Our salmon are vanishing — and the State of Alaska is letting it happen
Laura Mahoney/USFWS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Our salmon are vanishing — and the State of Alaska is letting it happen
I live along the Yukon River, where my family has harvested salmon for countless generations. Every summer used to bring the same reassuring sight: Busy fish camps. Full smokehouses. Families coming together to pass down traditions that have thrived for thousands of years. Happy kids, curious babies, loving grandparents, moms, dads, aunties, uncles and cousins. Each is an intrinsic part of a beautiful summer day at the smokehouse.
Today, summers mean less time on the river, empty smokehouses and fish camps, and no intergenerational learning. The State of Alaska tells my community and over 50 other Indigenous communities in Alaska and Canada that we are the ones who must stop fishing, we are the ones who must sacrifice, we are the ones who must somehow bear the burden of a crisis we did not create.
