Aug. 12-14, 2015
After invited to work with the Lake and Peninsula Borough School District I was thrilled to visit King Salmon, which is located in the infamous Bristol Bay, a quick 1 hour flight south from Anchorage. There is a little bit of everything “Alaska” in this region, though it is best known for 1, fishing and 2, brown bears though there are a lot of caribou, moose, wolves and little critters like fox, beaver and of course porcupine! Tourists also come to the area for bird watching with over 150 different species that pass through this area.
Lake and Pen School District is about the size of West Virginia. The district represents the following communities, the population as of last census is listed after the site.
- Port Alsworth ( Tatalian school) 113
- Nondalton 205
- Newhalen 183
- Kokhanok 166
- Igiugig 56
- Levelock 57
- Egegik 76
- Pilot Point 76
- Port Heiden (Meshik School) 90
- Chignik Lagoon 103
- Chignik Lake 113
- Chignik Bay 92
- Perryville 110
Only 2 of these communities, Newhalen and Iliamna are connected by road, everyone else must fly or boat to other communities. Almost 80% of the population of this area are Alaska Native and the district office is in King Salmon.
Fishing: There are 3 main rivers, the Naknek, the Kvichak and the Alagnak which are all a fisherpersons dream. As the name of the area may give away, salmon is abundant in the region as are rainbow, dolly varden, and grayling. As I left the airport on Friday a.m.
I was one of the only NON fisherperson on the plane. Each of them was checking 100-200#’s of fish, and because of this, there was too much luggage for the plane. In the end the airline had to leave over 2000#’s of luggage in King Salmon that would be delivered at a later time. Mine arrived home on Saturday!
seafood is a huge industry in the area
all these boats are on land currently, UNTIL the next big fishing season!
across the bay another fish plant
Bristol Bay behind me!
timistravels 