A second significant convening—termed a "Creative Convening—inviting people from diverse backgrounds was hosted in Girdwood in 2014. Facilitation was provided by Sarah Barton and Jeff Barnum, with a keynote by Jeff Barnum. Convening participants asked to test mechanisms from moving from affinity to action. Specifically, they were asked to design small "missions" that they could individually carry out between the convening date and a follow-on gathering four months later.

The report-out from the convening, including the list of potential missions, is here.

February 2015 Convening

Participants at an evening gathering recounted their experiences and experiments after the November 2014 convening.

Some recommendations were provided to The Salmon Project.

Notes from the evening are here. A menu of missions is here.

Story and Literary Work

Shared Salmon Stories

During the course of the summer 2013 Salmon Love campaign staff at The Salmon Project found that Alaskans from around the state spontaneously shared their salmon stories with The Salmon Project, by email, Facebook, and other methods. It became apparent that Alaskans appreciated the opportunity to see their own stories or relationships to salmon reflected as part of the body of work, and that they sought to share their own connections to salmon and its importance to them. To respond to this interest, the summer 2014 campaign was designed to elicit shared stories from Alaskans. Radio ads used previously shared salmon stories as a hook to help Alaskans identify their own salmon stories and encourage them to share them with The Salmon Project. Over the course of our work more than 200 people shared stories, photos, and videos, including 199 who shared them through our web submission tool.

Haiku Competitions

2014 Salmon Haiku Contest

The Salmon Project ran the first salmon-themed haiku contest April 10-30, 2014. The contest attracted poets from every corner of the state. The Salmon Project received over 1,000 haiku submissions via email, including one written in Alutiiq. Five winners received prizes, including two youth.

2015 Salmon Habitat Haiku Contest

The second salmon-themed haiku contest included a habitat theme as a lead in to our summer Baby Salmon Live Here initiative. We had received so many submissions from youth in 2014 that we also added in a youth component for 2015. The contest ran May 1-15, 2015 and received entries from hundreds of Alaskans from across the state, with more than half of the entries written by students in their last few weeks of school. Three adult poets and three student poets were selected to win first-, second- and third-place prizes in the contest.

Judges of the contest included Peggy Shumaker, Alaska State Writer Laureate from 2010-2012, and Professor Derek Burleson who teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The 2015 contest theme of salmon habitat was a preview of The Salmon Project’s summer initiative, Baby Salmon Live Here, which was a series of activities that encouraged Alaskans to get outside and explore the places around them where juvenile salmon live.

The winning haikus lived on beyond the end of the contest. The winning haikus were turned into stickers and used to wrap customers’ fish packages at fish counters across Alaska. We also produced individual window clings for each winning haiku. Three foot square clings were prominently displayed at Snow City Cafe and Spenard Roadhouse and one foot square clings were displayed eating establishments and community gathering spots around the state, including Two Sisters Bakery, Coppa, Naknek Post Office, Dillingham Post Office, Harborside Coffee, Vagabond Blues, Old Harbor Books, and Glacier Express.

KNOM Radio also produced audio files of each of the winning haikus.

KNOM Audio

2016 Salmon Life Haiku Contest

This Salmon Life themed contest ran May 9-22, 2016 and received over 1,000 haiku entries from Alaskans across the state.

Salmon Voices Series on Alaska Dispatch News

In late 2013 The Salmon Project launched a project with the support of former Alaska Writer Laureate Nancy Lord. We partnered with the Alaska Dispatch (at the time still an online-only news site) to publish a series of essays and photo essays by talented Alaska authors. Nancy developed the list of authors served as editor for the collection and the individual pieces. The pieces were published, one per day, over a series of weeks in February 2014.

Each contributor was provided with a copy of King of Fish, and was asked to read the book and then write a personal essay (or another piece of work) influenced by the themes in their reading. The pieces were meant to be personal reflections, not book reports.

Contributors to the series were: Nancy Lord (series introduction), Charles Wohlforth, Charlie Campbell, Ernestine Hayes, Verner Stor Wilson III, Dan O’Neill, Michael Raudzis Dinkel, Sara Loewen, Kirsten Dixon, Oscar Avellaneda Cruz, William L. Iggiagruk Hensley, Emma Teal Laukitis, Pat Race (image not archived on Alaska Dispatch, but available here), and Jim Lavrakas.

