Western

Summer chum and Chinook salmon have begun their runs along the Yukon River.

Wildlife managers and fishermen met via teleconference Tuesday to discuss river conditions and the salmon’s progress upstream. Community members reported summer chum as far upriver as Huslia and Ruby, with Chinook salmon fast on their heels.

However, the much-coveted kings may not be a welcome sight to fishermen this year. Stephanie Schmidt is the Summer Season Fishery Manager along the Yukon for Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game. She said Chinook numbers continue to be low — mandating fishery closures once the salmon enter each upriver community.

“[This] is going to be another challenging year for us,” she said. “We’re expecting a Chinook salmon run similar to last year. Which was an okay run; we met escapement goals. But only because of the very conservative management goals that had to be taken and all of the efforts that fishermen took to conserve Chinook salmon.”

Several fishermen voiced frustration at the closures, not because they’ll miss out on the long-restricted kings, but because gear restrictions — such as on nets larger than 4 inch-wide mesh — will hinder their ability to capture the more abundant chum.

Jack from Huslia explained that the arrival of Chinook salmon typically coincides with the peak summer chum run in his community.

“That’s when the best fish go by for us. That’s when we lose our half-dried fish and our dried fish,” he said.

Because Chinook salmon can be caught in gill nets just as easily as chum, all nets wider than 4 inches will be off-limits once the kings arrive. Schmidt said fishermen will still be allowed to use nets that are 4 inches or smaller for sheefish and smaller species throughout the salmon closure.

That came as a small consolation in communities where purchasing other, smaller nets may be cost prohibitive.

“We have to eat along this river; everybody has to eat. They can’t live out of the store,” said Martha, a fisherman in Ruby. “I can’t afford to get another net that’s smaller.”

Schmidt thanked fisherman for their continued efforts to conserve king salmon — and said she knows it hasn’t come without sacrifice. She also shared some positive news from ADF&G researchers monitoring Chinook in Pilot Station.

“Those researchers have been reporting phenomenal catches of juvenile Chinook salmon,” she said. “More so than last year. And I just offer that as a little bit of hope. Hopefully we are creating more baby Chinook salmon that grow up to be big Chinook salmon and come back.”

The meeting concluded with an atypical concern: Fishermen wanted to know what would happen to state-managed fisheries on the Yukon, and further North, if Alaska’s legislature is unable to reach an agreement on the state budget before July 1 — instigating a partial government shutdown.

John Linderman is regional supervisor for the Arctic Yukon-Kuskokwim region of commercial fisheries. He believes it’s unlikely that lawmakers will allow the budget impasse to reach that stage. However, he said wildlife managers have considered it, and there is currently enough money to keep fisheries functional until August 2015.

 

New regulations are coming for a federal law created to keep Alaska Native and American Indian children in foster care within their family and tribes. Tribal sovereignty experts say the changes could have major implications for foster care in Alaska.

The Indian Child Welfare Act is a federal law that has been a constant source of contention — and endless legal battles — since it was passed in 1978. During the second day of presentations on tribal justice at the Kawerak Rural Providers Conference in Nome, John Bioff with Kawerak’s tribal court office outlined those changes revealed in March, which he said would be felt nationwide.

“There have been gaps and confusions and some bad case law that’s been made since the ICWA law was enacted,” Bioff said. “And I think the new ICWA laws are a positive development that seek to add a lot of clarification to the older ICWA law in areas that have been problematic in Alaska.”

With the vast majority of tribal court cases in the Bering Strait and Norton Sound region relating to child protection, Bioff said the new regulations would clarify what the rules are for transferring a case to a tribal court.

“The regulations spell out what are grounds to deny a transfer to a tribal court; for instance, how far along the case is in the state court is not a legitimate grounds to deny a transfer,” Bioff said.

“Overall, in our region, we work very well with the Office of Children’s Services, but over time, since I’ve been doing this work, I think overall this is going to clarify a lot.”

Bioff said the new regulations not only clarify uncertainties in old ICWA law, but they also present a host of new directives for state agencies and courts would have to comply with in order to protect family and tribal placement for foster kids.

The new ICWA regulations are far from law; the Department of Interior only just ended a comment session, and legal maneuvering for those both for and against the new rules could push their finalization anywhere from months to years off. Still, Bioff said, the process may be slow, but it’s one that’s trending toward progress.

