On September 13th, I flew south out of Naknek in a Cessna 206, dropping down over a hundred miles of tundra and lake country on the Alaska Peninsula, touching down in Ugashik country. From the air, the landscape looked endless; a patchwork of drainages, low hills, and water running toward the Bering Sea in every direction. We set up camp on the lakeshore and stayed for seven days.
I went there to hunt moose. What I found was something larger than that — a reminder of how alive a place can be when people leave it alone.
The Salmon Were Already There
On the first day, three dead sockeye lay on the lakeshore — small fish, two or three pounds each. A few schools still moved in the shallows, their bodies gone red from the spawn cycle. I am always amazed how salmon find their way into every little lake and stream scattered across this wild country. These fish were at the end of their biological purpose, spent after the journey from the Pacific, and they were doing exactly what they were supposed to do: returning nutrients to a system that depends on them.
By day seven, I walked further down the lakeshore and counted. In roughly 1,500 feet of beach, I found 156 dead sockeye. A few still moved, bright green heads catching the light under the surface. I love seeing them both ways — chrome and ocean-fresh in summer at the height of the run, and like this, transformed and fulfilling their last purpose on a remote lakeshore that no one will visit again until next fall.
The salmon are why everything else is here. The bears gorging on them. The otters hunting the remaining fish. The eagles overhead. Every element of what I watched over those seven days connects back to the run — to wild sockeye doing what they have been doing in these drainages for thousands of years.
What Shows Up When You Stay Still
Most people move through wild places. They hike to a destination, spend a few hours, and leave. Sitting in one location on a lake for seven days straight is a different experience. Things show up that moving people never see.
On day one, five otters swam to the shore. When they spotted us, they lifted their heads in unison — a line of periscopes — then bolted across the lake. A red fox trotted the beach, saw us, and spun back into the willows. Ptarmigan called from every direction at dawn, their fall plumage half white and half brown, glowing in the early light. On the second morning, sandhill cranes migrated overhead in steady waves all morning, gliding on thermals without a single wingbeat.
By day four, a pale wolf pup stepped out of the brush about a hundred yards from camp. He looked more like a husky than a wild animal — light-colored, curious, unhurried. He lay down and watched us for a while, then moved on. That evening, two gunshots echoed from miles to the west. Someone else had their bull.
Day five brought the brown bear. I spotted him on the west ridge at dusk, a massive animal feeding on berries and angling toward camp as the light dropped. We moved down the beach quickly. I slipped into the willows, chambered a round, and said quietly: “Yo bear.” He appeared at fifty yards, walking straight down the trail through our camp. When he saw me, he spun and ran. His enormous backside rippled as he went. I could not help but laugh, though sleep did not come easily that night.
Why Bristol Bay Has to Stay Wild
I did not shoot a moose on that trip. I watched one for nearly two hours on day three as he crossed the open flats two miles to the southeast. On day six, a large bull came in hard to 400 yards and stopped. He was close to legal size — maybe 50 inches — but I could not confirm the brow tines, and Alaska law requires three brow tines or 50 inches. I let him walk. At the Becharof Fish and Game office afterward, looking at the posters on the wall, I knew I had made the right call.
There is a discipline to that decision that matters beyond the hunt itself. You are standing in the middle of a system that works — that has wolves and bears and cranes and sockeye and moose all doing what they are supposed to do — and your job is to take what is yours within the rules and leave the rest intact. That is not a regulation. It is a relationship.
Bristol Bay is worth protecting because of what I watched on that lake for seven days. The salmon that feed the bears that den near the rivers that the sockeye use to spawn. The cranes moving south on thermals while the otters work the shallows. The wolf pup sitting at the edge of the willows, watching two men at their camp. This system runs without our help. Our only obligation is not to break it.
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FROM THE WATER The wild sockeye you buy from Pride of Bristol Bay comes from the same watershed as that unnamed lake — the same river systems, the same headwaters, the same ecosystem I watched for seven days in September. The salmon that spawn in those remote lakes and streams are the same population that returns to Bristol Bay each summer for the commercial run. When we talk about protecting Bristol Bay, this is what we are talking about. This is a specific ecosystem, a functioning full circle, irreplaceable place — with wolves, cranes, bears, sockeye salmon, trees, plants, and elements all existing in the natural harmony that has been present for thousands of years. |
Support the Fishery That Depends on This Place
Every case of Pride of Bristol Bay wild sockeye comes from waters connected to the ecosystem I just described. When you buy fisherman direct from us, you are supporting a model of fishing that depends on Bristol Bay staying exactly as wild as it is. Order wild-caught Alaska sockeye shipped directly to your door.
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