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Freshwater continues to be toxic to Pacific salmon once they have left for the ocean. It’s a once in a lifetime transition as they mature and become a saltwater (or as we say on the west coast ‘saltchuck’) species.
When they return to the river of their hatching, they stop eating and die after spawning.
Atlantic salmon can make the transition more than once and survive from what I understand.
As someone who lives and raised children in a province that still has a constitutional requirement for both publicly funded ‘public/district’ and ‘Catholic’ schools, the legacy of these attitudes is a very live thing a half a millennium after the Protestant Reformation in Europe and the UK.
This separation of schools — originally Protostent vs Catholic — dates back before American Revolution, and its continued presence in our constitution can be viewed as a reaction to the American Revolution.
The Canadian Constitution actually continues to provide for a system of ‘separate’ Roman Catholic’ schools that must be publicly funded in Ontario.
This was to protect the rights of the Roman Catholic minority in Canada. It’s a direct result of the 1774 Quebec Act, which removed the Protestant faith from the oath of allegiance, protected the rights of Roman Catholics and permitted tithes among other things that the Thirteen Colonies opposed.
Which when coupled by the other constitutional requirement for both French and English schools where numbers warrant, means that in much of the province there are four publicly funded school boards providing JK to 12 education: English-Public, English-Catholic, French-Public, French-Catholic. Add to that French immersion options in the English schools, the result was that the kids on our block attended five different publicly funded schools.
Other provinces with the same constitutional requirement for publicly funded Catholic schools - Newfoundland and Quebec - have chosen to amend the constitution to remove the religion-based distinction in publicly funded schools and have replaced it with a clear provision for linguistic school boards.
Ontario, which is Canada’s most populous province, has had very strong political resistance to amending this provision of the constitution.
Aren’t basic swimming and water safety part of the national curriculum in the United States? If not, why not?
While six lessons in grade four doesn’t get a child very far, it does teach some basic floating and drownproofing and water safety rules. It also pushes municipalities to ensure there are public pools available where schools can bring kids for the basic program.
Both where I grew up in British Columbia many years ago and where we raised our kids in Ontario, grade four swimming lessons were standard in public schools. For some kids, it was the first time they were in pools larger than the public wading pools in local parks.