How many adult salmon have you actually seen in Grandon Creek?
For most people who walk that ravine between Crescent Road and Hoylake Road, the honest answer is very few, and that matters more than usual this fall. The trail closed on October 13 and stays closed until November 20, which covers the weeks when coho return to Qualicum Beach's creeks. Missing the run sounds like the cost of the closure. The local fish volunteers describe a run you would have had trouble seeing even with the gate open. The fish that do put on a visible show this time of year are up the road at the Big Qualicum Hatchery.
The closure runs seven days a week
PQB News reported the Town's notice on October 11. Crews are scheduled to work Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., from October 13 to November 20, and the trail is closed for the full length of the project. The work hours are weekdays only. The closure covers weekends and evenings too, so a Saturday morning loop through the ravine is off the table until late November.
The Town's notice of work, dated October 9, gives the rest of the details:
- The work falls under the Town's Trail Improvement project and "will address environmental concerns, long term sustainability and public safety of the Grandon Creek Trail network."
- This is phase one of three planned for the trail between Hoylake Road and Crescent Road.
- The prime contractor is Trail Holistics.
- The notice expected "minimum impact" on Crescent Road traffic on October 13, the first day of work.
The notice doesn't describe what phase one will build or what it costs, and it gives no dates for phases two and three. For now, the Town's own three goals are the clearest account of the purpose.
A small ravine with decades of salmon work in it
To see why the Town would name "environmental concerns" first, look at how much work has already gone into this creek.
In 1999, the Town and the Qualicum Beach Streamkeepers put in an enclosed concrete-caisson fishway, roughly 80 metres long, so salmon and trout could get back into the stretch of creek the trail follows. Further downstream there are concrete fish ladders below Highway 19A and about 85 metres of culvert between Highway 19A and Crescent Road that has been opened back up to daylight. Both are listed as fish-passage improvements in a 2024–25 stream mapping report by Astraea Consulting and the Qualicum Beach Streamkeepers.
That report, dated September 15, 2025, gives the most recent picture of the ravine. Surveyors found:
| What the 2024–25 survey recorded | Where |
|---|---|
| Many private and public stormwater pipes crossing the steep ravine banks | Between Crescent Road and Hoylake Road |
| Invasive plants spreading downhill | The ravine slopes |
| Pools, large woody debris and spawning gravel placed by the Town and Streamkeepers | Inside the park |
| Coho fry, observed in February 2025 | Upstream of Hoylake Road |
| No fish barriers observed | The main creek through the park |
The pipes and steep banks are on the same Crescent-to-Hoylake stretch the three-phase trail plan covers. That shows how tight the ravine is. Nothing in the reports connects the 2026 work to any particular finding.
A 2015 stream survey adds some history. That June, surveyors found juvenile trout and coho in every pool they checked along the trail section, and the fishway seemed to be letting fish migrate up from the ocean each year. The same survey describes a stormwater-channel landslide in the winter of 2014/15 that sent sediment into the pools, which the Town and Streamkeepers cleaned out in July 2015. Those are conditions from a decade ago, not a description of the creek today.
Why you were unlikely to see the run anyway
The Qualicum Beach Streamkeepers survey fish numbers and species in Grandon and Beach creeks every year. On their website, they explain why walkers so rarely spot adult salmon:
"The fish can be hard to see…the coho which are the primary species enter the streams in November at times of rain, dark and high water, so it is rare to identify adult salmon."
So the coho come back during the darkest, wettest stretch of the year, and on the heavy-rain nights that bring them in, the water is high and murky. The run falls inside this year's closure window, but at its peak the creek would have been mostly brown water and drizzle.
The same page explains what the creek is really doing the rest of the year. Coho spend two years in the stream as juveniles, growing to about 180 mm, and they are "adept at hiding under logs and other cover to avoid predation." Based on the group's surveys, there are "hundreds if not thousands of wild fish in each stream." Grandon Creek's salmon live there all year, out of sight under the woody debris volunteers placed in the park.
