Alaska Fresh Salmon

The dictionary that hides in my Mac says “feisty” means “having or showing exuberance and strong determination.” That’s a fitting description of the chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), the feistiest of the five species of Pacific salmon in Alaskan waters.

My first run-in with a chum came in the late 1960s, on a creek on Admiralty . . . → Read More: The feistiest salmon

August 15, 2012

J.W. Secrest, a commercial fisherman in Alaska, stopped in at the Sweetwater Dairy Queen to share his catch – a 50 pound King salmon (half grown) – with the morning coffee drinkers on Tuesday, Aug. 14. J.W., who winters in Fisher County, caught the salmon in . . . → Read More: 50 Pound Salmon

Congressional Republicans are lining up against the possibility of the Environmental Protection Agency blocking what would be North America’s largest open pit mine in a region of Alaska that supports some of the richest wild salmon runs in the world.

The top investigator for the science committee in the House of Representatives, . . . → Read More: Republicans Say EPA Digging in Too Soon on Alaska Copper Mine

To pull it off, the EPA has cobbled together a hasty, broad draft assessment of the Bristol Bay watershed that now is under review by a scientific peer panel. The rushed assessment encompasses 20,000 square miles — the combined size of Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut and New Jersey, with an extra Rhode Island . . . → Read More: Pebble fight is over federal control, not resources

(Author’s note: With humpback salmon now running in the Kenai River, this is a good time to run this story in the Clarion. It first appeared in Alaska magazine in August 2001. It has been edited for brevity.) 

When someone says the fish are so thick, you can walk across the river on their backs, . . . → Read More: In praise of pinks