Tag Archives: Chignik Bay
While Chignik fishermen wait on 2018 relief funds, some look beyond the fishery to survive
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. 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. photos, >click to read< 12:02
Chignik Bay ‘hanging by a thread’ in second year of scant fishing
For the second year in a row, Allen and other Chignik fishermen have mostly been left to twiddle their thumbs. During the summer of 2018, they did not have a single opener. That was a year without fish, and a year without income. With a healthy dose of optimism in the offseason, many were ready to write off the bad summer as a fluke and get back to fishing in 2019. The second half of the season has produced a handful of openers, but after spending the entire first half of the season passed with no catch, fishermen say there’s still a dwindling sense of hope. >click to read< 09:35
Chignik fishermen stuck ashore as sockeye run fails
Communities around the Gulf of Alaska are struggling with low sockeye returns, and villages near the Chignik River are no different. The region is experiencing its weakest recorded run in the last in 50 years. Fishermen are stuck waiting for a commercial opener,,, There’s really only one thing to talk about in Chignik Bay these days — where are the sockeye? “Shock is pretty much the guaranteed feeling of most people as kinda everybody walking around dazed.” according to Ben Allen, a local fisherman. It’s to the point where residents have pulled their subsistence nets voluntarily to try and get every salmon they can up the Chignik River.,, And, like other nearby communities, red salmon is the main source of income that keeps the lights on in the village. >click to read<18:12
