Salmon Time
By Safina Center Senior Fellow Amy Gulick
As a kid I dreamed of time travel. To go back in time and see vast herds of bison roaming the Great Plains or clouds of passenger pigeons darkening the sky. To go forward and see what species evolve from life as we know it today and what becomes of our own. And while the Star Trek transporter remains the stuff of science fiction, I feel like I have time traveled by way of salmon. Let me explain.
Pink salmon return to Indian River in Southeast Alaska to spawn the next generation. This was once a common sight in rivers throughout Washington, California, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia where only 10 percent of historical salmon abundance remains today. ©Amy Gulick
To raise awareness with my books, The Salmon Way: An Alaska State of Mind and Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rain Forest, I travel frequently from my home in Washington State’s Salish Sea to salmon country throughout Alaska. The Alaska Airlines jet is my time machine. When I travel north from Seattle to Alaska where salmon habitat remains largely intact and all five species of Pacific salmon are still abundant, I see the past. What the once-great salmon rivers in Washington, together with California, Oregon, Idaho, and southern British Columbia, used to be a mere 150-200 years ago. When I travel south from Alaska back to Seattle, I see the future of what Alaska could be if we’re not vigilant. A place where 90 percent of the original wild salmon abundance is gone. Where rivers without their natal salmon have lost their souls. Heartbreak at home. Hope in Alaska. My mind struggles to hold such contrasting emotions.
Seeing, feeling, and living salmon abundance in Alaska has made me painfully aware of what we’re missing where I live. But human memories fade and in a few generations no one remembers what is gone. But the heart knows. It doesn’t forget. And sometimes it needs to grieve. How else can it heal?
The poem below is my salmon heart’s attempt to mourn so that it can mend.
Fade
Tell me what it means
To belong to a home stream
I no longer know
The salmon are gone
The soul of the river drowned
I have lost my way
Tell me what it means
To give thanks to a home stream
I no longer know
Adrift from the fish
A castaway of the land
What do I do now?
Amy Gulick recites her poem, “Fade,” from I Sing the Salmon Home (Empty Bowl, 2023), an anthology of poems from more than 150 Washington State poets. Amy’s photographs are on display behind her, part of Honor: People and Salmon, an exhibit by Northwest Artists Against Extinction, a collaboration of artists and advocates that supports urgent action to protect wild salmon and steelhead from extinction. Photo courtesy of Holly Hughes.
Amy Gulick, Safina Center Fellow, is the author/photographer of The Salmon Way: An Alaska State of Mind and Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rain Forest.
See: www.amygulick.com