Calvin Stokes has been playing and mucking around in rivers since he was a kid on the Menomonee River in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

As teenagers, he and his friends found ways to get into trouble on the river bank. He studied environmental science at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

After graduating, he moved to the Olympic Peninsula to work for the Washington Conservation Corps (WCC). He and his team were based out of Discovery Bay, and were hired by regional fisheries enhancement groups such as the North Olympic Salmon Coalition to work on local river projects.

Stokes and team often worked on the Dungeness River. Much of his work during his time with WCC was focused on restoration of riparian zones. A riparian zone is the land alongside a river, or the river’s floodplain.

After finishing his time in WCC, Stokes found employment with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), where he works now, in January 2021. He started the same year that a WDFW regulation prohibited fishing from a floating device or a boat. Fishing guides in the area were particularly unhappy about the regulation.

Sequim Gazette photo by Elijah Sussman / Riparian zone off the Dungeness River, photographed from a nearby dike on May 29.

Stokes worked as a creel surveyor, primarily on the Hoh River. He spent his days driving up and down the river, spotting fisherman’s vehicles and camping out near their vehicles until they came back, when he would gather data about their catch. The new regulation preventing fishing from boats was fresh and controversial, Calvin had some interactions which he describes as being “mean.” He muses that readers who were aware of the controversies happening at the time might feel a comical pity for him, taking that job on as a new employee.

On the trail

I met Stokes at 4 p.m. in the new dyke parking lot by the Old Dungeness Schoolhouse. We walked up onto the wide gravel trail and started talking. Stokes continues to work on this river weekly. He is not a river historian, but in talking with his fellow river experts, he sees the Dungeness River as an ecological underdog story. In terms of optimism around rebuilding the fish populations, It seems like river that had been somewhat abandoned, and seen as beyond restoration for a time. Work and care of the river has only expanded more recently.

Stokes and I had originally talked about hiking in the upper Dungeness. Ultimately we decided to take a lowland walk, as Stokes considered the work being done in the restoration to be important and potentially enriching for the reader.

After talking by the bridge for a while, we started walking south on the Dyke Trail. Stokes detailed some habitat projects which he has been involved with in recent years. A river’s habitat is a central factor in a rivers viability to support fish runs. In recent years, for example, there has been a massive, statewide effort to remove culverts. Stokes explained that culverts can be major obstacles for salmon migrations.

Stokes and I walked into the floodplain for a moment. We quickly realized that we were wearing the wrong footwear, we skirted some deeply soaked grass, and jumped over a tiny creek. Birds chirped and swooped over small side channels. The Dungeness Floodplain Restoration area between the river and the dyke is simply stunning, and it is unlike other public access parks in the area.

Sequim Gazette photo by Elijah Sussman / Calving Stokes and dog Nico on May 29.

As we resume walking, Stokes shares that much of his work with WCC was riparian restoration work on the Dungeness. This was my first exposure to the word “riparian.” He explains that it’s the land ecosystem next to the river which the river might flood into at high water, or which the river might carve a new channel into. River banks, stream banks and floodplains all fit the category.

Riparian areas are extremely important for the health of a river. They act as the intermediary spaces between upland areas and waterways. These areas are important habitat for many plants and animals. Mature trees and under-stories provide shade, creating cool and dark water, used by fish for temperature management and hiding places. Roots systems stabilize the river banks, preventing land erosion. Riparian zones deposit wood debris which serve as habitat in the waters, stabilize river banks, and slow water velocity, lessening the likelihood of destructive flooding.

Heading south, the dyke trail takes a slight right and a large pasture area opens up to our left, the Dungeness Creamery is visible in the distance.

On the right side is a large field. Stokes recently observed a group planting trees in the field.

Halfway through the field we took a trail which cuts off of the main dike trail, connecting to an overgrown historical dike trail. The forest here is starkly thick and mature when contrasting with the wider flood plain that the new dike trail encircles. Stokes confirms that this is a good example of a mature riparian zone.

We quested vaguely toward a waterfront access to the and have been walking under the presumption that there must be a good access nearby, as yells from a raucous party cut through the woods. Then, as we were cut-off by a side channel flowing over the old trail, we noticed a pile of donkey dung. We have been mistaking the braying of donkeys across the main river for a particularly lively party.

Sequim Gazette photo by Elijah Sussman / Calvin Stokes, next to the lower Dungeness River on May 29.

To get to the water, we plunged into the thick brush via trail heads hardly discernible from the inaccessible walls of flora surrounding them. Late afternoon light reflecting from the dense growth causes for an almost emanating green in the air. The first trail yields a view of the river, but it’s not quite enough of an outlet to sit and talk. The next path brought us to a small outcropping that extends onto a wood pile-up in the water.