Where the salmon are visible right now
The Big Qualicum Hatchery, run by Fisheries and Oceans Canada at 215 Fisheries Road, has a viewing area where you can watch fish at eye level. It also has a display room with a topographical model of the Big Qualicum project, washrooms and a picnic site. The hatchery is open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, and you can walk the trails nearby any time. DFO asks visitors to drive in by River Road, a gravel road off Horne Lake Road, and not to park on Qualicum First Nation property, where cars may be towed.
Here is DFO's timing for adult salmon, set against the weeks of the Grandon closure:
| Species | DFO viewing window at Big Qualicum | Overlap with Oct. 13–Nov. 20 closure |
|---|---|---|
| Chinook | Mid-August to mid-October | Ending as the closure began |
| Coho | October to December, egg-takes mid-November | Runs through the whole closure |
| Chum | November | Inside the closure |
DFO says the best viewing is in the first two weeks of October, so by now the peak has passed. Coho and chum still keep the river busy into November, and all egg-takes happen during weekday business hours. A weekday visit in mid-November lines up with the coho egg-take, and that is also when Grandon's own coho are slipping upstream out of sight.
The Regional District of Nanaimo's Big Qualicum River Regional Trail starts at the hatchery and follows a 10-kilometre gravel service road under riverside trees. The RDN lists it as a salmon-viewing route. Of all the options, it comes closest to replacing a creekside walk in the woods.
A second hatchery is further along. The Times Colonist described a five-kilometre loop starting at the Little Qualicum River Hatchery, about 12 kilometres past Qualicum Beach, with underground viewing and side trails. The paper put viewing there from mid-September to mid-November, with chinook in October and November and chum and coho in November and December. Runs shift from year to year, so check the timing before you go.
Closer-to-home walks until November 20
If you just want to keep your usual walking routine in town, these routes are the nearest stand-ins. None of the Town or regional pages we used mentions a fall closure for them:
- Heritage Forest. The Town describes its trails as winding through ancient Douglas firs, which makes it the closest match to Grandon's shaded ravine.
- Rodway Trail. Finished in 2022, it climbs a steep embankment between Arbutus Street and Highway 19A on graded paths and engineered stairs, connecting west Qualicum Beach to the waterfront. If you count Grandon's hills as part of the workout, this is your best substitute.
- Seaside Nature Park. At the west end of the waterfront, it has an elevated, covered viewing pavilion with a 180-degree view, plus native-plant interpretation, and the Streamkeepers volunteer there. The roof is handy in November rain.
- The waterfront promenade. It's paved, runs past more than four kilometres of beach, and has parking. The viewing platform sits at the Memorial Roundabout.
- Little Qualicum River Regional Park at 1240 Corcan Road. It sits downstream of the falls, with rough trails down to the river and a developed trail from Meadowood Way that connects to the falls park.
- Little Qualicum Falls Park. BC Parks lists six kilometres of shaded riverside trails through old- and second-growth forest, including a day-use loop to the upper and lower falls. The gate is open year-round, and the day-use area is 19 kilometres west of Parksville on Highway 4.
If you usually walk Grandon from the Crescent Road end, Memorial Avenue gives you a reason to change your route in early November. The Rotary Club of Qualicum Beach's Field of Crosses goes up on Memorial Avenue by the train tracks, across from the Curling Rink, from November 2 to 11. It opens at 11 a.m. on Monday, November 2, and the candle lighting is at sunset, 5:30 p.m., on November 10. The display wraps up more than a week before the closure's scheduled end.
The Town's notice schedules the closure through Friday, November 20. By then, Grandon's coho will have come in on the storms the Streamkeepers describe, and the trail will be open again for the rest of their two years in the creek.
If someone you know is moving to Qualicum Beach and wants to know which trails, hatcheries and Remembrance Day traditions are close to home, Stevie Cauvier can work that into a Home Hunting Trip, in person or virtual. Start your move by booking a Home Hunting Trip with Stevie today.
