Set in motion at birth, the fate of Pacific salmon is like clockwork: each year a new generation returns from sea to spawn where their ancestors’ lives began. Females grind their tails into the gravel, hoping their nests, and the eggs within, will withstand the scour of ice and spring floods. Many do — this gravel is home, where life begins and ends. As baby salmon grow up and move, migrating out to sea, the sediment too is kicked and swept up, traveling with them. But the river’s constant movement across the floodplain is a renewing force. Over the ages, the riverbed replenishes with gravel, offering the salmon who return a healthy place to continue their cyclical lifeways.
These awe-inspiring journeys are experienced all over Alaska, though perhaps no more vividly than in the Yukon, Kuskokwim, and Norton Sound region — sometimes referred to as the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim, or AYK — a massive geographic area covering 419,274 square miles.
The AYK region comprises the 1,980-mile Yukon River (the longest river in Alaska and the third-longest in the US) and the Kuskokwim River, which flows for 702 miles. Every river, stream, and channel that empty into the Bering and Chukchi Seas are encompassed within the AYK, as are 10 National Wildlife Refuges.
Since time immemorial, Iñupiat, Yupik, and Dene’ (Athabascan) Peoples representing more than 100 Tribes have been stewarding the lands and setting up fish camps in these watersheds. Traditional foods in the region include salmon, caribou, moose, and migratory birds — harvests which continue to be vital to food security, sovereignty, spirituality, subsistence lifeways, and Indigenous cultural practices. For Alaska’s people, fish, birds, and other wildlife, the AYK region supports and represents strong, resilient community. Hear some perspectives:
Empty smokehouses, and a call to action
In recent years, these communities and the ecosystems they depend upon have suffered. Subsistence salmon fishing closures and empty smokehouses for people who have relied on salmon for more than 10,000 years are becoming a more common experience. Climate change is impacting the Arctic four times faster than other parts of North America.
In recent consultations, congressional field hearings, and other forums, Department of the Interior leaders heard directly from Alaska Native Tribes and subsistence users about these changes, their impacts on communities and cultures, and the need for immediate and lasting “gravel to gravel” action by the federal government.
Together, with Tribes centered, we unite to care for salmon, from gravel to gravel
The Department of the Interior — coordinated through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) — is partnering with Tribes, Indigenous leaders, other agencies, and community partners to launch and carry forward Gravel to Gravel. The effort is designed to enhance the resilience of the region’s ecosystems and communities through transformational federal, philanthropic, and other investments.
In March 2023, as part of the Department’s Investing in America tour, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Tommy Beaudreau announced that the Department would invest more than $16 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding over four years to enhance the resilience of ecosystems and salmon in Alaska’s Yukon, Kuskokwim and Norton Sound region through co-stewardship with Alaska Native Tribes.
Since then, Federal agencies, Tribes, and others have been working together to build a strong foundation for co-stewardship, where both Indigenous Knowledge and western science inform plans for collective action to support resilient ecosystems and communities in the region. Investments have and continue to be made to respond to the salmon crisis, while simultaneously investing in projects to heal the broader ecosystem.
Collaborate across jurisdictional and geographic boundaries through co-stewardship and co-management to restore the health of, and relationships between, salmon, people and place;
Build and maintain trust and communication, and strengthen relationships between Tribes and federal agencies, and increase capacity and knowledge sharing around the care for salmon;
Honor Tribal sovereignty and self-governance by advocating for Tribal stewardship and recommendations regarding decision-making and regulatory authority in wildlife ecosystems and fisheries management and;
Work in partnership on ecosystem restoration and resilience, salmon conservation, and other projects that are within and adjacent to the Gravel to Gravel Keystone Initiative and include expertise from Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director Sara Boario and Chief Chairman Brian Ridley of the Tanana Chiefs Conference were two of the many MOU signatories.
With Gravel to Gravel investments, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is actively supporting and funding a variety of projects that will ensure safe, resilient, and equitable futures for our people, salmon, land, and waters. We are working to shape this Initiative with local and regional partners, including the Tanana Chiefs Conference, Association of Village Council Presidents, Kawerak, Inc., the Kuskokwim Intertribal Fish Commission, the Yukon River Intertribal Fish Commission, the Bureau of Land Management, USGS, National Park Service, the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association, State of Alaska, and nonprofit partners like Trout Unlimited.
Importantly, the initiative is not a one-and-done effort. Gravel to Gravel-funded projects will build upon previous work and partnerships, while catalyzing the future of our service in Alaska – leveraging new funding, and strengthening fresh relationships, as we continue our work in serving Alaska’s people, ecosystems, and wildlife.
Just as the life cycles of Pacific salmon are interconnected with past and future generations, so too is Gravel to Gravel one important part of an ongoing story in Alaska.
