Two Sitka-based fishing entities are teaming up to provide 45,000 pounds of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon to Alaska Native villages that saw record low salmon returns this year.
Alaskans Own and Northline Seafoods announced the unique partnership on Wednesday, Aug. 12, noting that the worldwide pandemic heightened the need for food security in the 49th state.
Working through Catch Together, a project of the Trust for Conservation Innovation, Alaskans Own and Northline Seafoods said they plan to purchase and deliver Bristol Bay salmon to the Chignik Bay and nearby communities and that there is potential to include other communities as well.
While Alaskans Own is in Southeast Alaska, the entity aims to foster connections throughout Alaska’s fishing communities by keeping the fisheries we depend on healthy and building new and more resilient distribution pathways for Alaska seafood, said Linda Behnken, founder and director of Alaskans Own, the state’s first community supported fishery.
“That’s especially important in light of the coronavirus, which has impacted families throughout the state and has made food security an even more critical issue for Alaskans,” she said.
Ben Blakey, founder and president of Northline Seafoods, said that his company purchases and processes salmon from Bristol Bay, one of the most abundant salmon fisheries in the state in the last few years.
“Very few sockeye salmon returned to Chignik this summer, so when we got a call requesting some of our Bristol Bay sockeye, I said we could help,” Blakey said. “We are all happy to know our catch here in Bristol Bay will fill some freezers and smokehouses and help ensure folks in Chignik can still practice their subsistence traditions as they have year after year.”
George Anderson, president of the Chignik Intertribal Coalition, said that tribal members of Chignik Bay, Chignik Lake, Chignik Lagoon, Perryville and Ivanof Bay have all but halted subsistence harvests to protect local sockeye salmon for future generations.
“Giving up our subsistence harvest and in turn allowing the fish to escape to the river system was the right thing to do, but left local people without the salmon they depend on,” Anderson said. “The Bristol Bay sockeye from Northline Seafoods and Alaskans Own will help our communities stay healthy through the winter and hold strong to their commitment to recovering local salmon stocks.
More information about Alaskans Own and to donate to its seafood donation program is at alaskansown.com.
