EAGLE VILLAGE, Alaska **—** When Jody Potts-Joseph was growing up, her family mushed sled dogs during the harsh Alaskan winters to hunt and trap, feeding them salmon caught from the Yukon River by the thousands.
But after rebuilding her sled dog team as an adult, Potts-Joseph, a member of the Han Gwich’in tribe, had to turn to store-bought dog food. The river that was once renowned for its salmon doesn’t have enough to offer anymore.
“We haven’t been able to fish for a number of years,” she said as her dogs yelped outside her home in Eagle Village, close to the Yukon near the border with Canada.
Flowing from British Columbia through Alaska to the Bering Sea, the nearly 2,000-mile-long Yukon River used to teem with Chinook and chum salmon, sustaining a culture of harvesting fish to feed both Alaskans as well as sled dog teams vital for transportation during the winter.
“Alaska is a canary in the coal mine,” said Andy Bassich, a homesteader and dog musher at Calico Bluff only a few miles from the Canadian border. “What’s happening up here is only going to happen in the Lower 48 farther down the line.”
The declines have forced regulators to issue a series of restrictions on subsistence, commercial and recreational fishing up and down the river, upending a way of life for Alaska Native people and severing a vital connection between land and sea.
“This is food that my family and our ancestors have used for millennia,” said Karma Ulvi, chief of the Eagle Tribal Council. “For thousands of years, we’ve fished on these rivers and our people lived here and we took only what we needed.”
Both varieties are vanishing. Compared to about the last three decades, the Yukon’s chum populations declined by around 80 percent in the period between 2020 and 2022, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Chinook salmon numbers, meanwhile, dropped by nearly two-thirds during the same time.
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EAGLE VILLAGE, Alaska **—** When Jody Potts-Joseph was growing up, her family mushed sled dogs during the harsh Alaskan winters to hunt and trap, feeding them salmon caught from the Yukon River by the thousands.
But after rebuilding her sled dog team as an adult, Potts-Joseph, a member of the Han Gwich’in tribe, had to turn to store-bought dog food. The river that was once renowned for its salmon doesn’t have enough to offer anymore.
“We haven’t been able to fish for a number of years,” she said as her dogs yelped outside her home in Eagle Village, close to the Yukon near the border with Canada.
Flowing from British Columbia through Alaska to the Bering Sea, the nearly 2,000-mile-long Yukon River used to teem with Chinook and chum salmon, sustaining a culture of harvesting fish to feed both Alaskans as well as sled dog teams vital for transportation during the winter.
Now those salmon runs have turned into to a trickle, as [climate change ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/03/28/salmon-alaska-climate-change/?itid=lk_inline_manual_6)and other factors weigh against the fish. The result is a drastic cut to local food supplies in a region where store-bought food, shipped in from thousands of miles away, is expensive.
“Alaska is a canary in the coal mine,” said Andy Bassich, a homesteader and dog musher at Calico Bluff only a few miles from the Canadian border. “What’s happening up here is only going to happen in the Lower 48 farther down the line.”
The declines have forced regulators to issue a series of restrictions on subsistence, commercial and recreational fishing up and down the river, upending a way of life for Alaska Native people and severing a vital connection between land and sea.
There are two main species of salmon to fish in the Yukon. The first is chum or dog salmon, which is traditionally fed to canines here but still eaten by people. The other is [Chinook or king salmon](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/california-disappearing-salmon/?itid=lk_inline_manual_12), the larger and fatter variety that people eat in Alaska and around the world.
“This is food that my family and our ancestors have used for millennia,” said Karma Ulvi, chief of the Eagle Tribal Council. “For thousands of years, we’ve fished on these rivers and our people lived here and we took only what we needed.”
Both varieties are vanishing. Compared to about the last three decades, the Yukon’s chum populations declined by around 80 percent in the period between 2020 and 2022, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Chinook salmon numbers, meanwhile, dropped by nearly two-thirds during the same time.
**Read more, free with email registration:** [**https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/12/03/yukon-river-salmon-climate-change/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/12/03/yukon-river-salmon-climate-change/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com)