Swim on my terms

Oh, the great and glorious Salmon run.

This is the predetermined destiny that is ingrained in all of us. It's an integral programming that drives our survival instinct.

Against great odds, with death in every corner, I have been swimming full throttle since I hatched in a shallow gravel bed many moons ago.

I eventually grew bigger and travelled downstream into uncharted waters.

I got to mingle with species beyond the streams and wetlands.

I saw the deep blue world.

I was finally free!

…So I thought…

Now I am expected to return to the narrow river I was born in, get laid by some rando… Produce and lay eggs as soon as possible after that, before I die…

I mean, I don’t even get to see my own kids?

This is all mandatory?

Make this make sense!

Beyond passing down our genes to the next generations, what is the point of us living? While evading fast-moving predators right behind us, I asked a few Coho, Sockeye, and Pink colleagues the same question. You know what they all said?

“We have no choice.”

“There is no other way.”

“It’s our duty.”

“Now is REALLY not a good time to think such things."

"SWIM IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE EATEN!”

Pardon my fins, but FUCK all of that rusty tin-canned response!

What if we swam a completely different route, where these annoying predators do not anticipate our predictable migration patterns? Why don’t we ever head more towards warmer waters, with Corals and colourful natives? A wise Turtle once told me about such a place further west that even has a cleaning station by the shallow reefs.

That must be so refreshing, a spa day… Do you know how gross it gets swimming endlessly in tight formations for so long?

Oh, and don’t get me started on the names they have called me throughout my aquatic life. This really ruffles my scales...

They dare to call our family group ‘KING SALMON’. Ugh, I despise it! How am I supposed to identify with that? That really just sucks like an obnoxious Lamprey.

For the record, Kings don’t lay eggs. WE do!

Then, why can’t I be a QUEEN SALMON, huh?

While passing through the kelp forest in San Catalina, I witnessed a pair of angelfish choose one another as life partners. I also saw a father seahorse protecting, babysitting, and oxygenating their offspring in HIS brood pouch! His lady was allowed to live her life, go fetch food, and tend their nest.

See?

I much rather want a life like that.

Better yet- why can’t I be whatever gender I want to be, like the Blue-banded Goby I shared a Mussel with in Monterey Bay? He could change to a she and vice versa by choice.

I want that, too.

Being able to have a choice.

Why do I need to accept everything, just as it is?

Who decided?

Where could I appeal my case?

I want changes!

“…Preach! …You answer to no one, baby girl…”

H…Huh?

That…Did not sound like typical Salmon-speak. As I looked around, a gargantuan shadow loomed above. I was alarmed at first, since it had a similar silhouette to a Shark, but it didn’t move like one. Seeing bony plates, a pointed snout, and whiskers below the mouth, I was relieved to know it was a Green Sturgeon.

I strayed from my pack to cautiously drift closer to the Sturgeon. As I caught up, I saw the green stripes on her sides and her yellowish-white belly. She was much bigger than I was. Older, too.

“…I was just like you long ago. I didn’t want to go back to the river to be a random mother like the others. I wasn’t ready. Instead, I ended up travelling south until I didn’t recognise anything. I made new friends in Baja. It was such a life-changing experience that I do find myself swimming back there every few moon cycles, during the king tides.”

Finally! In this vast ocean, I finally heard somefish that understood me.

“ Listen to this... On another trip, I met like-minded travellers in the Gulf of Alaska who mentioned we have relatives on the other side of the Bering Sea; in places called Russia and China, too. It’s pretty far away, so that may be one final trip I will take before my time is up... One day, on my own terms.”

“Keep that dorsal fin up, kiddo. You could be any fish you want to be out here. There are so many outcomes. The only thing stopping you… Is you.”

As much as I yearned to go against what I was indoctrinated into, I didn’t have the faintest idea how to leave everything I know. I mean, I am not a free-spirited sturgeon, like her… I definitely don’t have wings, like those flying fish either. Without a school of my species huddled together, I would be a sitting target for Orcas, tuna, trevally, and Sharks. If I navigated my way by the surface, then I would risk being picked off by birds, sealions, humans, and those big furry beasts with giant paws…

What to do?

While I floated my options in open water like a sea cucumber, my migration school had already zigzagged farther away. Before losing them completely, I had to choose for the first time in my life. Either catch up, get back in formation, and resume the predetermined life…

-Or-

Travel another direction…

Take another current, perhaps the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre or the South Equatorial currents…

-Or-

What if I swam further down?

