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A fisherman hauls in a catch. -
Rick Delkittie looks out onto frozen Sixmile lake near the village of Nondalton. -
The sun sets over the mouth of the Kvichak River as it flows into Bristol Bay.” -
A fishing crew tosses out the first buoy during a commercial Sockeye salmon opener in the Ugashik district. -
Strips of drying Sockeye salmon hang in a smokehouse in Naknek. -
A cow moose trots to shore after swimming from an island in Lake Clark. -
Iniskin Bay lies between Lake Clark and Katmai national parks and is the planned site for the port facility that would be constructed to support the proposed Pebble Mine. -
A young red fox runs past a brown bear in Kukak Bay. -
A horned puffin spreads its wings on Chisik Island within the Tuxedni Wilderness Area. -
Credit: Carl Johnson
Where Water is Gold celebrates the natural bounty of Southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay. Images and essays highlight the splendor of the area’s mountains, waterways and wildlife, and the lives of the people who live and work there. The bay hosts the biggest sockeye salmon run in the world, and fish figure prominently in photographer Carl Johnson’s images. In one, a rainbow trout camouflages itself against a streambed; in another, sunlight turns ruby strips of drying sockeye translucent.
The book offers a vivid reminder of what is at stake should developers build Pebble Mine, a massive copper and gold mine proposed for Bristol Bay’s headwaters. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor writes in the book’s foreword that pristine habitats hold an “immeasurable” value of their own: “Turn these pages,” she writes, “and you, too, will understand why in Bristol Bay, it is water that is the true gold.”
If you want to learn how to shoot like Carl Johnson, you can join him at the Sundance Mountain Resort this fall, where he and fellow Braided River authors will be leading a conservation photography workshop. For more info about the workshop, visit www.braidedriver.org.
Where Water is Gold: Life and Livelihood in Alaska’s Bristol BayBy Carl Johnson. 176 pages, softcover: $24.95. Braided River/Mountaineers Books, 2016.
Note: This story has been updated to correct a photo caption; the final image is of the mouth of the Kvichak River, not a stream flowing into Lower Twin Lake.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Where water is gold.
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