“My first memory of salmon was of my grandma, Belle Deacon, cutting fish. It was the way we grew up—her cutting fish, even at a very old age. She taught us a lot.

Learning how to drift with my uncle, how to pick the nets and stuff like that probably stands out the most because he was pretty stern and had a way of letting us know when we weren't doing something right.”

“My dad had 16 kids, and they raised all of us on salmon. Generations before that, [my ancestors] used to have dog teams, and they were really connected to salmon, both for feeding dogs and their families. So it's been in our life forever. My wife’s family too.”

“Salmon is what keeps our families together. In the summertime, they come home to fish with each other and be with each other. People used to come back from Anchorage and all over to get that sense of community.”

“My name is Shaelene Nickoli. I am from Ruby, Alaska. I'm married to my husband, Malcolm. We have 4 children, and we have lived in Ruby for 15 years.”

“We lived off salmon. We had dried salmon in the summer and winter months. But today is a different story.

There's nothing like a fish camp. That's all I can say.”

“I love salmon. That's my lifestyle. My elders taught me and raised me on salmon. It was hard to go out and get meat and they could catch salmon because they had fish nets, and they had a certain way of building a little container that catches fish.”

“Since I was born, salmon meant everything to us. We fished every summer. We ate it all winter.

I remember collecting fish hearts on the bank in Anvik when we were little. They would be cutting hundreds and hundreds of fish. It was mostly to feed their sled dogs. We would collect hearts in coffee cans and cook them over an open fire like marshmallows. I call them Indian marshmallows.”

“My parents raised their six children at fish camp right above our village of Rampart, on the Yukon River. I have very fond memories of being at camp. Multi-generation family members together harvesting salmon. Family members coming from different villages and cities to come and fish together.”

"I was born in Fairbanks, and at a very young age, maybe 4 or 5, I moved out to Rampart, where my mom was born. We call it the canyon area — it’s the mountainous area of the Yukon River. Sixty miles right above Rampart is the Dalton Highway. To get to Rampart in the summertime, we drive our trucks out and boat down the river. In the wintertime, we make an ice road 25 miles out to the Elliot Highway near Manley Hot Springs. When the ice road is closed, I’ll drive my snowmachine 25 miles to the Elliot Highway where my truck is parked. That takes all day.”