Sitka is alive with activity! The herring have returned to our waters to spawn. Fish, fishermen, whales, birds and sea lions are crowding our oceans and coasts and the streets are starting to smell fishy.

Check out this little video SCS helped produce with Ben Hamilton that showcases our deliciously fresh fisheries-from stream to plate!

Fresh - Sitka, Alaska from Pioneer Videography on Vimeo.

Hundreds of people throughout the state have come out in opposition to House Bill 77, known also as the Silencing Alaskans Act.

The Sitka community joined in opposition to HB 77 this past Thursday as well. Around fifty people showed up to a meeting scheduled with Department of Natural Resources Representative Wyn Menefee to get a better understanding of the bill. Mr. Menefee was unable to attend due to snow but the meeting still continued.

Linda Behnken, Executive Director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association, helped frame the bill and answered questions posed.

"Is there anything in this bill that you like?" , moderator Eric Jordan read off a notecard given by a community member.

"If there are things that I like in this bill, I couldn't point them out to you" said Behnken." I do understand that DNR has interest in facilitating the permitting process so that there could be quicker decisions but I think they've gone way beyond that with this bill and that's the message they need to hear from the people."

That's the message that was heard repeatedly at Thursday's public discussion through the fourteen people that testified against the bill.

"Over 30 tribes have expressed opposition to HB 77 and Sitka Tribe is one of them," said Michael Baines, Tribal Chairman of Sitka Tribe of Alaska.

"This bill attacks the basic constitutional guarantees of fish and wildlife protection. The public holds these resources in common yet [HB 77] gives priority to extractive interests that damage them," said Matt Donohoe, board member of the Alaska Troller's Association.

"I think a good example of things that happened when we didn't have any kind of say about stuff was what the water used to look like when the pulp mill was operating", said Kim Elliot, Alaska Department of Fishing & Game Advisory Council member. "We really have to think about what our future would look like if we didn't have any rights to take care of the water upstream from our piece of property wherever that might be. People really deserve the right to question what the government is doing."

Sitkans still want DNR to come to town and answer questions on HB 77, but this time it will be when we see the new amendments proposed on the bill. Right now behind closed doors, the Senate Rules Committee is proposing changes to the bill because of the hundreds of people that have outspoken against it. This reminds us that public participation IS in fact key to the way we manage our shared natural resources, and our rights as Alaskans.

For more information on House Bill 77, go to www.standforsalmon.org and join us in writing Governor Sean Parnell to let him know of your opposition to HB 77 and to the giveaway of your rights as an Alaskan.

Governor Sean Parnell

Alaska State Capitol Building

PO BOX 110001

Juneau, AK 99811-0001

(907) 465-3500

http://gov.alaska.gov/parnell/contact/office-locations.html

When serving local seafood in our schools became a community health priority in the 2010 Sitka Health Summit, the Sitka Conservation Society recognized the opportunity to apply our mission to "support the development of sustainable communities." Now all grades 2-12 in Sitka serve locally-harvested fish at least twice a month, reaching up to 1,500 students. In just three years over 4,000 pounds of fish have been donated to Sitka Schools from local seafood processors and fishermen.

Fish to Schools is a grassroots initiative that builds connections and community between local fishermen, seafood processors, schools, students, and families. It's a program that we would like to see replicated across the state—that's why we created a resource guide and curriculum (available March 1^st!). And that's why I went to the Capital.

Nutritional Alaskan Foods for Schools is a state funded program that reimburses school districts for their Alaskan food purchases. This $3 million grant allows schools to purchase Alaskan seafood, meats, veggies, and grains that would otherwise be cost prohibitive to school districts. It also gives a boost to farmers and fishermen with stable, in-state markets.

Nutritional Alaskan Foods for Schools was introduced by Representative Stoltze and has been funded the last two years through the Capital Budget. I went to Juneau to advocate for this funding because it's a way to ensure funding for local food purchases state-wide. Locally this means sustained funding for our Fish to Schools program.

I met with Senator Stedman, House Representative Kriess-Tomkins, and the Governor to tell them how valuable this grant has been for schools, food producers, and students around the state. I will continue my advocacy and ask you to join me. It is through your support that Fish to Schools exists in Sitka—let's take that support and make this thing go state-wide!

The Sitka School District took the lead by passing a resolution to support "multi-year" funding of Nutritional Alaskan Foods for Schools. Let's join them and advocate for a program that revolutionizes school lunches and catalyzes local food production. Please sign this letter and tell Senator Stedman and Representative Kreiss-Tomkins you support state funding for local foods in schools.

