The Fishin' Academicians

Fairbanks is sinking.

As with many places in Northern Alaska, the city of Fairbanks is built upon a massive bed of permafrost: a subterranean layer of permanently frozen earth. The permafrost is melting. As the earth gets warmer, the layer of permafrost under the foundations of many buildings in Fairbanks is thawing causing buildings to list unevenly. Several large sinkholes have opened around the city and so far little has been done to offset this trend.

I learned these facts while fishing for Silver salmon on the Little Susitna River near Wasilla, Alaska. I traveled to Alaska to work with the Instructional Technology Department in the Matanuska-Susitna, or Mat-Su Borough School District in Palmer, Alaska. They invited me for a return trip to the lovely Wasilla Valley to assist in their back-to-school technology integration program.

Mat-Su’s Instructional Technology Specialist Brett Hill introduced me to his friend Greg Gioaque, a Mat-Su teacher who offered to guide my first salmon fishing trip in Alaska. I arrive at the dock later than the 6:30 am meeting time and apologize to the group sitting in the aluminum flat bottom river boat. The moss colored water contrasts slightly with the dull grey sky. Greg cheerfully explains that while salmon are most active during first light, the cloud cover will prolong their activity into the late morning.

Along with us is Greg’s former English teacher Dave and his wife Judith, also a former teacher. Both are now retired and fish with Greg often. We strike up easy conversation about our mutual love of teaching, the unique challenges today’s educators, and, of course, fishing stories – though theirs are more numerous than mine.

We make our way up the shallow Little Su with Greg’s steady hand on the till. Greg has been fishing the river since the age of five and he describes each section as aging friend whose best days are now the stuff of memory.

Greg anchors the boat at a particular bend and we begin to drift cast using baited hooks. Greg expertly rigs each rod with a floater and neon pink salmon eggs on a two hook rig. He positions each of us so that our lines won’t cross. After several unsuccessful casts, he picks up the leaded anchor and takes us to a section he calls “The Promised Land.”

As we make our way upriver Greg shares that in years past the Little Su would be choked with salmon: forty pound Kings, silvers, pinks, chum and the elusive scarlet sockeye swimming towards their native spawning grounds by the tens of thousands.

It’s a sight I have trouble imagining and may never actually witness.

We finally case out the Promised Land. Greg points out numerous signs of what appear to be an abundance of fish. He says that spawning salmon aren’t eating and so we’re not baiting them with food as much as irritating them causing them to attack the lure by biting it.

We once again let our bait drift back with the current and almost immediately both Dave gets a fish on. I begin reeling my rig in so as not to interfere with Dave’s fish when my rod jerks downward and I feel the unmistakable pull of a big fish struggling.

Dave and I move to opposite sides of the boat to minimize the chance of crossing our lines and losing one or both fish. I keep my tip up and reel as quickly and smoothly as I can when I see my fish jump clear out of the water. It is an awesome sight. Greg reminds me to keep the pressure on because a fish that breaks the water could be a fish that breaks the line. I continue to reel in, maneuvering the fish close to the boat. He tries to swim underneath, but I somehow manage to steer him towards Greg’s outstretched net and just like that I’ve caught my first Alaskan Silver salmon.

After a valiant fight, Dave’s fish proves to be a huge chum salmon and so he is released and we continue fishing the Promised Land. Judith quickly pulls in two good sized silvers and I follow with my second silver caught on a spinner. Greg casts expertly into a hole and immediately reels in another. Not five minutes pass when he casts into the hole and we see another silver swim up and take the lure.

Dave has yet to catch his limit of two and we relax on the boat chairs while Dave plies the waters with expert casts.

Earlier we swung past a deep hole that Greg said once held four or five thousand fish. Now estimated it contained count of four or five hundred.

I ask him if the pressures on salmon in Puget Sound watersheds – development, commercial fishing, habitat loss, and over fishing – are also reducing the salmon runs in Alaska.

His answer surprised me. Greg opined that in addition to possible over-fishing, the run strength may be more compromised by uncharacteristic flooding during Fall spawning or Spring hatching cycles along with unseasonably warm waters delaying the run. He’s says he’s optimistic that the run is just late this year and that the salmon will come back.

So what, I asked, is causing the unseasonably warm waters?

That’s when Judith told me that due to global warming Fairbanks is sinking, Polar bears are drowning, and Native Alaskan Elders can no longer safely predict the weather as they watch their ancestral homes engulfed by a rising ocean.

“Global warming,” she said assuredly, adding, “And some people still think it’s a lie.”

I couldn’t help but think, “What hope is there for man if salmon are lost?”

Not long ago President George W. Bush said, “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.”

On this count, at least, I hope he is right.