Chinook salmon, Astoria Oregon circa 1910

In the parlance of the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

of the United States, June hogs were the largest

Chinook salmon The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus ''Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other ve ...

caught in the summer migratory runs of the fish. Often weighing at , and as large as a small person, these enormous salmon were once harvested regularly each summer by

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

peoples, sportfishers, and salmon canneries on the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

and its tributaries, but have now disappeared due to the decline of salmon runs in general; today the largest Chinooks caught in the same runs are half the size. June hogs were said to be a line of ''supersalmon''. These ''supersalmon'' were capable of swimming over up the Columbia River and into

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The name "June hog" derives from the seasonality of the runs and their size. It is said that these Chinook salmon had massive amounts of energy reserves. They also produced large amounts of offspring. Bob Heinith of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission stated that June hogs most likely migrated to the sea as very young fish before the age of one.

References

External links

June hogs
Northwest Power and Conservation Council Salmon History of the Pacific Northwest {{Salmoniformes-stub