Christmas morning looked like a regular Wednesday at the Bluewater Anglers Hatchery in Point Edward.
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Al Metcalfe and other members of the Wednesday crew arrived early to feed thousands of young sport fish, and clean and check equipment keeping them alive and growing so they can eventually be released into local waterways.
There are about 50,000 young salmon, 30,000 rainbow trout and 25,000 brown trout currently at the hatchery being raised for release in 2025 to restock the local waterways of the Great Lakes for its popular sport fishery.
More than 40 volunteers, divided into seven crews, look after the hatchery that has been operating since the 1980s, said manager Ron Allison.
Each crew covers a set day of the week, including holidays like Christmas Day.
“They’re good about it,” Allison said. “They know we’ve got to do it.”
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Skipping a day of cleaning and feeding could put the health of the fish at risk, he said.
Metcalfe said this was his second time working Christmas Day since he began volunteering at the hatchery eight years ago.
“Working here is the best thing I’ve done in retirement,” he said. Metcalfe retired from a career selling equipment to industries in the Sarnia area.
“It’s interesting,” he said about volunteering at the hatchery. “You learn so much.”
Crews check to ensure the hatchery’s systems are working properly, including a backup generator.
“We pump a million liters of water a day,” Metcalfe said. “These fish won’t live long if the systems are down.”
Volunteers also check oxygen levels in the water system fed from two wells and document the health of the fish, including tracking mortality.
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“If we see a bad trend, that’s when they start treating the fish for disease,” Metcalfe said.
“There’s a lot of science going on here,” he said.
The young fish inside the hatchery currently range in size from about 2.5 cm to 10 cm, Metcalfe said.
There are larger fish in the outdoor pond which is behind a fence with a slot so visitors can toss in pellets purchased from a repurposed candy dispenser.
“We get between 40,000 and 48,000 quarters a year from there,” Metcalfe said.
Generally, each quarter represents visits by at least two people to the pond, translating to 80,000 to 90,000 visits a year, he said. “It’s pretty special. . . a lot of smiles out there.”
The quarters, along with the group’s annual Salmon Derby, help fund the hatchery.
“At our stage of life, we’re not busy Christmas morning” and “the fish need to be fed,” Metcalfe said.
The five of six crew members able to be there Wednesday included Pete Bothwell, one of the founders of the Bluewater Anglers.
The weekly shifts are typically an equal mix of work and socializing, Metcalfe said.
“This morning, there will be an hour’s worth of work and then we’ll probably have an hour’s worth of talk,” he said. “And then we’ll go home.”
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