NENANA - A little after dawn on a cold October morning, Victor Lord loaded a flat-bottom boat with big plastic totes and set off slowly down the Tanana River.
He crossed under the railroad bridge in his village of Nenana, past the barge landings, and under the highway connecting Fairbanks to Anchorage, then opened the throttle on the 150-horse power motor.
The fall run of chum salmon had come late, but the fishing was good. On this morning, Lord had to pick up the fish from his brother's fish wheel, stop the wheel according to regulations, then drive back to town in time to work his own.
He drove fast, and the boat kicked up waves in the tan, glacial-fed river. A golden eagle passed just overhead.
Eight miles downriver, Lord slowed the boat and steered over to the fish wheel. Its three wire-meshed baskets turned slowly - pushed by the current of the river - and hundreds of fish lay dead in a wooden corral just above the water, covered in a layer of frozen slime and ice. Lord figured it was probably one of the last days for fishing.
Commercial fishing on the Tanana River isn't much of a money-maker these days. Lots of people did it back in the 1970s and '80s, but in the '90s, the runs crashed and people had to get other jobs, Lord said. By 2000, hardly anyone with a fish wheel permit was fishing.
Now the runs are coming back and a processor in Nenana is buying fish again, but the prices are low. (It's unclear why the runs crashed and why they came back.)
On this day, Lord could have been making $30 an hour at his other job building a road around the village. But he wanted to fish. So Lord stood on the driftwood raft of his brother's fish wheel and passed chum salmon one by one onto the boat for a price so low he wouldn't say what it was.
"We're just getting back on our feet now," he said.
Full Story: http://www.newsminer.com/news/2008/jul/31/warming-waters-pose-threats-alaska-salmon-could-re/