Made of Salmon

Following the enthusiastic reception of the Salmon Voices series, we worked together with Nancy Lord to submit a book proposal to University of Alaska Press. The proposal was to include all of the written pieces, plus about ten more; and to include some of the “shared stories” or haiku that Salmon Project fans and followers had submitted over the course of our work.

The book proposal was accepted and Nancy set about collecting the new essays, choosing the submitted stories and haikus, and editing the whole work. Clark James Mishler agreed to provide photography for the project.

The book was published in spring 2014 under the title: Made of Salmon: Alaska Stories from The Salmon Project. We worked with authors to support readings and signings in the communities around the state where they lived. We also had public relations support from Kristin Helvey Communications. We exceeded our outreach objectives and had excellent media response to the publication.

The full list of contributors is:

Authors/Essayists: Ilarion “Larry” Merculieff, Leslie Leyland Fields, Bella Hammond, Seth Kantner, Charles Wohlforth, Charlie Campbell, Richard Chiappone, Dan O’Neill, Don Rearden, Julia O’Malley, Ernestine Hayes, Debby Dahl Edwardson, Lynn Schooler, Verner Stor Wilson III, Michael Raudzis Dinkel, Sara Loewen, Heather Lende, Carol Sturgulewski, Kirsten Dixon, Hank Lentfer, William L. Iggiagruk Hensley and Nancy Lord (editor).

Story/haiku sharers: Dustin Connor, Chantelle Pence, Les Palmer, Heidi Hurley, Juanita Dwyer, Melanie Brown, Thomasina Andersen, Maija Lukin, Barbara Njaa, Karen Maskarinac, George Gatter, Laurie Bassett, Sarah Harrington, Matthew Boline, Renemary Rauchenstein, Susan Harvey, Mark Witteveen, Alice Aga, Sonja Barger, Martha Anelon, Christopher Orman, Bethany Neubarth, Mi’chelle McCoy, Adaline Pete, Leona Gottschalk, Jenny Fast, Danika Simpson, Christy Everett, Mary Sattler, Tatiana Petticrew, Paul Ivanoff, Eva O’Malley, Jerre Willis.

2015/2016 Salmon Life, Salmon Love Campaign

All archived Salmon Life files

Initially conceived as a fall/winter 2015 campaign, Salmon Life, Salmon Love set out to build upon the success of the ‘Salmon Love’ brand and also to shift perceptions that work of The Salmon Project focussed on salmon as a fish/resource rather than on the cultural and personal significance of salmon to Alaskans.

Developed in close partnership with Element Agency, Salmon Life campaign was designed with the explicit objectives of promoting greater awareness that our personal connections to salmon are part of something larger, showing that these connections are fundamental part of Alaskan identity, and revealing that these connections are a common bond between Alaskans of all backgrounds. By illuminating the commonality of our salmon connections, we hoped to show that to be an Alaskan is to be a member of a tribe united by its love of salmon, and to build a statewide community of people who identify as living ‘salmon lives’.

Initial campaign scope and objectives can be found in the detailed briefing document delivered to Element Agency, here. Early proposals and plans can also be found in this folder.

Salmon Life evolved into a highly visual storytelling campaign, documenting and revealing the nature of Alaskan’s diverse connections with salmon through personal and community accounts of salmon love. Videos, beautiful photography, longform written pieces, and photo essays are on pubished on the campaign microsite at http://www.salmonlife.org/ on a regular basis. Archived screenshots and an extracted version of this website are saved here. The images, text and screenshots of all stories published through December 2016 can be accessed here. These stories and accompanying images provide a rich record of Alaskans as salmon connected people.

The published Salmon Life ‘stories’ were supported and publicized by a coordinated facebook (organic and promoted) effort and dedicated instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/aksalmonproject/).

