The Sullivan Creek National Fish Hatchery, a substation of the Pendills Creek National Fish Hatchery, is situated in the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, approximately 30 miles west of Sault Ste. Marie, in the middle of the Hiawatha National Forest. Originally built in 1933 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the hatchery provided several trout species to nearby forest streams. The hatchery was shut down in 1946 due to a shortage of appropriations and manpower during World War II. In 1959, the sight became a substation of the newly built Pendills Creek National Fish Hatchery, was given a complete renovation, and began producing lake trout to be stocked into Lake Superior.

Brookstock Building

In 1994, the hatchery turned to lake trout broodstock and has since been a provider of disease free lake trout eggs for the Great Lakes Lake Trout Restoration Program.   Today, the Sullivan Creek Hatchery is home to approximately 12,000 lake trout broodstock which produce nearly 5 million eggs annually. Broodstock are fish that Water hardening and disinfecting laker eggs in buckets are kept at a hatchery for their entire lives. The lake trout broodstock at Sullivan Creek produce eggs that become the production fish which are stocked into Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Currently there are five strains of lake trout at Sullivan Creek, which include Seneca Lake’s, Lewis Lake’s, Superior Klondike’s, Superior Apostle Island’s, and Superior Traverse Island’s.

Spawning begins in mid-August and lasts through mid-November. The spawning season is so spread out because the different strains generally spawn at different times. Superior Klondike’s will be the first to start and the Seneca’s will be the last.

Females are stripped of their eggs after being anesthetized by a chemical known as Finquel or MS-222. An air spawner is used on the larger females, which will pump oxygen into the abdominal cavity which in turn pushes the eggs out. This method is easier on both the fish and the staff. The eggs are stripped directly into a Rubbermaid container and sent to the other end of the building. Here, milt is stripped from males (also after being put to sleep) directly onto the eggs.   This type of spawning, where eggs from one female are paired with the milt of one male, is known as one-on-one spawning. After water is added and the eggs fertilized, they are rinsed and placed in an iodine solution for up to twenty minutes. They are then taken to the egg incubation room and fresh water is siphoned into them before they are enumerated and placed in Heath stacks.
		Stripping eggs from lake trout

Eggs remain without being touched inside the Heath stacks for one month, during which time they are given a formaldehyde treatment to prevent fungus growth. After approximately two months, or when eggs are at the eye-up stage, they are run through automatic pickers and hand picked to remove the bad eggs. By the end of December, all eggs have been shipped out to other stations. Eggs from Sullivan Creek are sent to Pendills Creek NFH, Jordan River NFH in Elmira, Michigan; Iron River NFH in Iron River, Wisconsin; Allegheny NFH in Pennsylvania as well as some Michigan state fish hatcheries. In past years, small batches of eggs have also been given to research facilities and graduate students for thesis projects.

James "Bubba" Anderson and adult lake trout	Lake trout fry in troughs	Fish pen with adult lakers	Volunteer Rachel with lake trout broodstock

The Sullivan Creek NFH is a unique facility in that it is a substation of another hatchery and has only one biologist permanently stationed there. While there are six permanent employees working for both stations, the other five are at the Pendills Creek Hatchery and usually only work at Sullivan Creek during the busy spawning and egg picking seasons or to cover days off.