Saving Canada's wild salmon: rescuers pin hopes on fish ladder and salmon cannon

Already threatened with extinction, Wild Pacific salmon about to spawn in British Columbia are facing an uphill battle in the aftermath of a landslide

When Gord Sterritt walked to the dusty edge of a cliff in western Canada last summer, he saw a disaster unfolding in the frothy waters below. In December 2018, a natural landslide had caused large chunks of rock to fall from the steep canyon walls that hem in the northern sections of British Columbia's Fraser River.

The crashing boulders - 75,000 cubic metres of rock - created an impassable barrier. But because of the remote location, the damage wasn't discovered until the following June: just as millions of wild Pacific salmon were beginning to spawn up the river.