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Scaling local projects to achieve regional impact!

The Sitka Conservation Society has entered a strategic partnership with the Tongass National Forest to engage local communities in the assessment of the habitat restoration projects on Twelvemile Creek, Prince of Wales Island.

In Sitka over the past several years, we have developed the capacity and partnerships to engage our community in pro-active natural resource stewardship. This has included developing a program to implement and study the effects of projects that restore fish and wildlife habitat damaged from past logging practices, developing K-12 and university curriculum materials for salmon habitat, and getting students and volunteers out in the field conducting ecological studies and collecting information that will be used by resource managers such as the US Forest Service.

Funding that has made this work possible include the Sustainable Southeast Partnership, the National Forest Foundation (NFF), and SCS members. Now we have the opportunity to work with the US Forest Service to bring these types of programs to communities on Prince of Wales Island. Funding will be provided by the National Forest Foundation. So by leveraging capacity and funding sources, we and our partners will have the opportunity tobolster and enhance watershed and fisheries programs across Southeast Alaska, and engage communities all along the way. Other partners and participants will include the Universities of Alaska Anchorage, University of Alaska Southeast, Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, and schools on Prince of Wales Island.

SCS Executive Director Andrew Thoms: "This funding helps us take successful initiatives we have begun in Sitka to integrate stakeholders, community members, and students in Tongass Forest management to other communities and places on the Forest."

The program on Prince of Wales will use a "Triple-Bottom-Line" approach to help build socially, economically, and environmentally resilient communities.

Environment: Working with the Tongass National Forest, we will operate a seasonal non-lethal trap to count and assess salmon smolt that are migrating out of the Twelvemile Creek Watershed on Prince of Wales Island. Collecting this type of data is critical for evaluating the effectiveness of habitat restoration activities. The USFS Tongass National Forest, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy and the National Forest Foundation, conducted restoration work on this creek over the past few years to restore salmon spawning and rearing habitat impacted by past logging activities. This monitoring project will be an integral part of the Watershed Restoration Effectiveness Monitoring Program of the Tongass National Forest.

Economic: The Tongass National Forest produces an average of 28% of Alaska's annual commercial salmon harvest. Because salmon support 1 in 10 jobs in Southeast Alaska and create an economic impact of $1 billion dollars in the regional economy, projects that protect and restore salmon runs are of critical importance to Southeast Alaska communities.

Economic (part 2): In partnership with the UAS Fisheries Technology Program, local youth will also have vocational training opportunities as interns working at the fish trap, along with receiving career and educational counseling from fisheries professionals - possibly leading to careers as resource managers in the backyards where they grew up.

Social: Teachers and students from Prince of Wales communities will take part in classroom-based Salmon Curriculum and outdoor-based Steam Team activities. Stream Team is a statewide program where students collect field data to assess water quality and stream health.

 

Subsistence in Southeast Alaska from Sitka Conservation Society on Vimeo.

Although we often associate our National Forests with trees and silviculturalists, BY FAR, the most valuable resource that the Tongass National Forest provides is in the production of all 5 species of wild Pacific salmon. Managing salmon habitat and the fish populations within the forest is one of the key roles of National Forest Service staff in Alaska. The Tongass National Forest is the largest National Forest in the United States. Its 17 million acres is home to 32 communities that use and very much depend on the resources that this forest provides.

On this National Forest, fisheries and watershed staff are probably the most critical positions on the entire Forest and are responsible for the keystone species in the temperate rainforest ecosystem—Salmon--a $1 Billion per year commercial fishery that serves up delicious salmon to people around the nation and the world, not to mention subsistence harvests that feed thousands of rural community members in Alaska. These staff also carry the legacy of thousands of years of sustainable management on their shoulders.

Like nothing else, salmon have shaped the cultures and the lifestyle of the peoples and communities of Southeast Alaska. The Tlingit and Haida people who have called the Tongass home for thousands of years, have learned and adapted to the natural cycles of salmon. Deeply held cultural beliefs have formed unique practices for "taking care of" and ensuring the continuance of salmon runs. As documented by Anthropologist Thomas Thornton in his book, Being and Place Among the Tlingit, "the head's of localized clan house groups, known as yitsati, keeper of the house, were charged with coordinating the harvest and management of resource areas" like the sockeye salmon streams and other important salmon runs.

