Salmon Hatchery gift shop opens for the season
Published 9:47 am Wednesday, September 3, 2014
The Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery opened their gift shop, The FISHop, on Saturday to coincide with the return of salmon to Issaquah Creek, according to a press release from the organization.
The shop, which has sold salmon-related merchandise on the site of the hatchery for the past three years, will be open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends through mid-November.
New items have been added into the shop’s inventory for the 2014 salmon season, including salmon-shaped oven mitts and bone necklaces.
The Friends are a volunteer and membership nonprofit dedicated to preserving the historic Hatchery. They operate educational programs to educate the community about the salmon life cycle and encourage stewardship of the Puget Sound watershed.
The Hatchery, on West Sunset Way, was built in 1936 as a project of the New Deal era Works Progress Administration. It was created to restore salmon runs that had once thrived in Issaquah Creek before logging and coal mining choked the pathways. Fish stock from the Green River allowed for the raising of chinook, coho, steelhead and (according to historical records) sockeye salmon. Today, only coho and chinook are raised in the hatchery — Lake Washington kokanee may be bred there in the future.
