Run of the Reds

Run of the Reds

South Naknek, Alaska is a remote fishing village in Southwest Alaska that is seemingly on the edge of the Earth. For 10 months out of the year, the population in South Naknek totals to just under 50 people, but for six weeks every summer, that number skyrockets as the town comes back to life. With the arrival of summer, comes the lifeblood of the community and those who travel from far and wide to catch their piece as well: the sockeye salmon, otherwise known as “Reds.”

Bristol Bay, and the five rivers that empty into it, holds the largest sockeye salmon run in the world. While other fisheries and natural resources are declining around the globe, these resilient fish keep coming back to their native waters in Bristol Bay to spawn by the tens of millions in the same few weeks every year.

Since 2018, I have been going up to this wild place to document this incredible natural phenomenon and the people that choose to make a living catching these fish. They work long days (and nights) and live in dilapidated huts on the beach. For six weeks, their lives are ruled by the tides. They endure harsh weather, horrendous swaths of mosquitos, and beaches run by grizzly bears.

This book is dedicated to those who choose to fish the waters in this desolate, yet strangely beautiful place; to the Fransen family who so graciously took me in and welcomed me into this part of their family’s life; to the Native Alaskans who came before us and to the beautiful natural resource that is the Sockeye Salmon. To the Run of the Reds.