The staff of the Fisheries and Watershed program has integrated Alaska Native organizations, individuals, and beliefs into salmon and fisheries management programs on the Tongass and have hired talented Alaska Native individuals as staff in the USDA National Forest Service. Through the efforts of the Fisheries and Watershed program and its staff, a variety of formal agreements, joint programs, and multi-party projects that manage and protect our valuable salmon resources have been developed. The programs on the Tongass are case-studies for the rest of the world where lands and resources are owned by the public while being managed through the collaborative efforts of professional resource managers in government agencies, local peoples with intimate place-based knowledge, and involve multi-party stakeholders who use and depend on the resource.

The Tongass is America's Salmon Rainforest and the Forest Service's Fisheries Resource Monitoring Program is a stellar example of how we manage a National Forest to produce and provide salmon for people across the entire country as well as the people who call this forest their home.

The "why" of Fish to Schools has had clear goals from the beginning: connecting students to their local food system, learning traditions, and understanding the impact of their food choices on the body, economy, and environment. The "how" has been a creative process. Serving locally is one component of the program, but equally important is our education program that makes the connections between stream, ocean, forest, food, and community.

We were back in the classroom this year offering our "Stream to Plate" curriculum that focuses on the human connection to fish. How are fish caught? Where do they come from? Why should we care? Who depends on them and how? What do I do with them? These are just a few of the questions we answer through a series of hands-on games and activities.

Students began by learning about the salmon lifecycle and its interconnection to other plants and animals. By building a salmon web, students saw that a number of species depend on salmon—everything from orcas, to brown bears, to people, to the tall trees of the Tongass. They learned how to manage a sustainable fishery by creating rules and regulations, allowing each user group (subsistence, sport, and commercial) to meet their needs while ensuring enough fish remain to reproduce. They learned that fish is an important local food source (and has been for time immemorial) but also important for our economy, providing a number of local jobs. (Read more here.)

Students also learned how to handle fish--how to catch fish both traditionally and commercially, how to gut and fillet fish, how to make a super secret salmon brine for smoked salmon, and how to cook salmon with Chef Collete Nelson of Ludvigs Bistro. Each step is another connection made and another reason to care.

The Stream to Plate Curriculum will be available through our website in early 2014. Check back for its release!

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Photo Credit: Adam Taylor

This week on Voices of The Tongass, Kevin McGowan explains his unusual fishing method: spear gun. To hear this week's show, scroll to the bottom of this post. To continue the story, keep reading.

Kevin McGowan has made some friends you need a snorkel to find. "Swimming and seeing a sea lion can be pretty terrifying. Usually they're just curious... but they're pretty terrifying looking creatures, so it can be unnerving. You see their huge brown bodies and their vicious looking faces. it's usually just a dark spot swimming under you, and then they pop up and you know they're there. And hopefully they don't do too much damage to you."

Born and raised in Southeast Alaska, at age 21, Kevin knows that the experiences he had (and marine mammals he met) growing up have uniquely shaped him. "My interests are environment based," he says. "My whole life has revolved around water." And when he moved away from Sitka for college, he found it very difficult to translate those interests into a different environment. "My friends didn't get to see that side of me," he says. He's certainly not the only one - while leaving home for college is difficult for all kinds of reasons, for the kids of Southeast Alaska, it is often harder to leave the wilderness environment behind more than their houses and neighborhoods. When the environment is a major component of your activities and interests, it also factors into your relationships with the people around you. In a new geographic environment, kids from Southeast not only have to deal with the usual homesickness, but they have to find a new way to make friends and navigate relationships without access to the things they usually do with their friends. "It would be hard [for my school friends] to see all my real interests, because a lot of them are really location based, the snorkeling and the mountain climbing and boating and kayaking," Kevin says. "That's all dependent on things I have here, and going to school I don't have access to all these things. The way I relate to people from Sitka is a deeper connection. [I] don't necessarily have that with people at school."

But luckily, growing up outdoors doesn't just serve to hinder the social experiences of Southeast Alaskan kids who are trying to make it in more urban and academic environments: Kevin also gives it credit for some of his success. For a guy who admits his high school years were spent dreaming about being outdoors, Kevin says his attitude towards school has shifted. "I definitely have focused academically," he says. After a hard first year at OSU, he transferred to UAF, and took classes which he needed to catapult him to engineering school in California. Three schools in three years would wear out even the most dedicated student: so how did the shift from dreaming about getting out of the classroom to doggedly trying to stay in it occur? He sees his motivation linked to his experiences growing up in Alaska. "There's a lot of curiosity that I've developed growing up here, adventures and finding new things," he says. "So with school, I want to learn a lot of new things. It's helped myself apply myself to schoolwork. Because there's new things to learn. New people to meet, more foods to try. You don't necessarily need to be snorkeling to experience somewhere cool and new." And even though there will be challenges to surmount, it's hard not to have faith in his ability to succeed. If he can make a good impression underwater on a sea lion underwater, it's hard to imagine him feeling out of his depth.

