I was swept up in Barack Obama’s election and all the hope and optimism that was in the air and that was articulated with the proclamation of “Yes we can.” Around this time I was approached by a student and filmmaker, Jamie Tanner, who had made a beautiful and disturbing video about the effect of fish farms on our indigenous salmon stocks, and who asked me to write some words to reinforce his images and interviews. Jamie’s film and my original text can be found at: Yes We Can – A Salmon’s Testimony. This is for our friends, the salmon.

We are silent by nature. We believe, if we believe at all, that our actions speak louder than words. Our story transcends all recorded history. For millions of years we have followed the same path. We have been programmed to survive. We have been designed to adapt. If we could speak, if our movements were translated into syllables, our mantra would be similar to your own. Yes we can. Yes we can continue our journey from the fresh water pools and streams to the salty oceans and seas. Yes we can continue to provide nourishment for the bears and the forests, sustenance for humans and all living species. Yes we can overcome the dams, the pesticides, the logging, the floods and fires, the commercial and sports fishing, the global warming and the pollution, the majestic eagles and the hungry killer whales. Yes we can continue to chart the treacherous incline back to our birthplace where we willingly give our lives so our eggs can be given a slim chance to perpetuate our legacy. And yes, we will fight to the end but always go calmly, for in death no new fate befalls us.

We have never, not once, deviated from our mythology. No salmon has ever willingly left the path that nature has so clearly defined. We have been celebrated for our perseverance and self-sacrifice. For our consistency and our courage. We have been elevated to symbols of wisdom and rejuvenation. Hinduism and the Vedas, Celts and Druids, Jews and Syrians, Christians and Buddhists, Orpheus and the Fisher King, Haida and indigenous people from all the worlds’ tribes, past and present, have relied on us to feed them with our bodies and our purpose. Yes we can is the message that we helped inspire by our steadfast mission to keep our place in the chain of life. Yes we can is our silent murmur as we punish our battered bodies through currents and rocks enroute to our holy land, our mecca, our shallow graves where new life will begin again. We are survivors. We are adapters. We are determined. We have faced every challenge of every millennium. Only of late has there been whispers of doubt and hesitation. Only recently has there been a question of Can we?, casting an ominous shadow over our symbolic actions.

Even our worst enemies love us in their own way. Like the honeybee and the tiger, we will be missed, and we will be mourned, when we are gone. Many of our fellow travelers will likely be soon to follow, and before long all mythologies will retreat back into the silent void from which they sprang. One last parched skeleton placed facing upstream as a gesture for hope and rebirth. Yes we can was the sincere objective behind the efforts of those who worried about our demise and built farms in order to ensure our survival. But from these farms came an adversary unlike any we had faced before. A sea lice that is capable of a destructive force that stymies our journey’s blueprint. We are hopeful that our protectors and our predators, those who have come to rely on us, and those who have come to love and respect us, are starting a dialogue, are building the science, performing the research, creating a consensus, taking the actions that will come to our defense. We have never asked for anything. We are silent by nature. Our story transcends all recorded history. We will persist in our life’s journey and we will embody, Yes we can, until we can’t. We are the wild salmon.