For over a decade, Lynn Canal gillnetters have hosted a king salmon barbecue each summer to celebrate local fishermen and the start of the fishing season.
Since it started, the event has become a way to showcase Southeast Alaska’s local bounty.
However, a shortage of kings this year has pushed organizers to change the menu to sockeye and rockfish.
Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute offered a grant 11 years ago to Southeast Alaska fishermen to promote the first fish runs of the year.
Back then, Hugh Reitz of Ocean Beauty Seafood Processing and Distribution came up with the idea to throw a salmon barbecue for the community.
The annual tradition has been part of the Southeast Alaska State Fair.
Stakeholders throughout the fishing industry get involved to make sure it happens every year, the fair’s executive director Jessica Edwards said.
“From fishing supply stores to grocery stores that supply fishermen, outfitting businesses, fuel suppliers, and everything in between. Just to kind of show that this is an industry that has a long reach in our community,” Edwards said.
The event takes place right after the conclusion of the Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay, which draws thousands of people to Haines each year.
The barbecue exposes visitors to some of the best wild Alaskan seafood around.
In the past, organizers have served king salmon.
“It’s definitely the creme de la creme. I think king salmon is pretty special and so that was the real main reason,” Edwards said. “The other is that in Southeast it’s one of our first runs, so it’s just the availability was there.”
However, low king salmon returns in recent years have prompted the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to enact strict fishing regulations throughout Southeast.
Research on the declining number of kings still is in its infancy, but regulations prompted by low harvests are hitting commercial fishermen hard.
Recreation also has been impacted by the decline of kings.
The Haines King Salmon Derby, an annual event that started 40 years ago, has not been hosted for the past three years because of low returns.
This year the barbecue’s organizers decided against serving kings.
“At this point, it doesn’t make sense to continue until those stocks are sound again,” Edwards said.
Instead, they will grill sockeye salmon and rockfish.
Ocean Beauty has helped provide fish for the event every year since its inception. It is donating 1,000 pounds of sockeye salmon fillets this year. Organizers also have bought 500 pounds of rockfish fillets from Haines Packing Company.
Alaska Glacier Seafoods out of Auke Bay and Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute will be contributing fish as well.
The menu is not the only thing that is changing this year. There is also a new event for fishermen and their families.
Many crews have had a difficult time attending the barbecue in previous years because the gillnet fishing season begins the following day.
This year there will be a Friday evening barbecue just for fishermen and their families at the Letnikoff cannery.
Gregg Bigsby, who has been involved with the barbecue since its inception, said this will be a good way for fishermen to spend some time together off the boat.
“It’s an opportunity at the beginning of the season to get together and have a party and then go to work,” Bigsby said. “It’s a good thing because everybody gets to hang out in one spot at the same time. Otherwise we’re just a bunch of workers who are busy producing lots of fish.”
The community fishermen’s barbecue is from 4 to 9 p.m. Saturday at the fairgrounds.