 

An oil spill of unknown origin is for the third time in the last year seeping off of Shishmaref’s western coast, but now the state Department of Environmental Conservation says they may have identified the source.

The oily sheen was first discovered last June, on the northern coast of Sarichef Island along the Chukchi Sea. Shishmaref’s Village Public Safety Officer first found the sheen on the nearshore icepack and said at the time it smelled like gasoline.

State DEC and the U.S. Coast Guard officials responded to investigate—and begin cleanup efforts—removing 30 bags of oily waste and recovering about 100 gallons of the fuel-like substance. But the sheen reappeared in December, and even after additional cleanup efforts, exactly what kind of petroleum substance—and where it ultimately came from—remained unknown.

Samples of the sheen, as well as from community’s fuel tanks, were collected from both the June and December visits and tested at the U.S. Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Lab in Connecticut.

On May 26, the sheen returned, and again the community VPSO called it in, again noting a gasoline odor.

Now DEC officials say an analysis of those samples reveal the substance is a mix of “weathered gasoline and diesel.” During a site visit on Thursday, June 4, DEC and Coast Guard accessed an area along the shoreline identified as the “outlet” of the sheen’s seepage. A release from DEC says responders also observed the oily sheen on gravel that was visibly stained by gasoline.

Just how much of the gas and diesel has been released is unknown. Responders say cleanup is ongoing. So far, officials say only the land and water around the Shishmaref Native Store has been impacted. As of the visit this month there have been no reports of affected wildlife as a result of the sheen.

 

Malada Wongsamant explains the process as Viengkham Phanmanivong fries up an egg to top what they call a “Vietnamese pork chop” in the nearly complete kitchen of their new restaurant.

The two women have been friends for nearly twenty years. They work together seamlessly, the outgoing Wongsamant fast-talking, while the more reserved Phanmanivong laughs. Their cheerful bantering matches the sunny orange paint and sparkling wall hangings of their restaurant located next to the Subway in the downtown Bethel business complex.

The small but bright interior of Bethel Pho-Thai Restaurant is filled with pictures of the restaurant’s dishes and large potted plants. The sounds of the two joking blend with the smells of cilantro, peanut, and hot curry. Their menu includes Thai dishes like pad thai and tom yum kai, as well as Vietnamese food like pho tai and pho bo vien.

Back in Anchorage, both women independently owned restaurants. However, both restaurants ended up closing. Wongsamant explains, running a restaurant on your own is hard.

“You have to pay for gas, you have to pay for this, for that… It’s too much. But now I’ve got a big help. She’s a one hundred percent help. That’s why I said, ‘okay, if you do this then we do it together’,” says Wongsamant.

 Wongsamant moved to Bethel with her family for a job as a chef at the hospital. About a year ago, Phanmanivong started thinking about trying to start up a restaurant again.

“In Bethel, a lot of people here make food and it’s good food for them, but they don’t have a Thai restaurant here. So we try to open like that,” Phanmanivong says.

She approached Wongsamant a month before her planned opening date and asked if she’d be interested in joining as partners. Wongsamant, seeing an opportunity to start up a new restaurant with her good friend, jumped at the opportunity.

Both Phanmanivong and Wongsamant became refugees from Laos after it became a communist state. They came to the US within eight years of each other.

Phanmanivong came to Anchorage in 1988 to live with her cousin. A friend in the town taught her how to cook Vietnamese food, a skill she used to support herself.

Wongsamant and her family moved to Anchorage in 1981 to live with her aunt and uncle, who helped her parents run a restaurant. Wongsamant’s mother was Thai, so she learned to make Thai food from her family and friends to help support her parents and five siblings.

“It was only me that worked in the kitchen. My sister, she works at the bank. My brother, he works at the hospital and one works at the police department in Anchorage. They all got good education, except me. But I tried my best to learn how to cook,” says Wongsamant.

Phanmanivong and Wongsamant met as young women when they worked for a company that prepared airline meals. They continued working together over the years, and worked well. Their friendship is the backbone of their business, says Wongsamant.

“When I opened my restaurant in Anchorage it seemed to be only her that came around. Normally friends, when you go to open a business, they will say okay I will come see you, but at the end you see only a couple that will come and support you,” says Wongsamant.

Now, in this new venture, they’ll be supporting each other. The restaurant provides the first Thai offerings in Bethel. They plan on opening later this month.

