Hyde Creek Watershed Society

The Hyde Creek Watershed Society was born of a necessity to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat in the Hyde Creek Watershed. The need to protect salmon stocks within the watershed originally started as a family project that began in a backyard with a wooden incubator and a bathtub!

The initiative quickly attracted the interest of local residents, government and local municipalities that led to the formation of the Hyde Creek Streamkeepers. The Ministry of Environment, the Department of Fisheries, the Cities of Port Coquitlam and Coquitlam as well as local residents attended the first meeting. Initially, Maurice Coulter-Boisvert, Peter Crowder, Ken Rempel, Tyler Faust, and their families began the backyard operation by capturing and harvesting the few salmon remaining at the time in Hyde Creek.

The salmon eggs and milt were retrieved and placed in a wooden incubator then transferred into a bathtub for a further two months before being released back into the stream. This small group operated like this for approximately 4 years until a holding pen for the adult salmon was obtained.

This was a great step forward in their operation as they had no way of holding adults that were not quite ready to be harvested until this point. The holding pen was also crucial to hosting Coho fry that need to be held for a year before their release.

Eventually, Ken Rempel took over operations on his own property. Through help from Maurice Coulter-Boisvert and the Department of Fisheries, he obtained additional tanks, a Capilano trough, a double set of incubation systems known as Heathe trays, as well as a shelter from the Pacific Salmon Foundation.

The makeshift hatchery had a cleaning system with a sand filter that contained a float- activated paging system that would alert Ken at any time of the day or night to come and clean the filters! Ken and his wife Bev, Jim Wycherly, Janice and Jordan Wycherly, Allan Jensen, and Dave Palidwor decided that education was the key to sustaining and bringing back salmon stocks into the Hyde Creek system.

The first official meeting of the Hyde Creek Streamkeepers took place June 5, 1997. Darrell Penner was the first President of the group, Scott Young served as Vice-President and Linda Dore as Treasurer. Today, the group is known as the Hyde Creek Watershed Society and has grown to 34 members dedicated to working with the local municipalities, provincial and federal governments to preserve and enhance fish and wildlife habitats in the Hyde Creek Watershed.

The group has expanded its initiatives from originally preserving salmon stocks within the river to protecting the entire watershed as well as providing education programs to the public.

Our activities include:

Stream Clean Up

Habitat Restoration

Environmental Education

Salmonid Enhancement

Water Quality Monitoring

Stream Inventories

Annual Salmon Festival

Harry - long time member