July 26, 2016

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FEATURES

THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2016

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A look at salmon and climate change

By Victoria Petersen

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In the Upper Cook Inlet, Chinook salmon runs have decreased in size for the past five years. The science isn’t in stone, but a leading theory of why this is occurring has been associated with Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or PDO. PDO is the recurring pattern of warmer and cooler surface waters in the Pacific ocean and is thought by scientists to play a key role in the survival of Alaska salmon by impacting the prey that Alaska salmon feed on. Depending on where the PDO cycle is occurring, it can determine the abundance of prey populations, which, in turn, determines the abundance of the salmon population.

“While the PDO is a naturally occurring event, some folks think that climate change may be exacerbating the strength of the PDO. So, to the extent that Chinook salmon runs are impacted by the PDO or other oceanographic temperature anomalies, it is possible that climate change might affect our salmon runs in 2016. But, it is a very difficult thing to quantify,” Patrick Shields, Upper Cook Inlet area salmon and herring management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said.

Bill Holt, a boat captain of a salmon gill net boat in Cook Inlet, has been fishing for over 40 years. Over the last few years Holt has noticed changes in the patterns of his usually fishing routine.

“It seems to me that the climate is changing. The last three winters have been very mild here. We’ve been hav-

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ing these issues the last couple years with real warm water temperatures. So, it’s gotta be affecting the fish somewhat,” Holt said. “It may not be affecting them so much if they grow in the rivers, but the returning fish seem to be returning in different patterns than what they usually do.

Strange entry patterns for fish make it it hard to catch fish. I’ve only been fishing

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for forty years, so maybe the fish patterns were different before that too. It sounds like a long time, but it’s really not a lot, biologically.”

Other concerns for future salmon, with regards to climate change include, ocean acidification. Salmon rely on organisms like pelagic sea snails, or pteropods, for food. Pteropods could be affected greatly

by ocean acidification which would affect the population of Alaska’s salmon, especially in the Cook Inlet area. “ Pteropods are highly sensitive to changes in the pH of the marine environment in which they live. Pteropods are such an important food source to many salmon that if their abundance is impacted due to our oceans becoming more acidic, then our salmon runs in the future could be negatively impacted,” Shields said.

Freshwater temperature change could also carry a negative impact for Alaska’s salmon. Salmon are intolerant to warm water, and if rivers where salmon spawn warm, the salmon won’t be able to handle the temperature change and spawn.

Water temperatures beyond 20 degrees celsius can become lethal for salmon.

“Last year in the Columbia River, thousands and thousands of salmon perished due to lethal water temperatures.

We have noted this in some of our local watersheds. If climate change is to result in a period of years or decades with increased air temperatures, it is possible that some of our streams that salmon now spawn and rear in will become environments that salmon will not be able to tolerate,” Shields said. “Thus, climate change, as it relates to water temperature, can definitely play a role in future salmon runs.”

The changes may seem slow, but in geologic time, the changes are happening rapidly, leaving little time for adaptation.

Salmon, an important resource for all of us in Alaska, are slowly, but surely facing the impacts of climate change through water temperatures.

From fishing to flowers: Adapting in remote Alaska

COURTESY OF EAGLESONG FAMILY PEONY FARM

According to the USDA EagleSong Family Peony Farm is one of America’s most remote farms, located at the base of Mt. Susitna.

By Victoria Petersen

vgpetersen@thenorthernlight.org

According to the USDA, EagleSong Family Peony Farm is one of America’s most remote farms. Located near the North base of Mt. Susitna, EagleSong grows over 12,000 peony roots in over 22 varieties. In addition to growing and selling peonies worldwide EagleSong also grows all types of vegetables to feed their crew throughout the summer and family through the winter, and hops for use by local micro breweries. EagleSong is

one of the states largest peony farms and co-owner Mike Williams is the founding owner and managing partner of Alaska Peony Distributors, LLC, a commercial peony pack house that buys peonies for area farms. The peonies are transported to the pack house located at Lake Hood where they are inspected and graded, then marketed and sold around the world.

Before EagleSong became a success in the ever-growing Alaskan peony industry, Williams, along with his wife Paula purchased an old homestead and created the EagleSong Lodge in 1993.

“We were the traditional hunting and

fishing lodge with some winter business catering to snow-machiners, dog mushers and acting as a checkpoint for various winter races. We gradually lost our salmon runs that sustained our summer business due to the invasion of northern pike. They ate up all the salmon. It is tough being a fishing lodge with no fish.

