Story by Mark Hume
> Little Creek in a Big City by Mark Hume In the big scheme of things on the Pacific Coast it may be that Spanish Bank Creek is meaningless. Then again, this little stream that trickles down out of housing developments, crosses under busy roads and plunges through a wild ravine before flowing into the harbour of a big city, might mean everything. For if a creek that is so small you can step across it and so shallow you can safely negotiate its rapids in rubber boots can grow salmon – and stir human hearts – then surely there is still hope in this world for fish. By about 1920 the salmon run in Spanish Bank Creek was done. Loggers had moved through, trashing the ravine. And the stream became impassable when its mouth became blocked by sand, silt and rubble. Fast forward to the 1990’s, when the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Canada was encouraging volunteers to work on salmon restoration projects. That’s when Ron Gruber, and some