Want to listen to Kevin's stories about spearfishing in his own words? http://archive.sitkawild.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/13_LWL_KEVIN_MCGOWAN.wav

Tenders may only fulfill one or a few parts of the salmon commodity chain yet their hard labor and work ethic is what keeps our fishermen fishing and eventually our plates full of fish. To keep fishermen fishing, yet another amenity often provided by tenders is conversation.

This is where my role as a community organizer came in.

There are all sorts of approaches to packing Coho bellies with ice--I got a little ridiculous and acrobatic.

While on the tender boats, I both worked as a crew member, and an organizer. While working on the tender boats, I talked with fishermen and deckhands about the US Forest Service's Tongass Transition and how the transition should be focused on protecting the salmon they depend on.

It is very important that fishermen and tender operators voice their concerns with the people and agencies responsible for managing our Tongass National Forest because the salmon these fishermen depend on come directly from the Tongass. Salmon fishing accounts for over 7,000 jobs, hundreds of millions in revenue, and are a sent out as food to people from all over the country.

A Sitka fishermen offloads his catch to the Shoreline Scow in Pelican, AK.

It wasn't surprising thing I found that most fishermen catching salmon had not heard about the Tongass Transition because the Forest Service is still only focusing on timber.

The very Coho that I helped process spent anywhere from one to five years in the rivers, streams, tributaries, sloughs, and back-pools of Tongass watersheds. Now here they were: supporting the livelihoods of these fishermen while generating thousands of jobs in our Southeast economy by the many hands that catch, weigh, stuff, and ship these fish all over the world.

Rows and rows of Coho with ice-stuffed bellies are lined up in totes that can hold from 1,000-1,500 pounds of fish and ice.

It is the Forest Service's job to manage the Tongass, our forest and resources, in a way that reflects the people of Southeast Alaska's priorities. If you look at the economic stats and use common sense, Salmon is the most sustainable and valuable resource that the Tongass produces.

After discussing the Tongass Transition with the large number of fishermen I worked with this summer, they want the Forest Service to start implementing the Transition, and make sure that salmon are a big focus of the Forest Service's work. They have written messages to the Forest Service that include "I have been trolling in SE for the last 9 years and will for many more to come. Every salmon is important to me. It is my livelihood so every fish counts." They are telling the Forest Service to prioritize restoring salmon habitat damaged by historic logging as the main focus of the Transition.

As my friend Kai on the Shoreline scow said about fishermen and deckhands respectively, "You slice um, we ice ‘um," we Sitkans, fishermen, and users of the Tongass can say to our Forest Service respectively, "you manage ‘um, we live off of ‘um."

If you haven't already done so, type up a quick email to Chief of the Forest Service Tom Tidwell asking him to implement the Tongass Transitionand to focus management effort on salmon for the benefit of the fishermen, the multitude of jobs created by the fishing industry (such as our beloved tender operators), and the delicious taste of salmon for super. It takes 5 minutes, yet helps keep the people who depend on the Tongass.

The chief's email is [email protected], and if you need more information for your email, click here. You just gotta clearly state "Implement the Tongass Transition and move beyond Old Grown timber harvest, Chief Tidwell."

Over the course of the summer, I had a chance to talk to a huge number of fishermen, but our conversations did not happen just at the harbors, docks, or in Sitka's Pbar. Instead, they occurred on tenders.

Tenders are a very important component of Southeast Alaska's fishing industry and serve fishing boats that are far from their home harbors.

Robby Bruce stands in front of his tender the "Ginny C", which was serving gill netters in Deep Inlet, Sitka, AK.

Either stationary like the Shoreline Scow by Pelican or mobile like Sitka's Ginny C or Deer Harbor II, tenders serve our fishermen with paychecks, ice, and at times with rare amenities like hot showers and right-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies. The job of tender boats is to unload the catch from fishing boats on the fishing grounds. On the tender boats, the fishermen's catch gets sorted, weighed, iced up, and packed away in a matter of minutes. During those minutes, there is a lot of physical and mental endurance by people who are typically behind the scenes in the fishing industry.