During our peak there were over a dozen lodges operating around us. By 2009, we were the only lodge still open. We knew the end had come,” Williams said.

Forced to switch gears, the Williams family looked to peony farming to save their home.

“We didn’t want to leave our home of 15 years so we looked into farming and settled on peony farming since it primarily evolves around air transport which we had relied on since we moved here,” Williams said.

The homestead is a family run farm where the Williams family raised four children, as well as peonies and other vegetables. Beyond farming, other artistic endeavors that originate from EagleSong include hand carved birch and spruce sculptures by Mike Williams, an experienced commercial carver. While Paula uses her locally grown produce to further her culinary skills. A cookbook

is in the works and is looking to be completed by 2017.

EagleSong is an avid host of volunteers from the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms organization, which matches volunteers and farms across the world for farm stays in exchange of labor and agricultural experience.

“We have hosted dozens of volunteers, WWOOF-ers and interns over the years and not one has gone away less than satisfied with their experience here. The farming experience coupled with the experience of living in back country Alaska is an opportunity that few ever experience,” Williams said. “It is hard to put in a few words all the things our visitors can experience. Hard work at times, but the satisfaction at the end of the day brings them back for more. We insist all our visitors participate in the growing of the food we consume and give them the opportunity to create their favorite dishes so we can all experience their culture. It is not unusual to have WWOOF-ers from far flung parts of the globe. Last summer we had WWOOF-ers from Denmark, Germany, India, France, China and all over the U.S.”

EagleSong was the focus of a 13 episode series, called Building Alaska, last summer. The show finished airing in May and is currently playing in Europe.

You can find EagleSong at the Downtown Saturday Market selling peony roots, and a few flowers. They have been a fixture of the market for over ten years now.

For more information and to get in touch with Mike and Paula Williams at EagleSong you can visit their Facebook page or website, www.eaglesongalaska.com.

FEATURES

THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2016

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Apayo Art: Inspired by salmon

By Victoria Petersen

vgpetersen@thenorthernlight.org

Growing up in Dillingham and in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska, Apayo Moore found love in arts and craft with a culture and family deeply rooted in salmon.

“When we were small, my family (aunts, uncles, cousins, mom) would make crafts that my grandma would bring to Anchorage to sell at Alaska Federation of Natives, the hospitals, and wherever else she could pull them out in business offices to peddle. I remember always being welcome to join in craft making. Even if it was making strings of boring necklaces and bracelets that didn’t match. For fun we would make beaded jewelry and to encourage us, my grandma would add things that we made to the collection of things to sell. She carried several different envelopes to put each persons money in as an accounting system,” Moore said.

Beginning with crafts, Moore spent her formative years discovering new artistic mediums when she found painting to be the most efficient way to express herself.

“As a young child, my artistic talent wasn’t focused. Started school and did the usual art projects. My dad noticed that I was ahead of the game with my drawing talent when I was 5. From there they encouraged drawing, but crafts were always a large part of my life in play,” Moore said. “I also took home economics and we had sewing projects that helped foster visualization and building skill for symmetry and pattern. I also took wood shop, which I believe helped me on an artistic level as well. And of course, our high school art class, that covered ceramics, painting, drawing and the basics.

By the time I got to college, painting was the most sensible way to affordably practice the sale of my “craft.” It had the least amount of tools and art was quick to produce. So my background with art, in short, is it has always been a part of my life in vocational skill, as someone who was taught to live in rural Alaska.”

In rural Alaska, Moore’s family sustained their life on salmon through commercial fishing in Bristol Bay. “Salmon were the main means of income for my family, all around. My aunts, uncles, grandparents, and parents all commercial fished. I myself was raised partially on my dad’s fishing boat.

If my time on the boat was limited to just weeks out of the year, the profoundness of those short weeks made more of a difference in my character than several months throughout the rest of the year, for sure,” Moore said.

Moore’s grandmother was in charge of the family’s subsistence catch, where she would gather salmon from their cabin on the Wood River. Moore spent a part of her summers with her grandparents at the cabin, a highlight in Moore’s life.

“I remember my dad helping her to get set up and when we would spend portions of our summers with her. My papa was in charge of shooting the “bear gun.” It was a highlight (for the kids at least) to see the bears. Of course, our grandparents dreaded losing all that work to bears, when they did succeed in breaking into the smoke house or drying rack. I had very minimal subsistence harvesting experience until after college, but have always been the beneficiary of eating the salmon throughout the winter through my grandma’s subsistence,” Moore said.

