella Coola sockeye run has been depressed to the point where the commercial fleet has not been allowed to target sockeye after they move into Burke Channel. The closure was a major blow to the local commercial fishermen. For many years sockeye were the fish that Bella Coola gillnetters depended on for their living. Sockeye season usually started the last Sunday in June and lasted until around July 18. Then the gillnetters would switch to pink salmon.

Natives are still allowed to net sockeye salmon and of course the commercial fleet takes them outside the Burke Channel area. The Bella Coola native food fishery begins in June and the Ulgatcho from Anahim Lake also come down to fish just before haying season. Collectively the Nuxalk and Ulgatcho food fisheries take about 5,000 sockeye annually.

Increasing pressure on the run, however, is being felt because the Bella Bella community, located on the outer coastal islands, is turning to Bella Coola stock. The Bella Bella’s traditional sockeye run was on the Koeye River. But overfishing by native seine boats and the commercial non-native fleet helped cause the collapse of Koeye River sockeye stocks.

After that Bella Bella native seiners began catching Rivers Inlet sockeye, until the Owikeeno-Kitisu Tribal Council complained and forced them out. To fulfill their food fishery demands, the Bella Bella then turned to Bella Coola and Kimsquit Lake sockeye. The impact is not yet clear, but it is an ominous development.

We fish through the heat of the afternoon and into the early evening, catching and releasing sockeye and hoping that one of the 5 lb. resident rainbows might take. The river seems like a perfect place -- and we know the fishing is going to get better. Soon the pinks and chum will arrive in full force.