Thousands of people gathered in Ninilchik last weekend to celebrate Salmonfest, a music festival that features artists, musicians and vendors across the state. Salmonfest is perhaps best known for its vibrant music scene. But at its core, the festival aims to raise awareness about issues salmon fisheries face across the state.
The first musicians took the stage at Salmonfest in 2011 when it was called Salmonstock. The inaugural event was the product of a grassroots effort to raise awareness about the need to protect salmon habitats around Bristol Bay. Attendance at the festival has skyrocketed in recent years. Even as the festival has evolved, its underlying goal has stayed the same.
As part of the festival’s “Salmon Speaker” series, activists, storytellers and artists spoke about salmon issues between sets at Salmonfest’s River stage, a large amphitheater tucked away from most of the festivities. Topics ranged from Dena’ina language teachings about salmon to the detrimental effects of trawler bycatch on king salmon populations. Trawler bycatch refers to fish that are unintentionally caught by large commercial fishing boats that won’t be kept or sold
Satchel Pondolfino works for Cook Inletkeeper and organized this year’s salmon speakers. She said it’s really powerful to combine advocacy with the arts.
“We have advocates that come to connect the dots and empower people to use these feelings of joy and connection that Salmonfest elicits to really work for something bigger and collectively, work together to protect the thing that a lot of people love most about our state, which is our incredible salmon run,” Pondolfino said.
Gabe Canfield was one of the salmon speakers. She’s a salmon advocate and a mentor for Arctic Youth Ambassadors, an organization for young people to bring Arctic issues to the global stage. Canfield spoke about trawler bycatch. She said that salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea is causing king and chum salmon crashes in Western Alaska.
“That is a major issue in our fisheries, because we want to be able to keep and conserve our salmon and our fish in Alaska, and be able to make sure that they aren’t wasted,” she said.
After her speech, Canfield said she hopes people continue to learn about the effects trawler bycatch has on salmon fisheries, as well as its impacts on Alaska Native youth who want to connect with their culture.
“Kids want to be able to reconnect with their elders in that way,” she said, “they want to learn their life ways in a time where revitalization is occurring in other ways, their language revitalization. And they want to be able to practice their food ways as well.”
Advocates from the Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition spoke against the Donlin Gold project. That’s a proposed gold mine that could endanger Crooked Creek, which is a nearby salmon spawning ground. The coalition mainly works to oppose the mine and its associated projects.
Sophie Swope was one of the speakers for the coalition. It’s her third year advocating at Salmonfest. She says the coalition is mobilizing against one element of the project: an oil pipeline that would run from Cook Inlet to the proposed mine. Like with Donlin Mine, Swope says Mother Kuskokwim’s presence at Salmonfest is a way to shine a light on their work to protect salmon populations.
“A lot of people have heard about Pebble (Mine) or vaguely heard about Donlin, but they don’t know the entire impact of it all,” Swope said, “Like, it has the massive potential to create a massive mining district in southwest Alaska, which is nothing that we want, but as we’re fighting our own native corporation, as tribal governments, we’re often silenced. But having this ability to talk to people about those little complications that we have, it’s really good.”
Ketchikan artist Ray Troll also spoke for the series. He’s designed Salmonfest’s posters, shirts and murals since its first year. Troll said he’s been inspired by salmon and their life cycles since moving to Alaska 41 years ago.
“I really believe that salmon are synonymous with what Alaska is about, and they represent Alaska, but what it also represents is hope for me,” he said.
He says he used his art as a way to help spread the word about the festival in its early days.
California-based artist Guillermo Jauregui, who goes by Memo, worked with Troll on most of the art around the festival grounds. He said Troll taught him a lot about salmon through their work. He said working together for so long allows them to paint and build off of one another easily.
“It’s kind of like somebody completing your sentence, you know, before you finish it. That’s kind of what it feels like with paint.”
The work doesn’t stop when Salmonfest ends. As the speakers and artists head their separate ways, Canfield, who spoke on trawl bycatch, will talk about subsistence and Indigenous rights advocacy at two United Nations conferences — the COP15 biodiversity conference in Colombia and the COP 29 climate change conference in Azerbaijan.
The advocates from Mother Kuskokwim are continuing to speak out as they wait for a court decision on the gas pipeline.
And Jauregui and Troll are considering another project for next year’s Salmonfest.
Other causes Salmonfest supports can be found on the event website.