As a community organizer, I saw working on tenders as not only a way to reach out to fishermen about the Tongass Transition during the busy fishing season, but also as a way to get some sort of experience in the lifestyle and hard work that most people in Southeast commit to in order to make their living.

Picture the King salmon opening in July, which is one of the busiest times for salmon trollers and consequently for the tenders. A typical day for tender deckhands begins at 6 or 7 in the morning with greetings from fishermen that have been waiting to sell their fish since 3 am. There is not just one boat waiting to offload, but a line of 5 boats with more lingering close by. The hydraulics are turned on, the crane is in motion, and bags of fish are hauled one at a time from the fishermen's boat to a tray on the tender where the deckhands sort the fish for quality and weight.

The skipper and a deckhand aboard the Shoreline Scow around Pelican, AK sort Cohos to be weighed.

Once weighed these often heavy and large fish are grasped by the gills and neck, one in each hand, by deckhands that then simultaneously toss both fish into a tote with a repetition that fills the tote with layers of fish and ice in a matter of seconds. These deckhands have to be quick, to operate under pressure, to persevere with numb hands and hungry bellies as each fishermen offloads thousands of pounds of their livelihood onboard in the hopes to catch more in the next few days.

With troll caught Coho aboard, deckhands of the Ginny C and myself removed the ice from salmon bellies, weighed the fish, placed them in totes, and then stuffed their bellies again with ice.

After working on their feet for hours, moving around totes of around 1000 pounds of fish and ice, breaking apart new totes of ice with metal shovels, tossing around 12 pound fish with sore muscles and wrists, stuffing salmon bellies with ice, and then scrubbing the whole operation down with bleach, Joy soap, and water, the deckhands yawn themselves to bed around 2 am, quite possibly still covered in fish slime. Then they will sleep for4 or 5 hours, wake up, and do it all over again.

The Shoreline in Pelican, AK has been a woman-run operation for decades, and I was fortunate to join them for a few days and share in their hard, hard work, which helps our fishermen keep fishing.

Stay tuned! I will be posting a blog piece focused on the advocacy work I did on tenders entitled "You slay 'um, we weigh 'um": a mix of tendering and Tongass Transition advocacy in Southeast Take Two.A big thank you to KaiLea Wallin who coined the two slogans I have used as titles for these blog pieces.

By. Nora McGinn, Sitka Salmon Shares Organizer

The Sitka Salmon Shares office sits on Main Street in Galesburg, Illinois, approximately 3,000 miles from the Tongass National Forest and the communities of Southeast Alaska. Despite this distance, we share a commitment to the salmon, fishermen and public lands that make up the Tongass National Forest.

As we at Sitka Salmon Shares navigate connecting socially and environmentally conscious consumers in the Midwest with small boat fishermen in Sitka and Juneau we have continued to return to the story of the Tongass National Forest. The Tongass poses a particularly compelling connection for many people out here in the Midwest.

In the conversations I've had and the advocacy letters I've read I have learned that, as proud Midwesterners, our members understand they need to support their fellow citizens and public lands beyond their regional borders. They identify with the inextricable connection between place, culture and livelihood. They can relate to the fine balance between stewardship and reliance on resources. And just as they enjoy supporting their local farms, dairies and breweries, they appreciate supporting their fisherman, who although not as local is just as fundamental to their food system.

But, for most of our members, their growing reverence for the Tongass National Forest comes down to something much simpler: the taste and quality of the wild salmon we deliver to their doorstep during the summer months. They know that the bountiful streams and rivers of the Tongass National Forest reared their wild salmon. They understand that the delicious and nourishing salmon that ends up on their dinner tables had a long journey -- a journey that connects them to their fishermen and to the Tongass as a whole.

When Midwesterners join Sitka Salmon Shares, we help them become aware of the Tongass National Forest as a national treasure. And for these reasons, they feel a responsibility to safeguard it for both those that rely on the Tongass for their livelihood locally, and for folks like them, thousands of miles away, fortunate enough to share in its bounty.

Therefore our members in Minnesota have been writing to Senator Al Franken, our members in Wisconsin have been communicating with Senator Tammy Baldwin, and our members in Illinois, Iowa and Indiana have been contacting the Chief of the Forest Service Tom Tidwell in order to advocate for the Tongass and the Tongass Transition. They all write to share their hopes for a healthy, sustainable future in the Tongass by prioritizing funding for watershed restoration, caring for salmon habitat and making sure fisheries remain strong so that communities, near and far, can thrive.