February 16, 2022 — Aloys Kopun sat in the small harbormaster’s office in Chignik Bay last July as a few boats gently bobbed in the harbor’s turquoise water.
“When we were fishing like we normally fished here, the whole harbor was always plump full,” he said. “As you can see, now, we had hardly nobody in here. And everybody’s gone tendering or went to other areas to fish, or some of them went broke.”
Kopun fished in Chignik, on the Alaska Peninsula, for decades before becoming the summer harbormaster.
He said the harbor used to be so full that it had a waiting list for boats to dock there. But last summer, it was almost empty. Significantly fewer boats have returned since the Chignik sockeye run failed in 2018. Fishermen who depend on the salmon closed out that season without making a paycheck.