This Sunday, August 28th, the Pacific Salmon Foundation will be holding it's second annual Pink Salmon Festival, serving up free salmon for everyone who visits Hadden Park from noon until 5PM. Not only will the salmon be free (donated by Canfisco), but it'll be prepared by renowned Vancouver chef, Robert Clark, of C Restaurant. HERE is the piece that I shared a month ago about the glorious Pink Salmon, celebrating the return of this sustainable fish stock that was there all along!
What does this have to do with the Vancouver Is Awesome Inc office and artwork, you ask? Well, while I was working on that piece I linked to above I inquired to our new friends at the PSF about their gift shop that I used to frequent on my visits to the Capilano River Hatchery (1, 2, 3, 4 blog posts as proof!). The gift shop closed down a few months back and the only things that remain are these cardboard cutouts of salmon, hanging in the window of the potentially-forever-closed store, taunting me. When it was open they hung from the ceiling and behind the cash register, and on more than one occasion I had asked the people working there if they'd be able to sell me one. Of course, as they were essentially pieces of the store itself and not products for sale, the answer was always no.
Cut to the chase, I asked the Pacific Salmon Foundation folks what the chances were that I could have one of these cutouts to hang in the room at the V.I.A. office that I lovingly refer to as The Library but in reality is more like our small meeting room where we keep our book collection. They replied with "Would you prefer a sockeye or a chinook?" and I fell off of my chair. After I picked myself up off of the floor I responded with "Sockeye, please!" and a couple of days later I found myself pounding a nail into the wall so I could mount this fine piece of artwork above the bookshelves. It now hangs there proudly, held up by a piece of fishing line, of course!
The piece of artwork serves three purposes. First as a conversation piece for people who visit us and meet in out meeting room, so we can tell them how awesome the Pacific Salmon Foundation is. Second, it's a daily reminder for us that we should do more features about this fantastic resource that has so many Vancouver-centric stories to be told. Third, I'm the Executive Director and I personally love fish and fishing, I personally love screen-printed gems from the 80's and I am personally spending more time in that meeting room than anybody else... so it's totally self serving!
Join me in being self-serving this weekend and head down to Hadden Park to eat some free salmon at the Pink Salmon Festival!