Components

Launched in November 2015, the campaign was extended through 2016, and upon receipt of additional funds is anticipated to continue through 2017. For purposes of contracting and scope, the campaign is typically referred to in 3 different phases. Links correlate to archived campaign development files:

Salmon Life 1.0 (Nov 2015 - April 2016)

Salmon Life 2.0 (May 2016 - Dec 2016)

Salmon Life 3.0 (Jan 2017 - Dec 2018)

Call to Action

Through 2016 the campaign ran in tandem with a concerted list growth effort. CTA’s were therefore often incentivized to boost participation. Campaign asks encouraging participants to ‘tag’ or submit images and stories of their own ‘salmon lives’ were rotated throughout the duration of Salmon Life 1.0/2.0, and were particularly effective through social media. During Q1/Q2 2016, Alaskan’s were asked to complete the statement ‘My life is a Salmon Life because….’. Over 1200 Alaskan’s responded and their answers were collated into a printed document shared with legislators and community leaders on Alaska Wild Salmon Day.

*Full rights were granted to The Salmon Project for images captured as part of ‘Salmon Life 1.0’. Galleries are saved and labeled in the relevant ‘published story’ folders. The Salmon Project also holds full rights to images published as part of Salmon Life 2.0 stories for use as part of Salmon Life, social media, or other Salmon Project work. Permission must be requested for use of previously unpublished images Salmon Life 2.0 images. Permission must be sought via Element Agency for the transfer of any Salmon Life 2.0 photographic assets to external organizations. Published images are saved and numbered separately in each ‘published story’ folder.

Other Major Initiatives

King of Fish Book Drop

The King of Fish Book Drop was a concept that emerged from a question posed in a board meeting, “Would we have achieved our goal if we just got every Alaskan to read King of Fish?” As noted above in our sections on the May 2013 Convening and Salmon Voices, we had been using King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon as a jumping off point for many conversations and finding value in it.

Though The Salmon Project did not have the resources to get every single Alaskan to read the book, we did embark on an experiment to “drop” significant numbers of books into nine communities or community clusters. We typically hosted “book drop” events where books were given away and people were asked to sign up to get more information about the campaign. We prepared discussion questions and a 4-page synopsis of the book. Approximately one year later we attempted to support community members in hosting a local discussion on the book and the lessons it taught.

Some of the concepts behind the Book Drop included the idea that relatively large numbers of books distributed into relatively small communities might achieve a “tipping point” whereby future conversations would be significantly shaped by concepts developed in the book. Additionally, there was interest in the fact that books are durable and would potentially influence people over time spans that far exceeded that of The Salmon Project.

The book drop communities or regions were Petersburg, Sitka, Juneau, Palmer/Wasilla, Cordova/Copper River, Homer, Kodiak, Bethel and Fairbanks.

Books were “prepared” for the book drops with cover stickers that explained the campaign and how to be involved. They also were stamped on the inside cover so that many readers could fill in their names as well as where they lived and when they read the book, to provide a record of each book’s journey over the years. Finally, prepared books included a campaign synopsis as well as two custom book marks.

King of Fish Book Drop campaign logo
- Fish only
- Fish over state
Book cover sticker
Pat Race bookmark
General Book Drop bookmark
4-page book synopsis
Discussion questions
One-page campaign description short | long
Other graphics for web
Event photographs

Baby Salmon Live Here

The genesis of the “Baby Salmon Live Here” concept lies in a signage project conducted by The Nature Conservancy and a number of partners, who provided street signs at rehabilitated stream crossings recognizing the presence of “young salmon.”

In 2013 Salmon Project staff partnered with the Great Land Trust to conduct public opinion research in the Mat-Su Borough (see findings here), and co-designed the concept for an expanded “young salmon” project. Great Land Trust staff tested language and signage concepts related to “young salmon” and “baby salmon” and found that the latter resonated with outreach participants; it surprised them, caught their attention, and gave them interesting “ah-ha” moments.

This 2015 summer campaign concept built on the public opinion research conducted in summer 2013. The campaign concept recognized that, while Alaskans commonly have a good instinct for places in their communities and regions that provide important adult migration and spawning habitat, knowledge is generally far more sparse when it comes to important juvenile salmon rearing/overwintering habitat.

In early 2015, The Salmon Project conducted two Baby Salmon Live Here focus groups (one in the Mat-Su and one in Anchorage) designed to identify which concepts resonated with Alaskans. These focus group findings were then incorporated in the summer 2015 Baby Salmon Live Here campaign.

