Featured SalmonState Column

“Alaska’s untold secret” — the dividends paid by Southeast Alaska’s “Seabank”
Mary Catharine Martin Mary Catharine Martin

“Alaska’s untold secret” — the dividends paid by Southeast Alaska’s “Seabank”

Wild salmon. Clean water. Clean air. Carbon storage. Climate change mitigation. Tourism, commercial fisheries — and billions of dollars in economic benefit. Since 2018, the Alaska Sustainability Fisheries Trust (ASFT) has quietly published reports that upend managers’ historical ways of thinking about Southeast Alaska and the Tongass National Forest — and redefine priorities for management now and in the future.

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A trip on the transboundary Stikine River
Mary Catharine Martin Mary Catharine Martin

A trip on the transboundary Stikine River

Each year, my partner Bjorn and I take a river trip. Parenthood (we have a two-year-old and a five-month-old) has also meant that we’re also thinking low-key. COVID meant we were dreaming of travel.

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‘Tongass Odyssey’ explores decades of research, politics and change
Mary Catharine Martin Mary Catharine Martin

‘Tongass Odyssey’ explores decades of research, politics and change

In 1977, John Schoen flew to Hood Bay on Admiralty Island. He’d been hired as the first Southeast Alaska research biologist to study deer and this was his first trip into the field.

“Flying into the bay, looking at humpback whales and all the bald eagles in the trees… we got out of the Beaver, stepped on the beach and saw these huge, enormous brown bear tracks. And listening to the blue grouse, and the geese on the beach, I just thought ‘Man, I’m getting paid to do this? Unbelievable!’” he recalled.

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