Gordon and Terri Southwick
Garibaldi, Ore. Retired It Manager; Retired Teacher's Aide

The Southwicks had just retired 13 years ago when they responded to a newspaper ad about an anglers' club seeking volunteers to help with a fish hatchery. After the club dissipated and no one was left to run the project, the couple decided to do it themselves. Last year, the number of fish to pass through their gravity-fed runs—which Gordon constructed with donated lumber—surpassed 1 million.

Gordon: There are five rivers leading into Tillamook Bay, which historically has produced some of the largest chinook salmon on the whole coast. That's what we raise. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife provides the eggs—we usually get around 100,000 each year.

Terri: It's something that's real important to us because we fish. I was raised hunting and fishing, and we raised our own kids the same way. My worst day outside is better than my best day indoors, so I just really enjoy doing this. It's our way of putting something back.

G: We're not out here to replace our natural runs. We want native fish. We want wild fish. It'd be nice if we had enough big runs so that we could shut down hatcheries altogether. But our wild salmon stocks have been declining for years, and it's necessary to do this to maintain a certain level.

T: The process goes on for about two and a half months, during which we have to keep the silt off of the eggs and also cull any bad ones. It's important that we get up here at least every other day. We're a good team. When we hit the 1-million marker, I couldn't believe it. I thought, You mean we've really done this?

G: We release them in the main stem of the Miami River. It's amazing—you release them when they're an inch and a half long, they travel all that way and come back and they're 30, 40 inches. We don't really know how many come back. People ask us: How come you're doing this when you don't get that big of a return? I say, look, if we only get one spawning pair, then it's worth it.

—As told to Tom Tiberio