This text was written between 7th and 11th May 2024 as a group of artists and scientists followed salmon down the River Spey in Scotland.

1. Nursery

First activity
Moments of vitality
Possible futures

We are at Ballintean Mountain Lodge in the Cairngorms. An interdisciplinary collective, comprised of scientists, artists and artist-scientists, working together for the first time. For the next four days we will follow salmon as they make their first careful movements away from the redds – the matrix of eggs and gravel, where they have spent the winter. In these nurturing waters, the fry sense their environment from a place of stony sanctuary: moving up through the sediment as they seek the light. And, as the water warms in the springtime sunshine, they begin to tentatively look around, seek out new territories, and interact with their neighbours.

2. Refuge

The changing strata
Enclaves of time, for dwelling
Necessary space

The lodge and its grounds are immaculate. It takes time to bed in – to feel comfortable enough to sink into the upholstered sofas to sink into the deep, cold water and find space to hide. There is an alternative sense of time and place here: that which Michel Foucault called a heterotopia – a place, other. Other than the habitual routines of everyday life. How can we use this space? As we moved down the River Feshie, we encountered a radical shift in the waterway: from wide and dynamic to deep and constrained. This location is important for returning salmon. There is less of a surface for the sun to heat the water, so large, tired fish can wait down in the dark and the cold. Waiting for the right time to resume their homeward journey.

3. Holding Bays

Risky strategy
Suddenly changed behaviour
With no reference points

After an evening of introductions and exchanges, after a day or two of acclimatising and absorbing, there is a shift in our activity. I ask the group to create a response to the site or the salmon or the story-so-far. This feels like a different way of working, which is at once a small thing – a simple thing – but also a journey into unknown territories without the same way-markers or signposts. Loch Insh is small and poses fewer challenges than larger bodies of water. Nevertheless, in these places of pike and perch and trout, the newly silvered smolts are vulnerable. They will find safety in numbers, and shoaling behaviour begins. Weaving together experiences, movements, senses, words, ideas, hopes. We might get somewhere like this.

4. Flow

Real sense of movement
Just let the journey take place
And stop holding on

We are on our way now. Sometimes, we will be moved along in fast sections. There will be waterfalls, dams. They don’t turn and actively swim: they let the water take them. Sometimes, the river will move slower, and we will push on. What will that effort cost us? And along the way, we smolts – cryptic critters – will never stop feeding. Ingesting everything that we encounter as this flow moves us on. On towards wider, wilder waters. On towards salty seas. We will grow fat. We will travel vast distances. We will live through all this, only if we are very, very lucky. And then, one day, we will turn. And we will return. Over and over for as long as you will allow.

5. The Beat

Onto the highway
Something of a rhythm now
Nocturnal drifters

We are in a drastically different environment today. Moving downstream at varying paces, just as others (who are further on in their journeys) pass us, going the other way. Is there any interaction between the wee smolts and the sea-hardened veterans? A passing glance, perhaps? At this point in the river, the banks are fixed and manicured. Anglers’ nets hang at intervals; well-stocked huts for high-price spots. But this is not management of the waterway. It is riparian gardening. A little further up, where the water runs a little faster, unruly flora cling to natural islets and the pathway needs greater care and surer foot. Smolts and brown trout jostle for position, snatching the stonefly from the space between the elements.

6. Detour

A cul-de-sac turn
This can only go so far
Fall back to go on

Turning away from the Spey, we follow a new path as it winds through riverwoods to the falls. Here, the salmon drop back to spawn. They might make the initial leap, if they cared to attempt it. But the second would outdo them. Better to recognise the limits of our ambitions. Salmon have been known to travel miles, only to rethink, retreat – even past the salt wedge – to try another route. No point putting good money after bad. And after all this, if there is somewhere else that we want to go on to, something else that we want to achieve, then it might be helpful to remember that there are other ways to get there. There are other routes to take.

7. Estuary

Productive places
For those who survived this far
Silvery speed run

As they approach this threshold, up to 40% are lost. Three of our group have travelled south by the time we reach Spey Bay. An ecotone – a meeting point between two ecosystems – represented by the wedge of salt water that cuts underneath the fresh. As the winds and tides churn away, one world collapses into the other. The confident hold of the osprey, the oily squeak of the terns, the ostentatious landing of the swans. The smolts wait for the right time – the night time – to become post smolts. And they make a break for it, riding the ebbing tide and escaping their riverworld. Where will this trajectory take us?

