The Time When the Salmon Return

A story for adults and children, this inner-library mural expresses the life-cycle of salmon oriented around the area of Coast Salish territories near the Stó꞉lō River, the largest salmon run in the world.

This mural, commissioned by the City of Surrey's Fleetwood Public Library, The Time When The Salmon Return, depicts a story accessible by youth as young as four. The story told is relatively simple, and cross-cultural: the Stó꞉lō River is a place that houses the largest wild salmon run in the world. Every year, salmon travel the Pacific Ocean and return to their spawning grounds upriver all across the river network to spawn, lay eggs and fertilize them. Thus, salmon are born, travel out to the ocean, and return again in cycles. This is seen in the green sea, the bubbles and the salmon swimming in the mural itself.