The Fish in the Woods

There once was a little fish who did not know how well she could swim. She and her family had a vital job of using their snouts to push pebbles around. They kept the bottom of the stream clear, ensuring deeper channels, helping their river keep flowing. The stream flowed through a wide field and was wide itself, but shallow. She was often told that fast swimmers were lazy wanderers and not to be trusted. But as she grew, the fish started to realize that she hated pushing stones and dreamed of something more.

One day, a traveller came to their little village on the bottom of the stream. He had travelled far and wide, and told tales of land being surrounded by water instead of water being surrounded by land. About impossible depths with no need to clear stones at the bottom - which you could not even reach. Although interesting to listen to, no one took him seriously - except the fish. Enthralled, she worked up the courage to talk to him and ask if the stories were really true.

"They are true," he told her. And he had scars to prove it. A sharp billed bird tried to spear him here. He lost part of his right fin to a monster that seemed to be all teeth while in the depths. And there were other streams, leading deep into other lands surrounded by the depths. He told her that not all fish could travel past the ends of their stream and out into the depths and beyond. It takes a special spirit, and a strong swimmer.

The fish was captivated. Maybe wandering fast swimmers weren't lazy after all. She began swimming as far as she could upstream at night so she could float back home if need be. And she discovered that she was a natural. It was not long before she would drift downstream and swim back by morning. Every night venturing a little further.

She could swim better than other fish who had been swimming the stream for years. Her family and friends all were deeply disappointed that she sometimes slept all day instead of pushing rocks into piles.

One night she swam out a little too far and got swept over a small fall. It was quite an exhilarating rush, but swimming back up that cascade proved to be very difficult. Days passed, with each attempt getting her closer to the top. Food was plentiful in the pool at the bottom of the falls. But she started to lose hope of seeing her family ever again. A school of salmon came through and she was enthralled at how they managed to work their way up the falls. She stared and watched how they did it. And the next day she managed to crest the top and start the trip home.

She rushed home to share her story, but her family wasn’t impressed. They were angry. They scolded the little fish. She had not been there to help push stones. Others had to chip in to do extra work, and everyone was sure she had been eaten by a bear or something. The traveller had left days ago to who knows where. They had found another fish to help with the stone pushing.

The fish had been so excited to tell of her waterfall experience and share what she had learned about what it was like to swim, to really swim. Hoping to inspire a few of them to come along on even more amazing adventures. She just wanted to share the joy of what she had found.

But no one wanted it. A few believed that she believed what had happened, but most thought she was just making stuff up for attention.

So the little fish swam off again to see what adventures awaited her downstream, looking for a place she could fit in and share what she had experienced.

She crossed seas, climbed more waterfalls, and explored depths no river fish had ever seen. She even figured out how to jump out of the water and glide for a few seconds like a flying fish! And all of her skills were self-taught.

She ended up swimming all the way up a stream on the other side of the deep to the spring where it bubbled out of the earth, and found herself in a forest. She was amazed at the trees, how they went up, up, up in directions unimaginable to the fish thus far in her travels.

She managed to flop out of the water with her flying fish stunt, landing on the first little twig of the nearest tree. With effort, she did another flip with style and got herself up onto a second, higher branch. She called out with a loud voice of elation – “Wow, look at me, I can climb!”

The other denizens of the forest just looked at the little fish. Some laughed, others ignored her. An eagle took time to explain to the fish that she was only eight inches off the ground. That was hardly something worth celebrating or shouting about. The trees were vastly higher and no one was going to celebrate climbing a few tiny twigs at the base of a tree.

Flopping back to the spring, the little fish did not know what to do. She was tired. She felt empty. So she settled in near the bottom of the spring.

Just as the forest faced its driest season in decades, a wildfire sparked along the northern slopes. Panic spread. The animals who usually responded to such threats struggled to reach the blaze in time, and the stream that once fed the northern trees had long since dried up.

But the little fish, who had swum across oceans, leapt waterfalls, and even tried climbing trees, remembered a hidden spring that branched off downstream—one she’d discovered long ago on her way here. Maybe a fish can't climb trees, but she could certainly swim. She swam with urgency, nearly back out to the bay, and then up another stream, passing through an underground spring and coming out in a lake at the top of an overlook on the northern slopes. Here she could see the fire below, along a dried up riverbed. She tried carrying small mouthfuls of water, spitting them over the escarpment—but it was not enough to matter.

She then noticed that there once had been a waterfall that used to spill down in the direction of what was now on fire. She started pushing aside rocks like she’d once been taught to do, and cleared a path for a tiny trickle to flow over the edge. If only she could get this open, the river might put this fire out!

She was seen by the eagle who had mocked her when she had tried to climb. The eagle was impressed with the little fish's tenacity. "So you think you can open the falls all by yourself?" the eagle asked. "No," said the little fish. But I will do what I can to try. Honestly what I need is help. You see, we can't all swim or climb a tree, but we are all good at something if we try. I think that together we can make a difference."

So together they called to other animals. The fish didn’t ask others to swim. She asked them to do what they did best.

The beavers built channels. The badgers dug trenches. The birds helped lift reeds and twigs out of the way. Together, they redirected the trickles until they became a stream, and then a torrent over newly reopened falls – at first slowing and then extinguishing the blaze.

In the end, it wasn’t just that the little fish could swim. It was that she’d traveled far enough to discover an unseen spring, remembered how to move rocks, and inspired others to join in. She didn’t save the forest alone. But without the fish, the forest would have had no map, no spring, and no hope.

They renamed the woods the Fish Forest, not only for the alliteration, but also in honor of the finned climber who swam in and saved the day.