Axel Kopun

"Salmon is pretty much everything. We eat it every way possible. My whole family. My friends, their families, my aunts, uncles, cousins – everybody in Chignik. You eat it as much as you can. You smoke it, salt it, dry it, freeze it for the winter, can it. When my sister comes down we jar a bunch of fish for her. Salmon puts food on the table, literally and figuratively. We eat them and we make money to buy all of the other stuff. It puts a roof over our head.

Salmon are at the center of our social time together as well. It’s what brings us all together every summer. Just going and getting it is a family thing. I did it with my grandpa, dad, uncles and cousins. We’d go up to Chignik Lagoon and get our fish for the smokehouse. It’s what's held us all together. We get up in the morning and say, “Hey, it’s a good day, let’s go get fish.” You get home, keep a couple for yourself and then give the rest away to the village. That’s what everyone does. There’s nothing better than your first fresh red salmon in the spring. Everybody says it. When you lose that, it’s tough.

I owe everything I’ve got to salmon. My grandpa made a good living fishing, and so did my Dad, and I have up until this point too. Financially, socially, it's really everything to most of us. Salmon built Chignik. If it wasn’t for salmon, Chignik wouldn’t exist."

–Axel Kopun, Chignik Fisherman

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