February 6, 2023 — I was born and raised in the Interior, in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim (AYK) region, to be exact. I grew up in a community that depends on subsistence fishing, and my childhood memories are dominated by recollections of my father, my mother and countless other members of my family and broader community going out on boats and bringing back the fish that our people have harvested and survived on for generations. I grew up fishing for subsistence, and I know how deeply important it is not only for physical survival but for the survival of our cultures and the identities of Native people across Alaska.
I have lived in False Pass seasonally over the past 10 years and have raised my kids there. They have been raised to know subsistence and value it. They have created their own memories, both in False Pass and in the AYK region with my family. I have seen the harvests change in my lifetime, from years of abundance to some years where there is nothing at all, and I am brokenhearted by the impossible situation many communities in the AYK — including the one I grew up in — find themselves in with increasingly diminished salmon runs. However, I know that shutting down the fishery often referred to as Area M that my community and many, many other communities in Western Alaska depend on will not solve any of the problems the AYK is facing. Instead, it will cause more communities to suffer. We know this because every major research study and dataset demonstrates that limiting or shutting down Area M fisheries will not solve the salmon return crisis in the AYK. This conclusion is also that of the Department of Fish and Game, supported by both NOAA and Fish and Game studies demonstrating the impact that five-plus years of poor ocean conditions have had on AYK chum salmon.