Ballard Locks and Fishies

We went to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Ballard. According to Wikipedia,

The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks are a complex of lock that sit in the middle of Salmon Bay, part of Seattle's Lake Washington Ship Canal... These locks and associated facilities serve three purposes:

• To maintain the water level of the fresh water Lake Washington and Lake Union at 20-22 feet above sea level...
• To prevent the mixing of sea water from Puget Sound with the fresh water of the lakes (altwater intrusion).
• To move boats from the water level of the lakes to the water level of Puget Sound, and vice versa.

Basically no one cares about the first two. Saltwater intrusion. I mean really Army Corp of Engineers. After reading The Good Rain by Timothy Egan I pretty much think you're the devil anyways.
But raising and lowering boats so that they may travel between waterways of differing heights? That's frickin' AWESOME.
This is the view exactly 180 degrees from the preceding pic (standing on a walkway). You can see this difference in the water levels. To raise the boats, operators close the gates at the end of the stall and begin the process of pumping water in or out, depending on which way the boat is traveling. This took about 15 minutes.
Little boat in the lock with the gate closed.
Apparently there are people in this tower who are controlling things and know what's going on.
Locks and dams wreak havoc on salmon migration. These lock had fish ladders and chutes to help the fishies get past the man-made barriers.Underneath the locks in the fish ladder viewing room.
You can see all the different types of salmon that use the fish ladders to get back to the ocean.
At this point I was so starved for animal affection I thought these guys were really cute. Aw, I won't eat you little fish. Swim! Swim back to the sea!
I still have no idea how this thing works. I guess they jump up these?
If you look closely you can see how many fish there are. We even saw a very happy seal swimming around in here, but it was too far away to get good video.

Bonus tugboat!