We sat on the pile and the conversation turns towards the meaning that Stokes finds in his work. For the first years of his work in the river he was pretty consistently wide-eyed, and moved by the experience of being in river environments on a daily basis. For some, hearing about his job might engender fantasies of the beauty that his life must be full of, encountering such pristine nature on a daily basis. Still, after years of daily labor, some of the shine has worn off and this work has become a job.

When I asked him about the daily magic of the work, I expected him to wax poetic with magic in his eyes, but even on the river, work is work.

The romance, like the rough edges of a stone, may have worn away, but as he has smoothed-over, something more sturdy persists in the work.

Sequim Gazette photo by Elijah Sussman / The Dungeness Creamery, viewed from the nearby from the dike trail.

“On the brutally early mornings when it’s raining and I know I’m gonna be soaking wet all day, or all week, at least I can say, ‘This is going to be an epic week because I’m contributing to this old data set.’ Or in other cases, I’m getting samples from fish, or deploying tags in a really meaningful way that biologists from multiple agencies want to follow.”

Stokes was referring to contributing to a spawning ground data set, which goes back to the 1970s.

“My work is contributing to better understanding what’s going on with salmon and steelhead, and that’s all I need, that’s all of the meaning,” he said. “Just so that we might get a better glimpse of what’s going on to cause the decline in fish numbers in the salmon and steelhead returns. That’s what got me into it in the first place.”

The Dungeness River flowing behind us, we turned our conversation to a clear listing of the projects Stokes works on.

Spawning ground surveys with major focuses paid to Steelhead and Fall Coho take up a lot of the week from February to June.

Sequim Gazette photo by Elijah Sussman / Calvin Stokes holds a pineapple weed near the Dungeness River.

Stokes’ favorite project involves netting fish and placing acoustic tags in Steelhead and Bull Trout. This project happens one day a week from February to June. These tags ping receivers located in six different locations from the mouth of the river to the confluence of the Gray Wolf River (a tributary of the Dungeness River) and the Dungeness River. The purpose of this project is to get a sense of how much of the water way these fish are moving through.

Netting also contributes to another project. WDFW maintains data cataloguing which species they net, which gives them a crude species ratio. This allows them to make sense of data gathered by the dual frequency identification sonar in the river. The sonar visualizes fish passing, but does not provide clear visualization to indicate species.

Finally, he leads an environmental DNA sampling project focused on Bull Trout and Dolly Varden. Every year they scoop water, mile by mile of a river, testing for trace amounts of DNA. A few years ago, they tested the Dungeness River. These samples will tell them — with a fair amount of confidence — if a species is upstream of them. This year they will survey the Hoh River. This project means multi-day backpacking trips up the Hoh — a palpably exciting prospect for Stokes.

“Now that I think of it, it’s definitely a seasonal fluctuation,” he said. Stokes has been doing salmon ground surveys almost daily for months now, he’s ready for a shift in pace: “You just walk, stare at gravel, walk, stare at gravel,” he explained.

Stokes reflected with some levity that he is doing what he wants to be doing in his work life. If he didn’t work on rivers as much as he does, he would probably be recreating on them, or just hanging out. He has, as he sees it, become a river person.

Sequim Gazette photo by Elijah Sussman / Calvin Stokes forges through the thick riparian zone near the Dungeness River on May 29.

Birds swirl above our heads as we walk back to the main levee trail. Calvin reaches down and picks a wild growing plant, “Pineapple weed,” he explained. It actually smells like pineapple, and it makes really good tea, by itself or mixed in with other herbs.

As we walked back to our cars Stokes remembered that we haven’t covered the “4 H’s of Salmon Recovery.” Our conversation never got past “habitat” before sweeping out into broader river conversations. Stokes proceeded to give a quick primer of the remaining three.

“Hydropower” is the header for conversations about dam removals. The nearby Elwha River has been a focal point in these conversations. This is not Stokes’ area of expertise, but he wonders if fish populations might be stronger had power companies made more of a priority of making dams passable. Many companies satisfied the law by building hatcheries rather than fish ladders.

We brushed past quickly past ‘harvest’ in observance of our limited time. There is a lot of history and conflict surrounding fishing regulations in the area.

Regarding “hatcheries,” Stokes holds the perspective that hatcheries are troublesome. Still, in the case of the Dungeness River, which has had struggling fish runs for a long time, having its numbers replenished is actually a good thing. This is not to say that it doesn’t come with it’s downsides. Fish from hatcheries provide competition to their natural counterparts, and they carry diseases.

Feeling a touch less ignorant and having a number of new channels for my curiosity to propel me through, Stokes and I parted ways.

Later, we exchanged some texts and observed that we forgot to skip any stones, perhaps a little too on the clock, we would have to follow through and skip some next time.

Elijah Sussman is a Sequim Gazette reporter.