Rod MacVicar

My hero is Rod MacVicar. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. I chose him for many reasons. He has lots of jobs in his life like a teacher, sea boat captain and oceanographer. Now he is showing kids how important salmon are and how our ocean and streams are important. I hope you get lots of information and reasons that he is important to our community and how much it shows he is a true hero. Hope you enjoy it.

It all started in 1976-1977. It started out when he looked outside and he saw a creek but no fish. So he tried to find out why there was no fish. He found out that all of them were taken by people in the community. Back when Rod was still a teacher, he and another teacher, Ruth Foster, opened a hatchery for kids and families to come and see and learn why salmon and the environment is important. For 30 years he has been going at least twice a week to check on the hatchery. He goes out in the day or night on his boat in the cold away from home just to see if everything is all right.

I was very lucky to meet Rod MacVicar and go to his marine learning lab in his boat! When I met him I asked many questions like "why do you do this job?" or "why did you start?" I realized that most of questions were answered when I looked outside and at the beautiful, crystal ocean. Rod is very nice and kind. He took me on a boat and took out a net that had a filter in it. He dropped the net in the water for a while then we took it out. We poured the water into a glass, then we looked and we saw hundreds of comb jellies and moon jellies. When we went back to the marine centre, he took out a net that had crabs, starfish, and mini tiger shrimp. The point really was that there are lots of creatures under the crystal clear water that are living. If people knew that, then people would maybe care and understand that there are creatures under the ocean that should be protected.

It was great to able to meet and have all these amazing experiences with him. He is my hero because of his actions that he took for the community, what he did for the sea creatures in the ocean and rivers, and how he gave his time to teach us about the ocean and animals that are around the community. He has inspired me to care more about the community and the environments as well. Always remember Rod's words: "You only care about what you know about". Hope you learn a lot from this experience and I hope you care about the community a little more than before and actually spend more time caring about where you live.