“Anything worth celebrating is worth protecting.” – Inletkeeper carries this message throughout its initiatives, from the annual Salmonfest gathering to our campaign opposing the Johnson Tract mine. Salmonfest brings people together to celebrate Alaska’s salmon and our connection with them. It’s a weekend packed with incredible musicians and artists, and dedicated organizations working to grow grassroots power to protect salmon from the headwaters to the sea. Inletkeeper is proud to be among the community of advocates who gather each year in Salmonfest’s “Causeway” to talk about some of Alaska’s biggest environmental issues. At the Inletkeeper booth, this year’s outreach focused on the Johnson Tract project.
Thank you to all who stopped by our booth and took action, it was great to see new faces and old! Like many of the salmon campaigns you can engage with at Salmonfest, protecting habitat from bad project proposals is a long haul effort and we appreciate that you keep coming back.
This year, hundreds of people joined our fight to protect Tuxedni Bay from the Johnson Tract project, a proposed gold mine that would be built just across the Inlet from where we were gathered in Ninilchik. Inletkeeper gathered signatures for our petition to slow the mine’s progress by asking the National Marine Fisheries Service to block industrial development at Tuxedni Bay, the proposed location for the mine’s port. Tuxedni Bay is a beautiful hotspot for tourism, set-netting, bears, birds, and importantly, endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales. This bay is the only known location where beluga whales feed in the winter months, making the region especially sensitive to development and especially worth protecting. If you missed us at Salmonfest, you can still add your name here.
Salmonfest started as a way to grow awareness and build people-power to push back against the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay. Inletkeeper strives to keep the festival connected to its roots by giving the mic to salmon champions, who hail from Bristol Bay, to Cook Inlet, to the Kuskokwim, to the Susitna Valley. Each of these champions fight to protect salmon from industrial threats from mining to trawling, and took to the stage to express messages of salmon love, solidarity, and calls to action.
Connecting with our salmon community is always a special highlight of the festival for us, hearing the messages of our comrades from stage gives us hope. We are still thinking of the rhythmic words shared by Salmon Champion Quentin Simeon, who reminded us that salmon protection starts with keeping a deep well of respect and gratitude for salmon and their gifts to us at the forefront of our hearts.
