Celebrate wild sockeye salmon — the harvest that powers Bristol Bay’s economy and feeds the world

It’s the time of year again when children have returned to school and seemingly endless daylight gives way to shorter days and cooler nights. In the Bristol Bay region of Alaska, it is viewed less as the end of another summer, and more as the end of another salmon season.

Many weeks of hard work harvesting and preserving tens of millions of salmon to feed our families, communities and the rest of the world has come to an end. I can’t think of a better time to pause and celebrate Bristol Bay’s wild salmon. We celebrate the incredible journey every single salmon makes; traveling thousands of miles in its life to return to its birthplace and complete the cycle of life. It is this cycle of salmon that has provided for our people, uninterrupted, for thousands of years. We celebrate the salmon because, in many respects, we owe our lives — and livelihoods — to them.

Over the week of Sept. 9, a diverse coalition of commercial fishermen, business leaders, lodge owners, Alaska Native people and others, all from the Bristol Bay region, is bringing this celebration to the nation’s capital. They are here to share the delicious, healthy bounty of these fish, and just as importantly, share the remarkable story of wild Bristol Bay sockeye salmon — all in an effort to ensure the salmon can continue their journey for countless generations to come.

We are in D.C. for Bristol Bay Native Corporation’s seventh annual Wild Salmon Celebration, set for Sept. 11. We will honor individuals who have fought tirelessly to protect Bristol Bay, its salmon, and our way of life. The same week, Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association will host a Restaurant Week, in which numerous venues across the metro area will feature sustainably harvested wild Bristol Bay sockeye salmon on their menus.

The goal of these events is to bring attention to this incredible, remote area of Alaska and its unique and robust salmon fishery – a fishery that today supplies half the world’s wild sockeye salmon, and for millennia has supported our Alaska Native way of life. And I would be remiss to not mention Bristol Bay’s unparalleled and multi-million-dollar sport fishing industry, which attracts visitors from all over the world to the cold, clear rivers of Southwest Alaska each year.

In recent years, we have been blessed to celebrate record sockeye salmon returns to the rivers that feed the Bay and corresponding record catches. The 2024 Bristol Bay salmon season didn’t break records, but it provided an ample harvest of approximately 31 million sockeye — wild, sustainable salmon that support thousands of jobs and a $2 billion annual economy.

This year, there are other reasons to celebrate Bristol Bay sockeye. Representative Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, introduced legislation that, if enacted, would ensure the crucial salmon spawning habitat threatened by the ill-conceived Pebble Mine project remains intact forever. The Bristol Bay Protection Act would codify in federal law the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2023 Final Determination for Bristol Bay, which prohibits large-scale mining projects like Pebble that would irreparably damage salmon habitat and the people and economy that rely on it.

The Bristol Bay Protection Act is the latest in a series of significant victories in recent years and protect the fate of the salmon, and our way of life, from the political whims of future administrations and the foreign mining companies that might try to influence them. Indeed, despite bipartisan opposition and rejections by both the Trump and Biden administrations, backers of Pebble are pursuing wide-ranging legal actions in an attempt to keep the mine on life support. Regardless of the prospect of success for these legal maneuverings, they are reminders that the work to stop Pebble is not over.

We look forward to working with Rep. Peltola and the Alaska congressional delegation, as well as champions from across the U.S., to advance either the Bristol Bay Protection Act or more comprehensive legislation that forever ends the threat Pebble poses to the Bristol Bay region. We urge all lawmakers to join us in our effort to protect not only special wild fish and places, but also thousands of sustainable American jobs.

But there will be time for that work. Now, let’s enjoy and celebrate everything we love about salmon – and what they mean not just for Alaskans, but for Americans from all corners of the country.

Jason Metrokin is president and CEO of Bristol Bay Native Corporation. His family is from Kodiak Island and Bristol Bay, Alaska, as well as Massachusetts.