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See more photos in this slideshow. Go DeeperExplore Salmon Country Salmon Restoration |
Northern Dynasty has applied for permits to use almost 35 billion gallons of water a year for the mine, raising the prospect that streams and aquifers could be “dewatered,” as Fogels puts it. And the tailings from the mine, which would be stored in impoundments on the site forever, can generate acid, which can be deadly to fish.
“You’re going to have a tremendous amount of waste,”
Fogels says. “The biggest concern for us is storing the waste, long-term, and making sure that the water coming off that waste is forever going to be good.”
The mine proposal has already set off fierce debates as the state of Alaska decides whether the risks of damage to the state’s most iconic fishery are worth the benefits from a treasure trove of precious metals.
Down the river from the proposed mine site lies a rich wilderness. The Bristol Bay region, despite its immense size, is home to only about 8,000 people, who live scattered throughout three towns and 29 villages. The population is about 66 percent Native, and people here live close to the land — and just as close to the water.
“We live by the seasons,” says Molly Chythlook, the director of the Bristol Bay Native Association’s natural resources department (and sister-in-law to biologist Daniel Chythlook). “We not only live by the seasons, but we live by the tides, too.”
Fall brings berries: salmonberries, blueberries, huckleberries, cloud berries and cranberries. Next come moose, caribou, ducks and geese; upriver, Dena’ina Indians take bear, spruce hen and ptarmigan. Winter fishing yields pike and whitefish, caught through the ice — but winter and spring are the lean time, until fiddlehead ferns, beach greens, wild rhubarb, peas and celery emerge after the snows clear.
It is the summer and fall salmon runs, though, that stand as the cornerstone of subsistence throughout the region. In the villages, each family has its own secret formula for brining the fish, after which it is smoked for three days to create luminescent strips of flesh that seem to emit their own smoky light.
When the first fish begin trickling in toward the end of May, a sense of anticipation rises. On each of the roughly 1,500 commercial boats that fish Bristol Bay, says Pete
Andrew, “we’ll get the nets ready and get them patched. We’ll pull the [engine] hatches open, change the belts if we need to, the hydraulic hoses.” He grins like a kid: “It’s like getting a race car ready.”
Then, sometime around July 4, a veritable blizzard of sockeye slams through the bay — around 39 million in an average year. Bristol Bay fishermen sell the vast majority of fish they catch to canneries and fish processors. And as dog sleds have given way to snowmobiles, kayaks to outboard-powered boats, and wood stoves to oil heaters, the profits from commercial fishing have become the backbone of people’s livelihoods for hundreds of miles around Bristol Bay.
“You gotta keep working day and night,” says Frank Logusak, a fisherman from Togiak. “But what’s one month without sleeping? You can sleep the other 11 months, sleep all you want.”
Meanwhile, at remote fish camps, many families fish for subsistence use throughout the rest of the year. Even after the fish have spawned, many are still caught, split, and their backbones removed and dried separately as feed for villagers’ dogs.
“When I was growing up, people didn’t worry about [heating] oil; they’d just go chop more wood,” says Robin Samuelsen, who heads the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp. and sits on the board of trustees for the Conservancy in Alaska. “But subsistence requires cash nowadays.”
In fact, in most villages, fishing is the only real moneymaker. “There’s no jobs in the village,” says fisherman Frank Logusak. “The only time you can earn money is from fishing, and you live off of that throughout the whole winter.”
The economic impact of fishing reverberates deeply throughout the entire community. Each boat supports a cascade of other professions in local communities: mechanics, net menders, cannery watchmen. Even more important, says Samuelsen, “fishing is the glue that holds the families together.”
Pete Andrew’s family has been commercially fishing in Bristol Bay for four generations. “My sons have grown up fishing. Two of them are in college now, and one’s a senior in high school,” he says. “But [fishing] has become a real time to be together again. It identifies us. It’s one common passion we all have: We’re killers of fish.”
Nature picture credits: Photo © Bridget Besaw
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