The People

Voices of Salmon Nation

Ralph Lohse

RALPH LOHSE spoke at the April 2005 Copper River Salmon Workshop Series about the privilege of being a commercial fisherman.

I've come to Alaska — it's been 38 years now — and salmon's been a real big part of my existence. One of the first things that I did when I came out to teach school in 1966 — the second day we were there — we went out and beach-seined a creek so that we could put up enough salmon for the smokehouse, for the whole village. We put up about 20 salt barrels of salmon, and that was our tax for the year, that was how we raised money for our community projects.

So that was the first experience I had with salmon in Alaska. It was also my first taste of salmon, and I've been hooked on it ever since.

I'm very thankful for the privilege I've had of living in Alaska and having dealt with salmon. I've had it on my table. I've made my income with it. And I'm one of those fishermen that, the day it becomes a job, I'm quitting.

Every time I take the salmon out of the water I look at the salmon and I just marvel at how beautiful they look. Every time I put a piece of salmon on my plate, I can't believe that I'm getting to eat something like this.

A lot of you, especially a lot of you that are in positions with Fish and Game, know me because we've sat on the other side of the fence sometimes. I've been on Fish and Game advisory boards for 30 years, I worked for Prince William Sound Aquaculture, I was the chair during the oil spill years. And I've been working for the South Central Regional Subsistence Council since it was formed.

At this workshop, we've talked a lot about Traditional Ecological Knowledge — TEK. Well, I have another one — how about "CEK." And that's what I take up there, to the council. We're there to contribute our CEK, our Community Ecological Knowledge, our Citizen Ecological Knowledge.

In other words, the people who live with the resource became an advisory committee to the federal government — to the Federal Subsistence Board, the board that makes decisions that affect the people who live in the area and have a subsistence priority on federal land.

That means that all of a sudden, the board had to listen to a citizen group, a group of non-professionals, who lived with the resource, dealt with the resource, had knowledge of the resource. And that was quite different. And it took a long time, but it's getting there — the idea that you can take people, just common, ordinary people who have an interest in the resource, have access to the resource, have made a living from the resource, lived with the resource — and they actually know something!

I'm from the Federal South Central Council, which is the Copper River, the Kenai, and that area there. And there's nothing I like better than when we have joint councils from all over the state, because I've never come away from there without learning something.

Our council group meets with six to thirteen people. We each bring different backgrounds to it, different experiences to it. And we come together with the ideas that we've learned from the different joint councils, we then apply them to try to reach a subsistence priority, with the least impact, and to maintain the viability of the game population, or fish population.

And so, what has happened is: instead of having this diverse group of people fighting with each other, you end up with people that say, "Okay, we have a common goal, what we are we going to do to try to reach it."

Last high horse: We need an attitude change. When commercial fishermen start talking about their right to catch fish, they find they don't have a very sympathetic ear with me sometimes. When you're taking a resource, it is a privilege, not a right.

You can say God gave you the privilege, the state gave you the privilege. If you go all the way back to the native cultures, the animal gives you the privilege.

It's a privilege, and a privilege that should be met with thanksgiving. A complete shift in attitude comes when we say, "I'm going to take what I need, but I'm going to treat it with respect and thanksgiving."

Now, in the early native culture, that's how it was. You treated it with respect. And I have to admit, this isn't always true today with individuals, even in the native culture. There are individuals who don't treat it with the same kind of respect just like there are individuals in our culture who don't treat it with respect, because there are other options. In the old days there wasn't any other option. You treated it with respect or you starved.

Now, I don't know of any commercial fishermen friends who encourage their kids to go into commercial fishing. I'm probably a rarity. I'm helping my son to do that. It was a good life for me. I enjoyed it. Why wouldn't I want to pass it on?

I want those salmon to be there for my grandkids. I want them to be able to do the same things that I can do. That's what each of us needs to sit down and look at. You can catch all the salmon you want, but one day, you're going to leave it all behind. You aren't going to take it with you.

As we deal with the salmon, our way of looking at it should be, "Not for my lifetime, but for my kids' lifetime, and their kids' lifetimes." And so the question I'm going to ask each of you when I close: What are you going to leave? What are you going to leave, with respect to salmon?

Thank you.

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