8. Sea

A shift in scale, now
On past continental shelf
Futures possible

Actively swimming. Seeking deeper worlds and distant feeding grounds. Somewhere in the south Norwegian sea, at the edge of the shelf, others join the journey. From green to blue, Britain to Greenland. What are the reference points when we can only look out and imagine? How do we find our way? Currents affording speed and suggesting direction; river water slowly giving way to salinity; depth; magnetism. These piscine psychogeographers can follow flow. Can we flow with them?

May 14, 2024

Waterways was conceived as a group of artists and scientists interested in the interconnected and entangled existence of various species. Our starting point was the Atlantic salmon, described by Dr Colin Bull as ‘in crisis’ due to multiple factors including deterioration of its habitat, warming waters, and risks of predators in both river and marine environments. The salmon as both fish and cultural symbol is key to many Scottish communities and Waterways initial residency sought to try to understand this through focusing on specific parts of the journey, the River Feshie and River Spey then on to Spey Bay on the North East coast of Scotland. Initial questions included: How can we foster interdisciplinary approaches to salmon conservation? How can creative methods respond to migratory journeys, tracing, tracking and as far as possible, travelling with wild salmon? In order to understand these questions we looked to the salmon life cycle, and to the salmon themselves. What were the stories of the salmon? How could we understand them through their connection to place and their epic journey?

 

It’s a story of:

birth
growth
resilience
change
shapeshifting
leaping
return

In the fastmoving flow of the River Feshie, islands of stones crafted by trees puncture the water.

It’s a story of:

behaviour
physiology
environment
ecology
hormones
chemicals
instinct

Light and oxygen, sand, algae, a moving environment, dynamic, the gravel provides a trap, a home, a refuge, a nest. Sight of the first salmon, an inch in length.

It’s a story of:

stones
redds
gravel
freshwater
seawater
shallows
depths

In and out the gravel, up and down the stream, camouflaged, they move in the nighttime.

It’s a story of:

stillness
standing
darting
swimming
drifting
falling
leaping

A deep crevasse between two walls of rock, they hide in the depths, at the bottom, the bedrock.

It’s a story of:

stonefly
beavers
mayfly
kingfishers
herons
osprey
freshwater pearl mussels

When they are bigger, they are more vulnerable, more likely to be found, there is safety in this zone.

It’s a story of:

Autumn
Winter
Spring
Summer
Autumns
Winters
Springs

The grassy tufts are trying to become the gravel shelves, the eggs are trying to become alevin, the alevin are trying to become parr, the parr are trying to become smolt, the smolts are trying to become adults, the adults are trying to spawn. Resistance and surrender, becoming and unbecoming under the water, unseen.

It’s a story of:

precarity
scarcity
crisis
barriers
predators
warming
demise

Some drop down into the main river. There is a coastal stream of food into this new environment, new reference points, new risks. Smoltification begins, silvering fish group together, there is safety in numbers.

It’s a body of:

scales
otolith
adipose
dorsal
pectoral
swim bladder
ovaries

Losing the ability to hold their station, losing the will, dropping back, drifting then dropping down down down the falls.

It’s the colour of:

silver
white
pink
green
grey
brown
salmon

It happens at nighttime, got to try to find a way out, fast moving river, complex currents, drawing on an inner compass.

It’s a symbol of:

passage
abundance
resilience
homecoming
tenacity
fertility
renewal

A tiny fin called the adipose, a minuscule fat store, no structure, clipped off as its function was unknown. A longing, a loss.

It’s a map of:

a journey
migration
landscapes
rivers
seas
scent
a lifecycle

The smell of water, the otolith, an olfactory map, heightened sense, thyroid throbbing. The Insh is calling, cross the fleshy bridge.

It’s a story of:

stillness
standing
swimming
drifting
dropping
falling
leaping

Barriers, hydrodams, track and truck means losing the thread of the smell. How to remember where you have not been? How to trace scent where you have not travelled? Working to find a way out, tail first into the white foam.

It’s a story of:

eggs
alevin
fry
parr
smolt
adult
spawning

At the coast they stop feeding, stomach’s empty, but body memory remains. The stress of the mother seeps into her eggs, her trauma their legacy.

