Ban Bottom Trawling

“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.”