Wild salmon recipes for you

Sunrise on the coast of southern Alaska. In summer huge salmon swarms move here

It is a sunny, windless August morning on the coast of Southeast Alaska. The air is clear, the sky shines in deep blue. Thousands of wild salmon have gathered in Taku Inlet, a fjord lined with mountain forests where the Taku River flows into the Pacific Ocean. Their silvery backs shimmer under the water surface. From time to time a magnificent fish jumps out of the ocean, tries on a pirouette, fails - and claps back into the water. Seagulls rush screaming at the point of impact.

Every year from June huge salmon swarms are heading towards the coasts of Alaska. Your destination is the estuaries of the rivers. There, where fresh and salt water mix, the animals gather. Once their gills have become accustomed to the fresh water, they begin to climb the rivers. Up to the point on the upper reaches, where they hatched from the egg three to five years ago and later migrated to the sea. This is exactly where they will spawn. And then die.

To get through their journey, the salmon have been stuffed out in the Pacific. Because once they are back in their flow, they will not eat anything and lose weight. Professional fishers therefore like to visit the fjords around estuaries to catch the fine guys, as long as they are still great guys.

The Taku Inlet is one of them. And today is an ideal day. Ideal for fishermen, also ideal for Sissi Babich and her salmon caviar company in nearby Juneau, which only uses daily fresh roe. Or maybe it's a lost day. That depends on a single fax. This fax comes once a week, if necessary more often, from the Fish & Game Fisheries Authority of the US state of Alaska. And it tells authorized professional fishermen where, how long and with what method they are allowed to fish. Sometimes it also tells them that they are not allowed to fish at all in certain areas.

Large parts of Alaska are pure wilderness. Roads, rails, or lines can hardly be seen in this country

Freedom. Independence. These terms fall when you ask a pro fisherman in Alaska what he loves about his job. And yet there is none of them who does not accept the sensitive restrictions. Because the third word that is guaranteed is the word sustainability. Sustainability. In Alaska, that's not a buzzword. For just that Alaska, whose governor Sarah Palin denies the influence of man on climate change, just that Alaska has been ensuring for decades with consistent eco-policy for the preservation of its fish wealth.

At each river in the country (they are numbered), Fish & Game staff members sit in the summer and register the returning salmon. Each ship must report its catches (and by-catches) daily, and each buyer must report the fish purchased. Fish & Game takes food samples to factories, monitors fishing vessels, sends probes to the bottom of the sea and biologists to the spawning grounds. If there are too few salmons in a river, too many eggs freeze in the winter, are the swarms smaller than expected or are there no other data, the fishery in the affected area is limited. "Anyone fishing here has to make reserves for such cases," says David Bedford, head of the Juneau-based agency, "otherwise he goes bankrupt." Maybe you could have it all easier, if you would breed salmon. But that is forbidden. And nothing makes the weather-beaten, nerve-racking fisherman more aggressive than this topic.

Sitka, a pretty town in the impressive mountain scenery of southern Alaska. Almost everyone lives here from salmon

Salmon farming, it is then fumigated, reduce genetic diversity, reduce the quality of meat, contaminate the clean waters of Alaska and disturb the ecosystem. The other reason is that fishing on the open sea is a traditional livelihood for a large part of Alaska's population. And it stands for a unique way of life, as it is possible only in the wild north of the USA. Alaska does not just protect its pristine nature with its policies. But also his culture. "My life would have been different without this policy," says Sissi Babich, the caviar producer. Her biography is so closely intertwined with nature as elsewhere in the world people's lives with a large company.

For years, Sissi Babich has caught even wild salmon, including the highly traded, rare king salmon

I loved the fishing life, the wilderness and the seclusion of Alaska.

Like many here, the 57-year-old does not come from Alaska. She is Austrian, grew up in the Klein Walsertal. At age 22, she visited friends in Washington State and fell in love with a young salmon fisherman who moved to Alaska every summer. The two got married. And Sissi, who had never been on a seagoing vessel before, accompanied her husband.

"I loved the fishing life, the camaraderie with the other fishermen, the wilderness and the seclusion of Alaska," she says. "The stormy days at sea took turns with peaceful anchor times, somewhere in a lonely bay, away from the noisy world of highways and shopping malls." Our society was bears and whales, and when we made enough money, we flew in my home for skiing. "

But the marriage broke, and Sissi suddenly stood in front of nothing. "I could have returned to Austria at that time," she says. "But I could not imagine a life without this nature here." Sissi bought - on credit - a fishing license for Southeast Alaska and a ship, and began to catch even salmon. "I thought I knew all about it, but I did not know anything," she says. "Not how the animals react to current, wind and heat, not how to recognize a good fishing ground."

In summer and autumn a common picture: bears on salmon catch. The animals eat their winter bacon

She caught far too little. But she was lucky. The other fishermen, all tough guys, took the "girl" under their wing. In the evening she squatted with them in the pub, and after a few beers they revealed their secrets. Sissi learned quickly. And earned well now. Breeding salmon from Norway and Chile came on the market until the end of the 1980s. "People bought it like crazy," says Sissi, "and prices have plummeted."

On her travels to Europe, she realized that there was now salmon caviar as a delicacy. "We fishermen have always thrown the roe into the sea," she laughs. Not anymore. Together with her second husband Günter, a German from Oberstdorf, she founded the Northern Keta Caviar Co. and started to produce high-quality caviar out of the roe of the keta salmon (one of the five Pacific wild salmon species).

Meanwhile, over 30 fishermen work for Sissi, including her husband. Because she has success. Their caviar is sold all over the world, and also the wild salmon, which Sissi trades, again achieves good prices on the world market. More and more people want to have food that is without residue and sustainably produced. Sissi can really serve that now. Sometimes she hardly gets along with the production. Because still there are, these days when nothing comes in. "And it should stay that way," says Sissi. "Because our future depends on it."