Prologue: The River Remembers

The Kenai River has always spoken, though few have truly listened. It carries the weight of centuries in its ceaseless current, slipping past spruce and stone, carving through mountains and forest, bending and reshaping the land as it has since time began. It tells the legacies of those who have come before, the ones who called this river home, whose lives, sustained by the salmon, were written in the rhythm of the water, their histories carried in the silt, their voices murmuring through the trees.

Long before my family arrived, long before my father fished these waters and my mother built a home on its banks, others lived by the pull of the river. The Riverine Kachemak, salmon people who stayed two thousand years before the world even knew of their existence, built their villages along these banks, their stone tools and carved oil lamps buried beneath the moss. The Dena’ina followed, their winter homes dug deep into the earth, their connection to the river deeper still. Russian fur traders sailed their way into history, seeking their fortune, while early commercial fishermen built their livelihoods on the bounty of salmon that surged upriver each summer. Homesteaders staked their claims in cabins of rough-hewn logs, building lives as rugged and relentless as the seasons.

Each left their mark upon the Kenai, and yet the river remains. It carries the footprints of the past even as it surges forward, a testament to both the fleeting nature of human endeavor and the enduring power of the land. But it is not untouched. The Kenai bears the weight of change—too many boats churning its surface, too many hands grasping at its bounty without heeding the whispers of warning woven into its currents.

And now, the king salmon are vanishing. Once, they returned in great waves, pulsing through the river in the long light of summer, their mighty bodies cutting through the current, silvered flanks flashing beneath the surface. They were the lifeblood of the river, the prize of those who cast their nets and lines, the measure of a season’s fortune. Their return marked the heartbeat of an ecosystem, a culture, and an economy that thrived in their abundance. But the kings no longer reign as they once did. The great salmon runs have thinned, their numbers dwindling with each passing year, whispers of their absence stirring unease among those who have lived by their return. Their struggle is the river’s struggle, an omen carried in the changing currents. The river is speaking, warning us that something is unraveling. But even in this loss, there is hope, a chance to listen before it is too late. The kings may yet return in strength if we choose to honor the balance they once knew, if we are willing to stand for the river that has given us so much.

I was a child of this river, born into the wild heart of a land still raw with possibility. It was my teacher, my refuge, my inheritance. I listened to the language of water, learned the ways of the salmon, watched the eagles carve the sky with their flight. I knew the river before it was loved too hard, before the rush of people drowned out its quiet voice.