Bushwhacking, tailgate labs, and “secondhand fun:” partners from Na̲nwak̲olas Council, five First Nations, and the Hakai Institute take us behind the scenes of the 50 Watersheds Project.
K’ómoks First Nation Guardian Rylan Wright takes water quality readings, such as temperature and dissolved oxygen, in the Adam River watershedas part of the 50 Watersheds Project.
For what seemed like hours, Wei Wai Kum First Nation Guardians Montell Henderson Brown and Anthony Roberts, along with Na̲nwak̲olas Council forest research coordinator Emily Doyle-Yamaguchi and Na̲nwak̲olas wildlife biologist Melanie Clapham, bushwhacked through soggy salmonberry and devil’s club in search of the Apple River.
The group was on a reconnaissance mission for the 50 Watersheds Project—a collaboration between the Hakai Institute and Na̲nwak̲olas Council, a collective of six First Nations on northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia. They were trudging through a Sitka spruce forest at the head of Loughborough Inlet on the province’s mainland, in grizzly country, when the Apple River finally came into view.
You can’t just find river access on a map. “You have to go there and wander around to figure it out,” Doyle-Yamaguchi says. “It took us two hours to get down to the river from the road, and as the crow flies, it’s not very far.”
The goal that day was to find a suitable location for installing a water temperature sensor near the mouth of the Apple River. It’s one of 62 primary watersheds on the BC coast that Na̲nwak̲olas Council, and the Mamalilikulla, Tlowitsis, Wei Wai Kum, We Wai Kai, and K’ómoks First Nations, alongside the Hakai Institute, are studying as part of the 50 Watersheds Project, supported by the British Columbia Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund. Now in its third year, the project aims to assess the impacts of forest management and climate change on salmon habitat, and to give Na̲nwak̲olas member First Nations new tools for decision-making in their territories.
The crew—including (from left) Na̲nwak̲olas wildlife biologist Melanie Clapham and Wei Wai Kum First Nation Guardians Anthony Roberts and Montell Henderson Brown—finally reaches the Apple River, one of the primary watersheds in the 50 Watersheds Project. Photo by Emily Doyle-Yamaguchi
“We want to find out more about salmon,” says Shane Pollard, project lead for We Wai Kai First Nation where he’s also the manager of the nation’s Guardian program. “Salmon was a resource we once relied on that’s kind of gone away. So we want more answers about that.”
By gathering temperature readings from those 62 primary watersheds—along with data on the presence of invertebrates and salmon in 51 smaller catchments—the project combines Indigenous and Western science to fill knowledge gaps. Specifically, the study is exploring the links between forest cover, water temperature, and the health of salmon habitat in a range of watershed types, from rain-fed lowlands to glacierized mountains, many of which hold great significance to the First Nations involved.
“If you go back to data from the 1970s or 1980s, you see a pretty consistent decline in salmon,” Pollard says. “It gives us a lot more ammunition if we have Western science behind us that we can corroborate. Like if we do find out that forest practices are impacting salmon, we’ll have the science to show that we have to adjust things to change population trends in the other direction.”
To date, the team has collected countless temperature readings—taken every 10 minutes from 144 sensors—as well as 400 environmental DNA (eDNA) samples that the Hakai Institute’s genomics team is currently analyzing. During thousands of hours of fieldwork, collaborators have coordinated dozens of teams traveling by truck, boat, and even helicopter, while managing complicated equipment and erratic weather, from heatwaves to downpours.
When Doyle-Yamaguchi and the Wei Wai Kum Guardians finally reached the Apple River, they could tell from the plants and riverscape that the area was under tidal influence, which meant it was not an ideal place to install a freshwater temperature logger.
But bushwhacking for hours from a logging road wasn’t all in vain, says Doyle-Yamaguchi. The team learned how not to travel in the area the next time around.
“I think we concluded that walking from the road is not the best way to come back,” she laughs. The next time, they would take a boat.
