The Season Review

Termination dust tickled the tops of the highest mountains in white the other day and a hint of frost early in the morning at sea level made us scramble to finish winterizing our fishing equipment that will be in storage til next season. As we look forward to all that fall brings to our lives, we want to first take a moment to recap the 2024 salmon season and relish the memories of a summer well spent.

First and foremost, let’s recognize the wonderful people who made this salmon season not only possible but memorable, entertaining, and educational. Adelia thanks her mom for beautiful support throughout the season and her sister and nieces for the energetic, joyful and fun help for the first 6 weeks. We both offer our gratitude for a great season to our trusty, intrepid, adventurous, curious, and kind crew, Maddie and Mary for Adelia, and Prescott for Tollef! Their hard work and enthusiasm about jumping into a brand new adventure and learning what it takes made it all work. Meeting new people from all corners of the country and learning from their experiences and perspectives as we join forces to take care of the salmon harvest is one of the things we deeply appreciate about this way of life.

As far as salmon go, by some measures it wasn’t the best of seasons. Wild runs do cycle up and down, so this wasn’t unexpected. For much of the season, the Department of Fish and Game closed us down for 5 or so days per week to allow more salmon to return to spawn, so we were able to enjoy a little bit more time for projects and fun, instead of fishing nonstop. We support these measures which keep the salmon runs sustainable even if they aren’t so good for our wallets, and try to make the best of these times by getting projects done, enjoying our wild environment, spending quality time with the real people around us, and keeping up a good attitude. During the slow times Adelia’s crew made up a salmon dance and had a ritual of performing it before each pick as a mantra, to help us catch more fish, a tradition she may just have to continue! Prescott filled time in with his photography and editing of videos, the first to bring 45 pounds of camera gear to a site! We highly recommend watching his beautiful Alaska film that shows Uganik Bay - you can find it at the bottom of his videography page, here.

There were some days and parts of the season, however, that were as fishy as can be, with both of our sites working hard and loading up. Running on the slightly manic vibration that these big days create, we would work until our fingers, arms and backs begged for a rest, our bodies were parched and stomachs pinched, and just keep on going. For people who have never done this work before, it can be a revelation to see what the body is capable of, and a source of pride to get through it with spirits intact.

For those of us who make a life out of this work, the combination of having weathered the highs and lows of the season, the physical wear and tear on our bodies, and the mental work of managing every last detail while not actually being in control of a lot of things - the weather, the fish, the managers, the schedule of the buyers’ boats that come to collect our fish each day, the tides, the world market - makes us all the much more appreciative of September’s quiet time. Fall equinox is supposed to be a time of balance, and we do indeed feel we are using this time of year to come back into equilibrium after a full Alaskan summer, taking a deep breath and settling in.

More fall updates from our corner of the world will come in a future post…..stay tuned. For now, we wish all readers a beautiful start to treasured fall time.