After visiting the Farmers Market Kitchen in the morning, which coincidentally was also about salmon, I head to the Pink Salmon Festival at Hadden/Vanier Park. This festival is held only every two years which coincides with the life cycle of the Pink salmon! Having been to the festival previously, I knew what to expect: lots of delicious salmon!








Chefs from Vista 18 (on top of the beans), Fish Counter(with the sauce on top) and Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts (the darker one) prepared Pink Salmon in three different ways for us. All this deliciousness by donation! So yummy! I liked the Fish Counter one the best but they all were good!

This is a Pink salmon. It can be identified by the spots on a solid gray tail, small scales and tiny teeth. They have a two year life span and return to their birth stream to spawn at the end. They are more hardy than other salmon so if their stream is disturbed they are more likely to be able to relocate elsewhere.

A giant salmon queen was walking..er...swimming around the site much to everyone's delight!

The Stream of Dreams Mural Society was there showing off some of the hand painted salmon art done by children! I've seen these before and I think it's a great idea! The society teaches kids about taking care of our lakes, rivers and oceans and how all storm drains lead to fish habitat.


Raffle tickets were being sold with proceeds going to the Pacific Salmon Foundation, the non-profit organization that is responsible for this festival.


The festival is very kid friendly. There's lots of activities for them like story time in this big fish tent!

They also get to dress up for it!






It was an amazing day and though there were many people who turned up for the festival, it wasn't as busy as the last time I went. Stanley Park's 125th Anniversary celebration was happening the same time so that may account for the low turnout this year. At the end of the day, they had plenty of left over salmon and festival organizers donated them to Union Gospel Mission - 650 pounds of Pinks!

I had a great time and am looking forward to going again in 2015!