A Salmon Sanctuary

Hatchery manager Stan Johnson and wife Minne

(Minn) in front of main hatchery house at 4 Mile Creek (current name Fish Hatchery Creek and location of the old town of Alvin and logging camp) was built in 1915. The hatchery was later moved to the more productive Corbold Creek one mile up river. In 1898, the Fish Hatchery on Fish Hatchery Creek was the earliest recorded Sockeye intervention program in the Upper Pitt River and is recognized as the oldest salmon enhancement program in British Columbia.

The hatchery finally closed down in 2002 and transferred its Sockeye program to the Inch Creek hatchery in Dewdney British Columbia. Very little Salmon enhancement is carried out from the DFO hatchery today. However, there is an extraordinary fish habitat restoration program on the Upper Pitt River and its tributaries by non profit conservation

groups led by Katzie First Nation with support from DFO and large corporations.There is now an opportunity to reopen this highly successful and historic fish hatchery. DFO Hatchery operations working along side with the conservation groups 

could bring back the fish habitat and fish stocks

to near historic levels of one of the greatest Salmon and trout rivers in the world.