Emily Doyle-Yamaguchi (left) and the 50 Watersheds team hiked through two-meter-tall devil’s club and along fresh grizzly tracks to reach the Apple River. Luckily, Wei Wai Kum First Nation Guardian Sam Henderson rescued them for the trip back to the car. Photos by Montell Henderson Brown and Emily Doyle-Yamaguchi
Hakai Institute research technician Mariella Becu calls Doyle-Yamaguchi’s experience “secondhand fun.”
“It’s secondhand fun because it’s a great story later,” Becu explains. “While you’re out there, it’s so rainy that you’re soaked before you actually get to the stream, or you fall into the river on the first installation, or you try to take a shortcut that turns out to be the long way. But you bond over how hard it was during lunch, and how good your food tastes afterward.”
Becu oversees the collection of water samples to study the presence of salmon and insects such as mayflies, stoneflies, and caddisflies that are sensitive to habitat disturbance and therefore serve as indicators of ecosystem health.
There are two types of water samples—filtered water that captures only eDNA and others that capture physical samples of invertebrates and stream debris. A batch of the latter is blended, literally, into a “bug smoothie,” Becu says, which is then sent to the lab for DNA analysis.
Fellow research technician Isabelle Desmarais is responsible for filtering water into eDNA samples, which usually occurs on the truck tailgate right after the water is collected. Within minutes, off-road pickups become mobile ecology labs, topped with bottles and hoses sterilized with ethanol.
“You’re in field clothes and waders but then you have your gloves on and you’re constantly cleaning,” Desmarais says. “The setup is very lab-y, but it’s really just the back of a pickup truck. It’s a funny contrast.”
From left: K’ómoks First Nation Guardian Matthew Everson and Hakai Institute research technician Isabelle Desmarais collect water samples from the Adam River watershed for eDNA analysis before Everson filters it in the team’s mobile science lab.
Desmarais remembers some secondhand fun in August 2024, when a freak summer storm dropped at least 20 millimeters of rain in the Adam River watershed near Sayward on northern Vancouver Island within a few hours. Desmarais’s team had five site visits that day, and by early afternoon, they had already soaked through their extra set of clothes.
“Let’s just say the morale was pretty low,” Desmarais laughs.
But spirits lifted every two hours when the team had to check in with their safety contact, Emily Haughton, through their inReach satellite communicator. Safety check-ins often include riddles on tough field days like this one, but the rain inspired a music game instead, starting with lyrics from a popular Natasha Bedingfield song.
“Instead of being like, ‘I'm checking in, I'm all good,’ we just wrote ‘I feel the rain on your skin,’ and then Emily replied with an explosion of lyrics,” Desmarais recalls. “It’s these stupid things that make you so happy.”
Desmarais and her fellow technicians couldn’t filter water on the truck bed that August night; it was still pouring. So, they set up their mobile lab in the Hakai Institute’s Campbell River office after hours instead.
We Wai Kai First Nation Guardian Riley Nelson has been working rain or shine to measure temperature and dissolved oxygen in dozens of salmon-bearing rivers.
Results from the 50 Watersheds Project are expected in early 2026 and shouldgive partners a better idea of which watersheds are the most and least vulnerable to the effects of logging and climate change. They will also provide partner First Nations with information to support their stewardship rights and responsibilities in the watersheds within the territories.
In the meantime, it’s the many experiences of laughing, struggling, and learning together that make the collaboration so rewarding, Doyle-Yamaguchi says.
Making space for relationship building—“not just working but hanging out”—was part of the project design, she adds. Partners held a kickoff event in Port Neville so the field teams could learn about the Indigenous history and Guardians’ work in the area. Another group event was hosted last year at the Hakai Institute’s Meeting House on Quadra Island.
Team members from the 50 Watersheds Project meet in Port Neville, on northern Vancouver Island, for a kickoff event in 2023.
“It’s not just about data, it’s also about the people and why they’re there,” Doyle-Yamaguchi says. “A huge number of us live in Campbell River and work in these watersheds. So we are all neighbors and residents of this place, making the place-based work that much more important.”
Becu echoes that sentiment. “We all care about these watersheds, and we depend on them,” she says. “I think we all want to make sure they’re thriving in the future.”