Later in life, Moore joined the family business and commercial drift fished with her father for several summers. She also commercial set net fished in Ekuk, AK for a number of years.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY APAYO MOORE

Apayo Moore is inspired by salmon and the role it plays in her family and culture.

After college, Moore worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as a salmon tower technician. She counted the salmon that went up the river, determining the escapement of the salmon that commercial fishing openers are based off of.

“That job taught me a more scientific standpoint of the salmon in our region.”

More had gained the experience and knowledge that equipped her to work as the Education and Outreach Coordinator for Nunamta Aulukestai, Caretakers of our Land. In this position, Moore was able to familiarize herself with the Pebble Mine project and inform the public on the threat the project had to the subsistence lifestyle of those in the Bristol Bay area.

“Then later in college, I really dove into the the heart of why salmon are important by combining everything that I knew and felt about them,” Moore said.

“It was my job to inform the public why it was a bad idea and it’s threat to our subsistence lifestyle, and especially the devastation it would cause to our dependence on salmon through the impacts it would pose to salmon habitat and rearing streams. This job changed my life and how I express myself in a meaningful way, for sure.”

Today, Moore is digging deeper into her roots and learning more about subsistence and traditional ways of handling salmon.

“I have spent the last couple of years learning about how to process my own salmon through subsistence, learned my mom’s way of putting up fish for smoking, canning and filleting for the freezer fish,” Moore said.

Moore is fortunate enough to have multiple perspectives on the fish that has shaped her art and her life. From the scientific perspective to the meaning of the salmon in the wintertime in rural Alaska, Moore has intention and heart that is evident in her art.

“Salmon mean more to me than the literal term, salmon. This reflection is based on years of self analyzing and observation of my own behavior and thoughts through each salmon experience, as well as what I’ve witnessed and experienced with my peers. I definitely credit the fight against Pebble Mine as a turning point in the way my self-expression through art has evolved to what it is today,” Moore said.

Moore currently resides in Aleknagik, AK. One can find Moore painting, making originally designed t-shirts, working on murals and taking graphic design commissions, as well as taking on many other forms of arts and crafts.

Moore’s work and contact information is best displayed on her website, apayoart.com.

Family and salmon have been integral in Apayo Moore’s life.

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FEATURES

THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2016

Homemade fettuccine in the Widgeon II

By Victoria Petersen

vgpetersen@thenorthernlight.org

Hearing the word homemade followed by something you’ve only ever thought you would buy can be daunting. I’ve made homemade pasta once in my life as part of a ‘culinary boot camp’ my parents put me in one summer as a kid. In the class, we learned knife skills and basic

cooking repertoire. Of all the things we did that week, making pasta seemed to be the most time consuming and tedious task of them all.

Flash forward a decade later in the Widgeon II, a remote cooking school in Kachemak Bay, I’m assembled with a small team consisting of a fellow writer and a gifted cook. Tasked to work with the ingredients at hand, we are inspired to make pesto and the idea of pasta soon

follows. Investigating to see if fettuccine was available, we were greeted without pasta, but with a clunky metal machine that I spent numerous afternoons avoiding as a kid. The ominous crank wasn’t enough to deter my hunger. I turned the crank and helped to feed the pasta through. Shocked at how little time it took to make such a small amount of flour go so far, I was having a revelation.

Maybe making pasta isn’t as annoying

as I thought? Maybe everything seems to take hours as an 11-year-old? When the water was boiled and the pasta was done I tasted for doneness and it clicked: The kneading, feeding, and cranking was worth it for the delicate, melt-in-yourmouth, almost buttery consistency of the pasta. It creates a taste you can’t buy from a store.

Directions: 1. In a large mixing bowl, incorporate 2 cups of flour and salt. Create a well in the center of the flour.

2. Place the olive oil, egg yolks and the egg into the well and with two fingers whisk the eggs into the flour until a tacky dough is formed.

3. Knead the dough for about 7 to 10 minutes. Set aside and cover with plastic. Allow to rest for a minimum of 20 minutes.

4. While dough is resting, set up pasta roller and cutter per manufacturer’s instructions.

5. After the dough has rested, cut into even thirds. Set two pieces of dough aside, keeping them covered, and work with the first third by flattening the leading edge until it is about ½ inch in thickness.

