An excerpt from an op-ed by Lydia Olympic that appeared in the Bristol Bay Times:
Our fish splitting table embodies what it means to be an Alaska Native family, rich in tradition and steeped in culture.
During the long, dark winters my thoughts wander back to summer. Some of my most cherished memories stem from what happens around my family’s fish splitting table on the shores of Iliamna Lake in the remote village of Igiugig. Mom made the table top out of old plywood and used scrap wood for the legs; it’s nothing fancy, but so important. These tables are found at every fish camp around Bristol Bay. Our fish splitting table knows our intense sorrows from the tears we have shed on it. Our table knows of our immense joys and has shook with our laughter. It knows of our dreams, and most of all it has listened to our voices as our culture is passed down from generation to generation. Our table is multi-generational: grandmas, mothers, daughters, sisters, cousins, nieces and grandkids use it every summer.
We spend hours at the table splitting our salmon. Both young and old hold the ulu as we cut hundreds of wild salmon that feed us during the long, cold winter months. Everyone has a job and everyone contributes, even the tiniest ones. Aiden, my 4-year-old great-nephew, is charged with washing our fish and taking care of his younger brother, younger cousin and, this summer, a younger sister.
If you listen quietly you can hear our table moan the loss of a loved one who no longer has her turn at the splitting table. In Yupik, “Alla” means older sister. Tragically, we lost my Alla, Anecia, last March. The first day at the table, as we worked on our sockeye salmon, we were all so quiet because one of our own was missing.
To read Lydia’s full op-ed, go to, The Bristol Bay Times here.
It seems there is still a ways to go in terms of getting the message about the importance of the Bristol Bay watershed through to the mining companies behind Pebble.
Mike Heatwole, Pebble Partnership vice president of public affairs, spoke Tuesday at The Alaska Industry Support Alliance monthly meeting to do just that for the central peninsula.
“This is not a fish versus mining issue,” Heatwole said. “If it was, fish would always win.”
Heatwole said Pebble Partnership’s goal is to find a way for mining and fish to co-exist.
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Heatwole is right: this is not a fish versus mining issue. We’re not anti-mining. Mining gives us the things we need for a modern life: This blog wouldn’t exist without the copper that came from a mine somewhere. But the fish habitat in the Bristol Bay watershed is literally the last of its kind in the world. And in a place like that, the risks are too high. In a place like that, mining and fish cannot coexist. We’ll have to get our copper somewhere else.
So again, (and sorry for the redundancy, but the Pebble Partnership just isn’t hearing us): we don’t want to work together. we don’t want to talk about compromises and mitigation. we just want our fish, and our way of life, to stay the way it is, the way it’s been for generation after generation. No Pebble mine. And that’s it.
On behalf of the Board of Directors of Nunamta Aulukestai “Caretakers of our Lands” I want to THANK the following organizations who have contributed to this trip which I feel have been very successful:
Alaskan Catch
Alaska Trout Unlimited
Alaska Independent Fishermen’s Marketing Association
Choggiung Ltd.
Earthworks
Fish4Ever
Hardy
Leader Creek Fishery
Nunamta Aulukestai
Peter Pan Seafoods
Sage
SeaWeb
SnoPac
The Wilderness Society
Wildcatch
Thank you Rebelsto the Pebble for providing the notes which I used during our meeting with Cynthia Carroll, Sir Mark Moody Stuart, John Shively and others as our future leaders. I have to impress on you the students to continue the fight. Its just beginning and we will fight to the end.
Our message to Anglo American is now on their table for their action before the end of the year. We may have been a small group to travel to London but OUR MESSAGE WAS VERY STRONG AND EFFECTIVE!
Once again THANK YOU ALL.
Bobby Andrew
Spokesman for Nunamta Aulukestai “Caretakers of our Lands”
Well, it has been another busy day. Lydia and I got prepared for our interview with Sky News Network that serves 145 million worldwide. We reviewed all the information we know by heart but had to go over it again to calm our nerves. We were supposed to be on live television but other top stories covered us up. Instead of going to the newsroom there at Sky News they came to our hotel and recorded us. I covered the commercial fishers concerns and Lydia covered the subsistance point of veiw. We are making waves around the world and we will not stop until we are certain that our ecosystem that supports us, our fish and our animals is protected!
This morning we all went to the Anglo American annual shareholders meeting. While walking in there we noticed our admittance letters and pieces of paper showing our 1 share interest in the company stated that we wouldn’t be able to speak at the meeting. I am sure you can imagine the look on our faces. But to our surprise, they let us speak our minds there for a brief moment.
I remember my colleagues doing a wonderful, powerful job. We talked about the amount of opposition there is to the Pebble mine and the importance of our fish.
My time in front of the Anglo American board of directors and shareholders went quickly.
“See these bear claws around my neck?” I said. “I shot this bear when it was trying to come into my house. In Alaska, we have to take care of ourselves. That means taking care of the things that give us life: clean water and salmon. The Pebble project is a threat to those things.”
After the whole ordeal we had a quick cup of coffee, Sir Mark Moody and the other leaders of Anglo came over to us. We all gave a diplomatic “thank you” for letting us speak; They thanked us for coming.
Many of the shareholders were interested in our story and came to talk to us after the meeting. I told them how serious we are about protecting our way of life: we are not going to back down. I told them to help protect our area, an area already rich with salmon, the last river systems of their kind. That is something to be protected!
They seemed like they would give it some thought and even stated maybe that is what will happen but until I see some leadership to protect our precious home and fish habitat I will not stop and neither will my colleagues, we will not stop fighting for the protection of our back yard.
We were interviewed and had pictures taken outside the building by a photographer for the London Times. I found out my op end piece was used in the London Times. We have interviews tomorrow with some other news organization and off on Friday back home.
Alaska Native leaders, English angler celebrities, scientists and more available for interviews.
The award-winning documentary, Red Gold, follows the world's largest run of sockeye salmon from Alaska's Bristol Bay to their natal spawning grounds. The film weaves in the extraordinary stories of the Alaska Native people and commercial fishermen whose lives and traditions the salmon sustain. The proposed Pebble mine, a massive gold-copper-molybdenum deposit, now threatens to devastate those pristine spawning grounds.
Anglo's CEO promised not to build the Pebble mine against community opposition. Surveys show: communities are overwhelmingly opposed. Click here to tell Cynthia to honor her promise!
