Every four years, the Adams River turns red. Not from sediment or algae, but from fish — millions of sockeye salmon returning from the Pacific Ocean to the exact stretch of gravel where they were born, their bodies shifting from silver to crimson as they near the end of a journey that will also be the end of their lives. This October, in the dominant year of the four-year cycle, that spectacle returns to Tsútswecw Provincial Park in British Columbia's Shuswap region, and with it the Salute to the Sockeye festival, which runs from October 9 to 25.
The festival is not a new invention. According to the Canadian Wildlife Federation, a Salute to the Sockeye has been presented by BC Parks and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on dominant runs since 1954, making it one of the province's oldest recurring nature celebrations. For decades it was run largely by government agencies. That changed in the early 1990s, when BC Parks, having granted Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park full Class A status in 1991, began looking for a non-profit partner to help develop a concept plan for the park. Efforts to form the Adams River Salmon Society started in 1993, and the society was incorporated on February 22, 1994. It has helped organize and run the festival ever since.
The park itself has a layered history. During the 1960s and early 1970s, the BC Parks Branch pushed for legal protection of Crown land along the Adams River as the river's unique value came under threat. In May 1975 a formal freeze on private land development was proclaimed under the Environment and Land Use Act, and in 1977 the Adams River Recreation Area was established. Between 1976 and 1986, the Nature Trust of British Columbia acquired and protected 46.9 hectares along the river, land still under long-term lease to the province. In 1978 the recreation area was renamed to honour Roderick Haig-Brown, the British Columbian writer, fly-fisher, magistrate and conservationist who died in 1976 and who had spent much of his life arguing for the protection of wild salmon and wild rivers.
In 2018, at the request of the Little Shuswap Lake Indian Band, the park was renamed again. Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park became Tsútswecw Provincial Park, a Secwepemc name pronounced "choo-chwek." Chief Oliver Arnouse told the BC Parks blog that the band had first approached BC Parks about the change at least a decade earlier. "We have found some maps made on canvas that had the original name of this park on it and the old people have always talked about it," he said. "We also used to come here and harvest salmon in this area." The name is often translated as "many fish" or "many rivers." The park holds archaeological evidence of large Secwepemc settlements predating European contact, along with kekulis pit houses, artifacts and pictographs that remain strictly protected.
That deep human history is inseparable from the fish. The Secwépemc and other Indigenous communities of the Shuswap have celebrated the salmon's return for thousands of years, with ceremonies, songs and gatherings that treat the salmon as sustenance, as a sacred symbol, and in some communities as deceased relatives. The festival's opening ceremonies, led by the Five Band Salute Committee, carry that tradition forward.
The numbers behind a dominant run are hard to grasp. In an average dominant year, an estimated 2.2 million sockeye return to the Shuswap Lake system, with a large share spawning in the twelve-kilometre Adams River between Adams Lake and Shuswap Lake. The fish travel roughly 485 kilometres from the Pacific. The runs are not always predictable: in 2010, nearly four million sockeye showed up, catching everyone off guard, while four years earlier the fish held at the mouth of the river for reasons no one could explain. The 2022 dominant run, by contrast, came in far below expectations across the Fraser system. The salmon make the journey anyway, and the predators follow — black bears, grizzly bears, bald eagles, ospreys and river otters all gather at the river, making the Adams River one of North America's best wildlife-viewing sites.
This year's festival carries a weight the previous ones did not. In August 2023, the Bush Creek East wildfire burned through most of Tsútswecw Park, destroying bridges, boardwalks, benches and other infrastructure. The park closed. Researchers with Fisheries and Oceans Canada have since been studying how the fire affected the river and its vegetation; the loss of shade cover along the banks has led to increased erosion and warmer water, both concerns for spawning habitat.
Restoration has proceeded in phases. In May 2026, the Ministry of Environment and Parks announced that the first phase of repairs was complete. Two small pedestrian bridges were replaced and a large pedestrian bridge repaired along the Island Loop Trail; multiple sections of fencing in the main plaza area were replaced; and trail sections damaged by fire-related erosion were fixed. The main plaza — the same area the festival uses — is once again accessible, along with the Viewing Platform Trail, Island Loop Trail and Plaque Channel Trail. The second phase, expected to begin in late 2026, will focus on identifying and removing unstable trees along the Wade Road Trail and Flume Trails. Some parts of the park remain closed because of hazards such as unstable slopes and fire-killed trees. The total project is estimated at $2.1 million, largely supported by the Government of Canada's Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements program. Ecological recovery work has continued alongside the repairs, aimed at restoring native ecosystems and protecting cultural heritage values.
The society has also been working on the river itself. It recently completed a habitat restoration project on the south side of the Adams River downstream of the Skwlāx Anglemont Bridge, placing large wooden structures in the water to improve stream flow and spawning habitat for future generations of salmon.
For visitors, the festival is a drop-in affair. Gates are open daily from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and all vehicles must be off site by 5:30 p.m. Admission is $15 per personal vehicle, with proceeds covering event costs and feeding a Legacy Fund that supports stewardship activities by community groups around the Shuswap. Lifetime members of the society are admitted free. The best place to see the fish is the viewing platform, about 300 metres west of the parking lot. Four species of Pacific salmon spawn in the Adams River — chinook, coho, pink and sockeye — with chinook appearing mid-October into November every year, and sockeye arriving mid-October through early November, most dramatically on the dominant years of 2026, 2030 and 2034.
The festival also includes an artisans market, First Nations art, interpretive programming and the free education school program, which requires advance booking by October 1. Volunteers are still being recruited for the October 9 to 25 run.
There is a particular poignancy to watching a river fill with fish in a place that burned three years ago. The sockeye do not know about the wildfire or the repaired bridges or the $2.1 million in disaster funding. They navigate by smell and memory, finding their way back to a stretch of gravel in a park that has been called many things over the years — a recreation area, a writer's memorial, and now, in the Secwepemc name it carries again, a place of many fish. The Salute to the Sockeye is, at bottom, an invitation to stand on a platform above the water and watch that return happen, the way people here have watched it for thousands of years.