PHOTOS BY VICTORIA PETERSEN

Time:

1 hour

Yield:

6 – 8 servings

Ingredients: • • • • •

2 ½ cups of all-purpose flour ½ tablespoon of kosher salt 6 egg yolks 1 egg 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions to cook pasta: 1. Fill a large deep pot with 2 quarts of water and bring to a boil.

2. Once the water has been brought to a boil, toss in 3 to 4 tablespoons of salt.

6. Feed the flattened dough through the pasta roller on the widest setting. Once the dough has been fed through, take the stretched dough and fold into thirds. Dust the pasta dough with flour if tacky.

7. Repeat step 6 ten times, folding the pasta into thirds each time, creating layers.

8. Once the layers are created, proceed to thinning and stretching the pasta dough. Reducing the width of the rollers each pass through until you have reduced the width 8 times. Dust the dough with flour as needed.

9. Add the pasta cutter attachment to the pasta making machine per manufacturer’s instructions. With the widest pasta cutter setting or the fettuccine setting, feed the pasta sheet through the cutter. Once pasta has been cut, dust liberally with flour and form the pasta into a small nest, set aside and cover with plastic.

10. Follow steps 5 – 9 with the other two pasta dough thirds.

3. Shake the remaining flour off the pasta before placing the pasta into the boiling water. Sir the pasta until the water has returned to a boil, and allow to cook until desired doneness, approximately 2 to 4 minutes.

4. Once pasta has reached desired doneness, reserve a cup of the cooking water for creating a sauce. Drain the remaining water and serve.

The Widgeon II, a World War II vessel turned crabbing boat is now the remote cooking school at the Tutka Bay Lodge.

FEATURES

THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2016

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FEATURES

THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2016

FEATURES

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FEATURES

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THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2016

Wild Scoops: An icy passion project

By Victoria Petersen

vgpetersen@thenorthernlight.org

Wild Scoops was launched May of 2015 after Elissa Brown and her partner, Chris Pike, began to take ice cream more seriously. Working as a science and Spanish teacher three years ago at a North Carolina middle school, Brown stumbled upon an ice cream recipe book that started it all.

“I have memories of doing one of the ice and rock salt ice cream makers as a child, but it was about three years ago I was working in North Carolina as a middle science

and Spanish school teacher when I discovered this ice cream cook book, and it was just amazing. I would go through it and try recipe after recipe and I feel like that’s really when I began that craft,” Brown said.

With no real storefront, the ice cream preparation takes place in the rented kitchen space at Mad Myrna’s, with an expanded a new kitchen space being built and on the way.

“Right now we are in the process of building a kitchen space of our own,” Brown said. “We are hoping to be in there in about a month or and expand our operations. We would love to open a store, it’s part of our five year plan. Hopefully sooner rather than later in the five years.”

Taking advantage of Alaskan ingredients and locally made products, Wild Scoops prides itself in distinctly Alaskan ice cream.

“It’s really fun, people are always laughing when they hear we started an Alaskan ice cream business, but we have so many locally grown and locally harvested products, it’s really exciting to be able to incorporate them. It’s my 120 percent job right now. Alaskans love ice cream year round.”

Brown, along with her five employees create unique flavors and package ice cream for festivals and wholesalers. Flavors are inspired, not only by Alaskan ingredients, but by the world Brown lives in.

“Sometimes I’ll be reading a recipe for orange honey miso glazed chicken and I’ll think huh, that would make a good ice cream without the chicken,” Brown said. “Or I’ll be at the farmers market going by a booth and see that they have these really beautiful beets, and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, well we have to use those.’ Or I’ll hear about a new business in town. Like in Talkeetna, we stopped by

this place called Kahiltna Birchworks because we knew they served birch syrup, but we also found out they do these local jams and birch caramels and birch brittle.

Really everywhere and everything — I’ll be in the store and pass a candle that’s like a lime cucumber and be like, ‘Oh, that’s a great sorbet.’”

When visiting the mobile ice cream cart at the markets, you never know what you might find. With constantly rotating options and seasonal flavors plenty, one can experience a unique array of locally made ice cream.

“Because we are so small and so mobile, we only have seven flavors in our ice cream cart at once. So if we had the seven classics, we wouldn’t be able to have any rotating ones. We always have one vanilla, one chocolate and one dairy free flavor. The rest are constantly rotating,” Brown said.

