Who knew that Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley are home to the most commercial fishermen – 1,744 – in all Alaska?
Or that if you put Bristol Bay's sockeye salmon catch nose to tail, it would reach 14,000 miles, from Alaska to Australia and back!
Everyone went away from the United Fishermen of Alaska's "Fisheries Day" last week with new understanding and appreciation for the seafood industry and its importance to the state's economy.
UFA comprises 37 diverse member groups from skiffs to floating processors, making it the largest fisheries trade organization in the nation. Fisheries Day was the brainchild of new president Arni Thomson, and targeted especially to Anchorage and other rail belt policy makers. To them, he says, seafood is an invisible industry.
"People just don't get it. The fishing industry puts more people to work than oil and gas, mining, timber and tourism combined. And it is second only to Big Oil in revenues to state coffers," Thomson said.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Capital City Weekly (Juneau, AK)