It’s a story of:

birth
growth
resilience
change
shapeshifting
leaping
return

May 14, 2024

Waterways, 7-11 May 2024, Emma’s journal

Upper catchment: River Feshie (Spey tributary) & Loch Insh

Day 1. I wake early and run with Colin down the river to Feshiebridge. After breakfast, we walk down through blackthorn and birch to the braided channels and shingle of the River Feshie. Laura leads an “orientation exercise”, something unfamiliar to me – eyes closed, moving and stretching the body, grounding the feet, awareness of sounds, smells, sensations – that leaves me feeling vulnerable and awkward. I wonder how the others feel and where this discomfort comes from. I focus on the feeling of airflow around my hand and wonder if water flow feels similar over the skin of salmon parr holding station against the river current. The fry and parr face into the current, beating their fast little lives against it. When they smolt, they cede the battle, turn and face downstream, drift and swim. This image strikes deep; it is painful to consider the possibility of turn and release from the struggle to be enough.

We discuss the early life stages of the salmon and explore the shingle, side pools and river. We scoop with a net and turn pebbles to uncover stonefly, mayfly, beetles. I find a dried-out log with a salmon’s hooked jaw. I try to just be and feel but can’t escape the urge to catalogue, to name and list the wildlife, the sensations. [sand martins, dipper, pied wagtail, crow, buzzard]

We walk on to Feshiebridge with its deep pools for adult salmon to sink into. [orange tip butterfly, newt]

After lunch we go to Loch Insch. Salmon entering this wide loch must find their way out through the narrow exit at Kincraig. A kilometre further down is where the Feshie flows into the Spey. [osprey on nest, goldeneye, mallard, sandpiper, greylag geese, crow, buzzard, pigeon, wigeon, orange tip butterfly, peacock butterfly] How do they find their way out? How do they know when and how to smolt? In a way, they reinvent anew with every generation what it means to be salmon because they don’t have a cultural map. They find their way in the way that feels right. We have expectations of our future through knowledge imparted to us by others who have already gone this way. Salmon experience expectation in a totally different way, through urges and instinct. Does this mean they are freer and more adaptable than humans? Do they have a greater capacity for reimagining? Unguided but also unconstrained and unburdened by social knowledge and expectations? What does this mean for us, now, when we have to reimagine how to be human in a world whose ecological integrity is starting to unravel?

In the evening, we share our thoughts and words from the day. This is again uncomfortable, and I wonder how much of myself I have hidden that this feels so exposing.

Day 2. Again I run to Feshiebridge, being happy to stay by the river rather than seek out a new route. The river is silver and the fringing birch trees luminous in the early morning light. I startle a hare drinking at a shallow pool. I want to run fast but the narrow, foot-worn path forces me into an awkward gait. I briefly wonder if the rewilded future will contain any smooth ways. I move off the track and realise the grassy overgrowth itself better holds my feet.

[cuckoo, willow warbler, siskin, chaffinch, crow, song thrush]

Middle course: Aberlour

Day 3. I dream vividly and wake to the dawn chorus, needing more sleep but reluctant to shut the window. I walk to the Feshie and enjoy the colours in the early morning light but don’t scramble down the bank to peer into the water or lift stones.

After breakfast we go to Aberlour where the Spey has become something very different – wide, manicured and very appealing to anglers. Down at the river, we speak about angling, catch and release, knotless nets, the ambiguous status of trout, river gardening and the constrained flow. I feel detached – from the river, from the day. We discuss climate change, warming rivers, smolt run phenology and the potential uncoupling of evolved migration cues from encountered marine conditions. [crows, jackdaw, yellow wagtail, magpie, mallards]

We walk upstream to the suspension bring and watch a rotating dance of anglers. Someone asks, why do they fish for salmon? I am struck by this ubiquitous question of the outsider, that can only be asked of anything by someone from a nonintersecting world, and wonder how the anglers themselves would respond. They aren’t detached. They have quite literal lines of communication with the river, with the salmon.

We trail through wild garlic scented woodland to a rocky perch above the river and watch the dark swirling surface. I enjoy the shedding of tiny eddies from larger ones. Fish keep surfacing with a plop but are gone by the time to turn to look and I don’t stare at any one patch of water long enough to see them. Matthew does, and sees several; he also films underwater. In scientific observation, how do we know when we’ve watched for long enough?

I feel like I can’t find a way in, to the river, to the salmon, to the day. Detached. Is this why people fish, to pluck the unknowable out of the darkness and force it to “shake hands” with us, confront, see and know us? Is this why we are uncomfortable with rewilding? The new wilderness might give nonhumans too many places to elude us. The water feels impenetrable compared with the clear shallows of yesterday’s Feshie where we could see fully to the bottom, turn stones and glimpse the inhabitants. If we can’t find a way in, a way of seeing in, do we believe there’s anything there, do we care?