With a store in the five-year plan, Wild Scoops wants to create a community hub where local ingredients can be celebrated and enjoyed, and like many new businesses and passion projects, Wild Scoops has used social media as a way to communicate and help their business.

“Since we don’t have a physical storefront, online platforms have served as a virtual gathering place and a way to get the word out about our new flavors and popup sales locations.”

Wild Scoops has even used social media as a way of trading produce for ice cream with locals. This act of trading highlights Alaska’s unique and hospitable culture.

“We asked and traded rhubarb for pint certificates, this year we had 20 different people contact us and we got over 250 pounds of rhubarb given to us. We just had no more space for them,” Brown said.

Find Wild Scoops around town on Tuesday’s from 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. at Lunch on the Lawn at the Anchorage Museum, Thursday’s from 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. at the Alaska Pacific University Farmers Market and Saturday’s from 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. at the South Anchorage Farmers Market. Wholesale options around the state allow customers to buy Wild Scoops ice cream pints any day of the week, all year round. Wholesalers include La Bodega’s metro mall location, Summit Spice and Tea, Alyeska Resort and Flying Squirrel Bakery and Cafe in Talkeetna. Wild Scoops occasionally hosts ice cream socials in different venues around Anchorage. Check their social media for updates on where and when they will be selling.

The Salmon Project brings new meaning to salmon

COURTESY OF THE SALMON PROJECT.

By Victoria Petersen

vgpetersen@thenorthernlight.org

When The Salmon Project began a few years ago, it started as a way for Alaskans to share and experience salmon in a way that no other organization had the venue for. It began with public interest research about what salmon means to Alaskans and took off from there.

“A lot of organizations work doing activist work with salmon and there was a space in the conversation for a group like us to come in and create positive conversations around salmon. Create a space where Alaskans could come and learn more about salmon and learn more about the ways that Alaskans interact with salmon and celebrate the deep connection we all have to the fish.” Miriam Roberts, Outreach and Engagement coordinator of The Salmon Project said.

The non-profit organization is small, but mighty.

With active social media accounts, you can find the salmon project sharing stories and experiences from all over the state in the digital medium.

In addition to sharing stories, the team also plans initiatives. One such initiative that took place last year was the “baby salmon live here” campaign. The Salmon Project partnered with over 50 organizations to bring awareness to spots enjoyed all year — spots where some might not have known that salmon are a part of the ecosystem.

“The idea that when we go out and play in the summer or in the winter that baby salmon are all around us, but we aren’t really aware of it, so it gave you a chance to see all the places we know and love and play in and see them in a new way.”

All of The Salmon Project’s initiatives aim to get Alaskans more aware of salmon in their daily lives.

“We more focus on celebrating what salmon allows us to do in Alaska. Salmon is often the vehicle we use to spend time with friends and spend time with family members and to teach our kids hard work. So it’s really at the root of a lot of the values we have as Alaskans,” Roberts said.

Social media and digital communication have been at the center for The Salmon Project’s campaigns and projects. Allowing them to share stories from around the state to all of Alaska in the click of a button.

“We really rely on digital media and engage with people in that way. The work that we are doing can’t be done without social media,” Roberts said.

Follow The Salmon Project on their social media accounts to learn more about the campaigns, the stories and how Alaskans interact with salmon and what salmon means to them.

A&E

THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2016

By Jacob Holley-Kline Contributor

Ambition sets ‘So Young’ apart

TITLE “So Young”

DIRECTOR Zhao Wei

RELEASE DATE June 14, 2013

COUNTRY China

GENRE Romance

To give credit where credit’s due, “So Young,” a Chinese romantic comedy, works hard to separate itself from the crowd. It’s not quite a romantic comedy, or a drama, or a melodrama. It’s a blend of all three. Together, those genres can be hokey, and the movie certainly has hokey moments. But its commitment to those moments is fierce.

On the surface, “So Young” is your typical romance. Zheng Wei (Zishan Yang, “Battle of Memories”), an incoming freshman, arrives at her college.

When she meets her three eccentric roommates, Ruan Guan (Shuying Jiang, “House of Wolves”), Li Weiyang (Yao Zhange, “Love, at First”) and Xu Kaiyang (Ryan Zheng, “Running Lover”), she discovers that college is nothing like she imagined it would be.