 

Crews are winding down work on two massive wildfires north of Bethel near Kalskag. The Alaska Division of Forestry says the nearly 15,000 acre Whitefish Lake Fire is 100 percent contained, while the 25,000 acre Bogus Creek blaze is nearing the end of active firefighting.

Officials say wetter weather and cooler temperatures have helped to moderate the fire danger.

They plan to relieve the two remaining crews on the Whitefish blaze Monday.

Two crews will remain on the Bogus Creek fire to patrol and work on the perimeter. They hope to have all crew removed sometime Tuesday.

Both fires were started by lightning on May 31st and burned on land managed by the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.

No structures or Native allotments burned. Temporary flight restrictions remain in place over both fires.

 

Right now the tundra and forests of Bristol Bay are exploding with flora. While many foragers have already supped on fiddlehead ferns and are looking forward to wild berry picking, some may overlook the traditional medicinal uses of many Alaskan plants. Two Dillingham women set out to capture the benefits of these native plants in a line of homemade bath products – they call it “Tundra Love.”

It’s a bright spring afternoon, and the ground floor of Lynn Van Vactor’s home smells of shea butter and citrus. With hot plates, a weigh scale, and bottles of oils on the shelves, the space feels like part chemistry lab, part art studio.

Van Vactor and her business partner Denise Lisac hand me a mason jar filled with a dark oily mixture.

“That’s chaga,” she says, as oil sloshed around in the jar. “We’re infusing chaga. We haven’t used this yet and it’s just infusing. Look at that beautiful black color of the oil.”

Other jars are lined up against the sunny window, filled with infusions of rosehips, carrot, and cottonwood buds. Van Vactor explains this is an early step in the long process of making a soap or salve.

“Let it sit for six weeks in the sun, and every day you turn and toss those oils,” she says. “Yeah, so that’s some chythlook.”

This basement operation got its start just last fall, when Van Vactor and Lisac both signed up for a class taught by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium on native plants.

“‘The Store Outside your Door,’ basically,” she says. “So Denise and I sat next to each other. That’s how it started – yeah, that’s how it started.”

The training taught about local plants that elders in Bristol Bay have used medicinally for generations. These healing plants are all over the place: Plantain is a natural antibacterial; Rose hips are high in Vitamin A for healthy skin.

“And the birch bark has salicylic properties that can treat some of those conditions of inflammation and soreness,” she says.

Van Vactor and Lisac shared a fascination with these plants.

And when they decided to do something about it, they found they each brought a useful skill set to the table.

“I started out in nursing, psych and pre-med,” Van Vactor says. “So I’ve always had an affinity for naturopathic medicine, and Denise has this expert gardening knowledge of plants.”

So they had a pretty good foundation. But, she says, they still have a lot to learn on the healing side of things.

“The native healers that use these products will spend a year just studying one plant to really understand the therapeutic benefits of those plants … so we’re no way in that category,” she says. “But we’ve had enough knowledge and ability to utilize the plants for things that we’d actually want in our day-to-day life.”

So, with a lot of research and some digging in the dirt, they started making soaps, salves, and bath bombs. Each recipe includes local plants for a specific purpose. And the products have upbeat names like “Pick Me Up!” “Restore My Skin” and “Aches Away.”

Both Lisac and Van Vactor are semi-retired from long careers, so they’re not expecting to make a living off Tundra Love. But with a price point of $10 for 2 ounces of salve or balm, they say they were able to earn back their initial investment. Their first big sale at Christmas time sold out.

Since then, they’ve gotten rave reviews. Friends and family are asking them to make more.

“I know of a person whose feet had been in pain for months and months,” she says. “And those salves have helped alleviate the pressure in their feet and they’re able to walk better… so there’s these little testimonials coming up.”

Encouraged by those happy customers, Van Vactor and Lisac are dreaming up new products. They’re watching for summer plants to come up so they can infuse another batch of oils. One of the biggest lessons learned, Van Vactor says, is that the recipes go based on what Mother Nature provides.

For example: they’re itching to try out a naturally bug repellent oil made from wild yarrow. But, “It’s gonna be at least a couple months for the yarrow… And it REALLY goes gangbusters in the fall. You’ll get little sprouts coming up between now and then – Yeah you’ll pull it out of your garden – Yeah but now, when we pull it out of our garden, we’ll set it aside – we’re going to use it!”

While their first priority is to make enough for local customers, Lisac and Van Vactor eventually want to expand. They imagine a network of Tundra Love producers, bringing healing plants into homes all over Bristol Bay.