I watch sandpipers. One, pipping, zips a straight line upstream. Three, pipping more so, chase each other in zigzags. They don’t seem to want a way in. (I later look up how sandpipers feed: they hunt prickly bugs by sight on the ground or in shallow water, so indeed they don’t need a way into the deeper water.)

Sitting at the edge of conversation, I hear warblers on the opposite bank. Unsure which, I ask BirdNet, a machine learning bird song recognition app. Black cap, it tells me, then wavers – Whitethroat? These birds sound very different. Has the incursion of even gentle respectful human voices into the recording made the song cryptic to BirdNet, or is the whitethroat there too and cryptic to me? I am restless to move on and find some attachment to this day.

[sandpipers, red kite, magpie, yellow wagtail, black cap]

We walk up the Burn of Aberlour to waterfalls. Salmon come this way but may not make it up the highest fall. Marie and I discuss the definition and etymology of the word “matrix” and I feel the need to understand how the mathematical definition fits in. My research involves finding a salmon post-smolt’s path through n-dimensional matrices of biophysical ocean model data. I wonder what questions an artist would ask of my data.

I want to swim but feel awkward and settle for dangling my feet in the peaty water, enjoying the different textures (turbulent, laminar, bubbly, still) on my toes. The cold water is refreshing but still doesn’t connect me to the day.

Laura and I wonder what the human equivalents are of salmon’s unlearnt knowledge (instincts, gut feelings, innate responses). Are we such a social species that we’ve lost all our useful instincts, downloaded them to the cultural cannon? (I think about cultures and yoghurt cultures and how cultured things are easier to digest).

I think about how our salmon population “box” models map onto this multifaceted riverine landscape. They seem such an inadequate representation. Our smooth-sided boxes leave nowhere for the salmon to hide. Lack of complexity hinders accurate representation of processes, e.g. coexistence theory. We need to recognise the right level of complexity – the number of niches or modes of being that the landscape wants to split into, the number of boxes needed to catch the salmon. Rewilding is about allowing mess and complexity.

River mouth: Spey Bay

Day 4. On the last day at Ballintean we head outside to trace, draw and map. I trace the surroundings of Ballintean from the OS map – braided river, roads, forest – and add all our wildlife observations.

We spend a beautiful couple of hours back at the braided Feshie. (Is this the Feshie, or is that the Feshie? It’s all the Feshie.) I enjoy eddy dimples shedding off an exposed boulder and fish tail-like hazy green fronds flicking in the flow. All that complex motion – eddying surface, undulating weed fronds, river riffles – is mesmerising and satisfying. Today I am connected. There’s a small salmonid, impossible to say whether salmon or trout, nestled against its Favourite Rock. It’s still but with fast beating gills. How long will it patiently stay there and is it aware of being observed?

We drive off down the Spey. Satnav tries to persuade us to divert but we stick with the Speyside road for our journey to the river mouth. Spey Bay is at its finest in the sunshine. We wander up to the Garmouth viaduct, usually so magical, but it feels like we are all dragging our heels and yearning for the sea – we are heading in the wrong direction. We turn round and go out onto the shingle. Neil and I wonder what processes made and maintain this massive shingle bed; I suspect a combination of relict and active. We all feel this site is a world of danger for the smolts. How can they rush past all the hazards, like the fleet of sawbill ducks currently lurking in the river mouth, for their shot at marine life? When they smolt, are they aware of the dangers ahead?

[terns, osprey, eider, diver, greater black backed gulls, other gulls, a fleet of mergansers in the river mouth, small flitty waders, crows, orange tip butterflies]

Day 5. We meet again at Spey Bay, me with family in tow. We sit looking out at the narrow river mouth and wide sea and try to imagine the post-smolts’ ongoing journey – migration paths, cues, salinity gradients, shelf and shelf edge and beyond. The complexity and completeness of Spey Bay’s multifaceted environment, of our journey, are satisfying. And yet the journey is unfinished. How do we follow the salmon further?

As we leave Spey Bay, I realise that today I am attached and calm in a slow unphilosophical way. Later, I think about how the journey and life stages of the salmon are so varied in pace. Metabolism doesn’t always match with their pace of life. Eggs. Slow swelling, oxygen washed, stuck patient. Fry. Fast beating, rock attached. Parr. Station-holding, current-facing. Smolts. River racing, danger evading, urgent travelling. Post-smolts. Release seeking, frantic bursting out into salt water.

May 14, 2024