Truthfully, the plot is thin. It mainly focuses on Zheng’s relationship with Chen Xiaozheng (Mark Chao, “Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe”) with detours into other characters’ lives. It lacks the focus of the more adult “In the Mood For Love,” but compensates with the meandering spirit of “American Graffiti.” With such a large cast of characters, balancing stories is a question of thematic importance.

What’s important here is that everyone overreacts. Characters don’t talk so much as spar. Each interaction is a fight or, at the very least, a heated disagree-

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ment. That kind of manic energy is hard to maintain, even in a melodrama, and the movie does suffer for it. Characters’ relationships seem to change on a dime.

One minute, Chen loves Zheng, but the next, he shuns her. Can that momentum truly be contained? With director Wei’s religious adherence to melodrama, the answer is a resounding yes. It is so consistently over-the-top that it ceases to be weird. Wei imbues each confrontation with a restless longing, something genuine underneath the artifice. Truly, the movie is an escape in the purest terms.

Wei takes the movie, adapted from the Chinese novel “To Our Youth that is Fading Away” by Xin Yiwu, a step further.

She includes character back stories and an epilogue where other romantic comedies would roll the credits.

However strange it sounds, “So Young” is immensely ambitious, and it mostly pays off. The clumsy exposition and ridiculous drama combine to make something fresh. All the same, the movie gets tired halfway through its two hour length. When every conversation is a shouting match, it’s hard to tell what’s truly important.

In the end, “So Young” is an interesting addition to the romantic comedy genre. It adheres to the genre’s tropes, but takes them a step further. Often, the plot veers gracelessly, and characters lack consistency, but damn if it isn’t a fun time. While Wei doesn’t reach the fantastical heights she aims for, it’s hard to deny that she gets close. If that’s not ambitious, I don’t know what is.

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A&E

THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2016

Becoming Alaskan through fish and art

PHOTOS BY RAY TROLL

“Electro tiger humpy” painted on the mainstage of Salmonstock

By Victoria Petersen

vgpetersen@thenorthernlight.org

Moving here in 1983 after finishing art school, Ray Troll became completely immersed in the Alaska fish culture. The fish, and ultimately the salmon, infiltrated Troll’s art as he was surrounded by them in his new Alaskan home. He’s been producing fish inspired art ever since.

“My sister Kate brought me up here and had a job for me right out of art school. She was running a little retail store selling fish so I came up to sell fish,” Troll said.

“Being a fishmonger, but really an artist, I just started looking at fish after landing in the middle of this fish culture on the coast. Being Alaskan, you’re just kind of around fish a lot. So, it just kind of began taking over my artwork. It’s not the only thing I do, but it’s kind of the bread and butter of what I do, so yeah, it all leads back to the fish.”

Living in Alaska, especially in it’s coastal regions, fish are a large part of society, Whether that be political,

how you make a living, fishing for fun, or even expressing it’s existence through art forms. The salmon is all around.

“There’s the commercial side of it, people making a living with it. The sport side of it, people having fun with it. The science side of it, people doing the science on it. The management side of it, the fish and game, the politics of it. The art of it, the culture of it. You name it, there’s all these sides to it. Forgive the pun, but I sort of swam through all those topics,” Troll said.

One project that stands out to Troll in his work so far is Ketchikan’s salmon bus. Troll, in collaboration with Memo Jauergui, hand-painted the city bus in Ketchikan.

Another important project that Troll collaborated with Memo Jauergui in doing is stage art at the annual Salmonfest in Ninilchick, AK. Troll, along with his wife, own a gallery in their hometown of Ketchikan, AK. Along with T-shirts and original art by Troll, the couple also sells art, ceramics, and curiosities curated from all local artists. The Soho Coho gallery has been open for nearly 25 years.

Humorous salmon art by Ray Troll.

Find more of Ray Troll's work by visiting his website, trollart.com

In collaboration with Memo Jauergui, Troll hand-painted this bus in Ketchican. Known as the salmon bus, it was completed in nine days in 2009.

OPINION

THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2016

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OPINION

Frankenfish: Monster or misunderstood?

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There is an idea out there that says that when we seek to conserve or restore something in nature, we are actually only trying to restore it to some previous state that we can remember. For example, say we have been exploiting a forest for lumber for nearly 100 years. 100 years reaches well beyond our memory, and we do not have any idea what the forest was once like, instead we might only remember it back 20 or 30 years.