I wonder how deep I could go?

What could be down there?

…I surprised myself, as my fins gradually began to propel me away from the familiar, and towards the great big unknown…

~~~

Not sure how I got to the Tasman Sea, since I thought I was travelling westward. A friendly school of Wooley Judiths said I was swimming east. 

EAST?

Am I… lost?

Then again, I had to trust this journey. There was no wrong direction anymore, once we… No, I mean, I… I HAVE swum this far. Despite the self-doubt, I remembered the encouragement that great green sturgeon had given me. I wonder… If my mother was like her…?

My newfound determination eventually led me north, into warmer waters and vibrant reefs I had never seen. Strangely, as I navigated through shallow coral grounds, I noticed that when I had to whip my tail over close to my face, my scales looked nothing like how they were when I was still with my migrating school. I was bright-coloured- like the sunset.

Huh. How about that…

That area was nice, while it lasted, but the surrounding vibrant coral became white and brittle. The water temperatures turned unbearably hot, and food grew scarce. All of my neighbours mentioned resettling up north to cooler waters. The wild-eyed Skipjacks led the way, but they warned us of the treacherous path ahead.

“ Listen up! There will be lots of predators out there, but be especially careful of humans. They have all kinds of ways to capture all of our kind beyond the reefs.”

“Head all the way up on the Kuroshio current until you start seeing ice. There is a place up there where humans don’t come after us.”

I didn’t like the idea of migrating again, but this time wasn’t because of spawning for the sake of the next generation of my species; it was for my own immediate survival.

This time, I knew what to do. I swam as deep as I could to avoid predators. It took a while to adjust to the darkness again, and I relied more on smell and lateral water movements to navigate myself north.

While in the dark trenches of the Great Pacific, I picked up a faint scent. Familiar, but not of my kind. I decided to pursue it. The direction was the same.

My former neighbours were right about one thing: humans are ruthless. I never saw them up close, but they are the Apex here. They don’t swim like any of us with fins. Instead, they show up loudly, as a colossal shadow with no heartbeat, skipping on the surface overhead. They reek of death and suffering. They would drag this giant jellyfish, engulfing entire schools of anything that swam, and taking them up to the surface, never to be seen again. When I swam closer to land, such human activities increased.

There was no way I would be caught like that, after making it this far…

I swam alongside Humpback whales, who kept me next to their children and protected us from Orcas and other predators. When I asked one of the mothers about a northern territory with ice and no humans, she told me it must be Shiretoko by the Sea of Okhotsk, or further up towards Anadyr Bay.

The gigantic mammals escorted me through an excruciating journey up until Hokkaido. Sure enough, the current was much colder, and perhaps because we swam below the sun's reach for so long, my scales lost their bright tropical colours.

I was exhausted.

But I am still on track to seek out this familiar scent.

Who might it be? Why was it so important to risk it all to find this… ‘mystery?’

As I drifted with the current and contemplated the meaning of my journey, a school of juvenile chum salmon cut right past me. They had so much tenacity and glow to them, beaming towards the Bering Sea. I almost forgot how exciting and terrifying it was to finally be out in the open ocean for the first time. I was too small to fend for myself then, but now I have travelled beyond the protection of the school. Getting out of the comfort zone I was born into allowed me to push farther, live longer, and see so much more of this great blue world of ours…

 ~~~~

I was getting closer to this scent that I had been drawn to ever since taking the Kuroshio Current. The surface of Anadyr Bay was already beginning to freeze. Towards the shallows, a gang of Halibut blew past me. I must have spooked them. They are surprisingly fast for how strange and flappy they looked. Behind them, an ancient shadow wafted slowly, gracefully. As my eyes adjusted, I could gradually see weathered, bony plates, a pointed snout, and saggy whiskers below the mouth.

There she was;

My mentor…

Though a bit out of breath from my travels, I asked eagerly-

There you are... D... Do you remember me?

“…Ah, look who it is…You are that Queen Salmon from several moon seasons back. Of course I remember! Fancy seeing you all the way over here.”

“So… Tell me. How was your voyage? Do you have any regrets? Straying from your original path? Did you find what you were looking for?”

No… No regrets.

Yeah… I think I finally found it.

I have become the fish I always wanted to be.

I think… I am finally home.