The objectives of the Baby Salmon Live Here campaign were closely tied to The Salmon Project’s strategy of “discover”—which creates opportunities to “discover the presence of salmon in the places and spaces where we live.” The discover strategy is explicitly linked to the geographies and landscapes of Alaskans.

Our overarching objective with the “discover” strategy was to help Alaskans expand their understanding of what constitutes salmon habitat in Alaska. Discover builds on several themes identified in our extensive public opinion research, and expanded through our ongoing campaign activities:

Alaskans’ relationships with salmon are “place-based”— we relate to salmon based on the landscapes and in the traditions in which we personally interact with the resource.
Alaskans have tremendous pride in the state’s wild salmon bounty.
That pride is deeply rooted in the places with which they are intimately connected—those places where they recreate, work, conduct subsistence or live.
There are ample opportunities for new discoveries within Alaskans’ home turfs, including (but not limited to) information about juvenile salmon habitat and its extent.

Specific objectives related to the Baby Salmon Live Here campaign were:

Provide opportunities for Alaskans to discover something new and significant about the presence of salmon in their familiar landscapes.
Increase the likelihood that Alaskans have the knowledge to participate in self-identified actions that conserve or mitigate harm to salmon systems.
Lodge permanent knowledge about the extent of the state’s juvenile salmon habitat with children.

The goals of the campaign were to specifically target children and their parents in the spaces they were already engaging in outdoor play. Because of limited scope and budget this primarily focused on the adoption and use of campaign themes and materials during the 2015 season by organizations and programs that were already doing field-based education with young Alaskans. Read more in the Baby Salmon Live Here scope.

The Salmon Project contracted with Solstice Advertising and Helvey Communications to connect with over 60 organizations already doing great work with youth in their community.

Built off of the knowledge that there are already many organizations and individuals using great educational materials to teach Alaskans about the life cycle of salmon (see comprehensive list of salmon education in Alaska), we did not want to reinvent the wheel. Instead, each partner organization was provided with a Baby Salmon Live Here “kit” that had a taste of the scientific side of the salmon life cycle, but was primarily designed to encourage kids and their caregivers to get outside and explore salmon habitat.

Each of the challenges was rooted in the idea that Alaskans would want to share their experiences and see where other people were finding salmon around the state. Each challenge encouraged participants to snap a photo of the activity and post it on Instagram with the hashtag #babysalmonlivehere. All photos that were geotagged showed up on the Salmon Love Map on the website.

Each kit included five challenges to be completed and the following items:

The campaign utilized a variety of logo and graphic files. The campaign used radio and online digital ads and print ads in local newspapers, as well as google adwords search advertising to publicize the campaign. Short Baby Salmon Live Here videos also encouraged participation in the challenges. Helvey Communications also did a wonderful job getting earned media coverage.

Over 60 organizations participated in the campaign in various ways, including documenting their activities via photos and videos. The Salmon Project tracked each organization’s activities and followed up to delve deeper into partner stories at the end of the campaign.

Click to view the full results of the campaign and the online storify story.

Wild Alaska Salmon Day

In summer 2015 The Salmon Project led the celebration of Wild Alaska Salmon Day which, while not yet a holiday in the State of Alaska, was being proposed through a bill in the Alaska Legislature. We designed a set of graphics that were shared with the salmon community. The holiday was formally adopted into law in the spring of 2016. August 11 is now Wild Alaska Salmon Day in Alaska. The grassroots celebration was documented in a Storify story.

Salmon Life Declarations

Anchorage Museum Exhibit: Alaskans and Salmon

In May 2019 the Anchorage Museum opened an exhibit titled Alaskans and Salmon that drew from the archival resources of The Salmon Project. The exhibit was in place through January 2020.

Websites

The Salmon Project had three organizational websites over the course of its first four years (each of which, at its time, was hosted at www.salmonproject.org. There was also one campaign website (Salmon Life: Salmon Love).

The first website was built on the Drupal platform, and was integrated with a Drupal-based CRM, Redhen. The second was also built on Drupal and was integrated with the CRM. The third was built on WordPress and was not integrated. As of 12/31/16 this is the existing website.

Screenshots.

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