It is decided that we are going to stop logging in that forest and attempt to rehabilitate it to it’s former glory. That former glory is dictated by our memory of the forest that may extend back 30 years ago. As a result, we restore the forest, but only back to what is was in the 1980s, the 70 years prior to that are lost to human memory and we do not fully restore the forest to what it was 100 years before, right at the point we began logging it for lumber. This idea is called shifting baseline.

Shifting baseline applies to everything, including the fishing industry. Say boats have been fishing out of Kenai for the past 60 years, and in our effort to keep the ocean and rivers stocked with salmon, we decide to open a fish hatchery that is meant to help replenish the fish that are taken out for commercial and personal use every year. Chances are we might be doing just that, however, are we putting enough fish in to account for the total number of salmon 60 years ago?

Ideas like genetically modified fish aim to make sure that we do not over-fish the populations in our rivers and oceans. The idea is simple: create a genetically superior fish that is able to be raised in a hatchery or fish farm in half the time (or faster) of wild salmon.

This takes stress off the fish populations that populate rivers and the ocean and allow them to reclaim some of their previous strength.

While we may not avoid a shifted baseline all together, we give the salmon a better chance to reclaim some of their former glory.

These genetically modified fish have been labeled ‘frankenfish’ by those that oppose it, and I am one to argue that this might be a fitting name. After all in the famous Mary Shelley book, the monster that Dr. Frankenstein created in many ways is larger, smarter and physically more impressive than any Human 1.0 (referencing the book and not any movie adaptation in which the monster seems dumber than normal humans). The frankenfish grow faster and are ready to be shipped to the market in a fraction of the time. In many ways, frankenfish are superior to Salmon 1.0.

Alaskan lawmakers love to run under a banner of opposing frankenfish, and the opposition to GMO salmon is on both sides of the isle.

This should serve as an idea where most Alaskan’s stand on the issue.

A few of the arguments against the implement of GMO salmon is that the ‘frankensteined’ population of salmon could get loose into the general population and out-compete the Salmon 1.0 population over resources as well as out breed them. The first of these arguments is valued and very legitimate. The GMO

salmon may pose a danger to stressing the salmon’s food sources. The best defense against this issue would be to keep the frankenfish in fish farms as securely as possible.

The idea that they might out breed the natural salmon, however, is not a very good argument. Frankenfish are bred to be a complete population of sterile female IA J BY salmon. In other words, they will HIC GRAP be unable to have offspring at all.

What about Jurassic Park? In that movie, the entire population was suppose to be said to be female and unable to reproduce, yet some how nature found a way and in the end, the dinosaurs were able to reproduce. Jurassic Park is a great movie, however, evolution does not happen on such a quick scale. Hundreds of thousands of years usually have to pass before a population in a single species can evolve to change something about their population. As anyone that has taken high school level biology can attest, we need not worry about the frankenfish population finding a magical way to start breeding.

Now for a few arguments in favor of the frankenfish, apart from the fact that they would take stress off the normal salmon population, which is a huge reason itself. The population of the world is by no means getting smaller. By 2050, the world’s population is projected to be 9.7 billion people, double what we are at now.

Many scientist believe that while we could viably feed the population of today, we do not.

Millions of people today are currently living with starvation. What happens when we have twice as many mouths to feed? We will need to have some food sources for everyone. GMO salmon could be one of the helpful solutions that we could employ to make sure that we are feeding everyone.

The GMO fish also help keep the grocery bill lower, which few people would complain about. This does pose a concern over jobs, however I would argue that wild caught salmon could simply label themselves as “organic” which we all know is a hot selling point these days.

Those reason may not be enough for some people, and I understand that. The truth is, the possibility that a GMO salmon population could find its way into the normal fish population and out compete them for food is a scary concern, and one I share with those opposed to frankenfish. An alternative to the frankenfish is on the table. A GMO feeder fish that is meant to help the salmon population grow and contain more omegas and all the other good stuff we want from our salmon. The feeder fish would also be intended to be contained to farms and would too be sterile. If they were loosed into the natural population, they could not breed, and would provide nutrition for the wild salmon.

While this solution is not foolproof, it is something that can help maintain a valid population and avoid a shifting baseline for our salmon. It will provide food for a growing population, and it will keep the Alaskan lawmakers happy as they can keep standing on a platform that opposes frankenfish.

BA

cpeterson@thenorthernlight.org

N

By Casey Peterson

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