Linda Weatherwax
Alaska Study/Tour Cruise, 2001

Alaska's salmon and its pristine habitats are national treasures. Many Alaskans rely on this fish for food, income, and recreation. Salmon makes up more than 75% of the subsistence harvest in some villages and are culturally significant in over 200 rural areas. Many animals including bears and eagles depend on salmon for food. When salmon die, nutrients from their bodies enrich both the soil and water. Animals and fishermen know that the best way to fish for salmon is to catch them as they make their last journey upriver. This magical journey has been passed down through myths and stories by generations of Native Americans as part of their traditions. Today we can use these legends along with modern childrens' literature to examine the salmon's interdependence with the rest of our environment.

This lesson can be used with Social Studies, Geography, Science, or Reading classes. Extensions in Art and Math will be given.

Teaching Level: Grades 2 to 5

Objective #1: Students will demonstrate an awareness of the world beyond their local area as they learn all about salmon and their different habitats.

Essential Element: Physical Systems.

Standard #8: The characteristics and the spatial distribution of ecosystems on earth's surface.

Knowledge Statement #1: The components of ecosystems.

Skill Set #5: Answering geographic questions.

Skill #2: Use methods of geographic inquiry to acquire geographic information, draw conclusions, and making generalizations.

Theme: Location, Place, and Movement.

Objective #2: Students will investigate the role of the salmon in the lives and traditions of Native Americans by reading legends and creating art projects.

Essential Element: Places and Regions.

Standard #6: How cultures and experience influence peoples' perception of places and regions.

Knowledge Statement #2: Ways in which different people perceive places and regions.

Skill Set #4: Analyzing geographic information.

Skill #3: Use texts, photographs, and documents to observe and interpret geographic trends and relationships.

Theme: Place and Region.

Objective #3: Students will create a story map of the salmons' journey, correctly identifying features and places visited.

Essential Element: The World in Spatial Terms.

Standard #1: How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.

Knowledge Statement #3: How to display spatial information on maps and other geographic representations.

Skill Set #3: Organizing geographic information.

Skill #1: Prepare maps to display geographic information.

Theme: Movement and Place.

Objective #4: Students will suggest ways that we can all help protect our fish populations, because each time we lose a piece of life's tapestry, our quality of life unravels.

Essential Element: The Use of Geography.

Standard #18: How to apply Geography to interpret the present and plan for the future.

Knowledge Statement #1: The dynamic character of geographic contexts.

Skill Set #5: Answering geographic questions.

Skill #3: Apply generalizations to solve geographic problems and make a reasoned decisions.

Theme: Human-Environment-Interaction.

Books on salmon, Native American legends, large white sheets of paper, art supplies, list of conservation agencies and other handouts. (included in lesson)

A full-grown red salmon weighs about 10 pounds and lives in the ocean. But it didn't began its life in the ocean. Salmon eggs hatch in the fresh waters of streams known as "spawning grounds." Baby salmon live here until they are two years old. Then they travel downstream. The streams get larger and become rivers until finally they join the ocean where the salmon spend their adult life. When a red salmon is about four years old, it is ready to lay eggs. It begins its return journey back to the exact place where it hatched. These amazing, tough fish recognize their home river by its smell, saltiness, and temperature. This means traveling upstream for hundreds of miles, swimming against the current, leaping up ten foot waterfalls, past hungry bears, eagles and fisherman, in an exhausting trip back to the same stream where they were born. The female lay their eggs, the males fertilize them, and the adults die providing a massive feeding and fertilizing of land and sea. Then the cycle begins again.

1. Discover students prior knowledge with some of the sample questions. Have you ever fished? Have you ever seen a salmon? Where do salmon live? Have you ever eaten salmon? What kind? (King, Sockeye, Coho, Pink, Chum) How was it prepared? (baked, smoked, fried, barbecued, or soup) Is it healthy to eat fish? What people depend on salmon as their main source of food? (Native Americans of Alaska) How did the tribes fish long ago? What is happening to our fishing industry today? (Fish populations have been depleted by overfishing, pollution and introduction of an non-native species) How many jobs are connected to salmon?

(fisherman, boat building, processing plants, fish farms, feed and bait, marine engineer, retail stores, ice and refrigeration, rubber and aluminum industries to name a few)

2. Read Shelley Gill's book Swimmer and Salmon Stream by Carol Reed-Jones. Both these books inform students about the salmons' amazing life journey and other relevant facts about salmon. Discussion would follow.

3. Read the Native American legends about salmon. (Two included with lesson, one mentioned in Bibliography) Compare these to the previous stories. Discuss the role of salmon in the lives and culture of the tribes. (15,000 Native Alaskans live along the shores of the Yukon River using the salmon for food. Salmon are eaten fresh, smoked, dried, salted, and canned. Skins have been used for Mukluk bottoms and decorations for parkas. For centuries, native people have moved to fish camps to await the salmon. They have recognized the significance of the salmons life cycle and treated it with reverence, taking only those fish that they needed. Salmon our main characters in their tales and displayed in the art forms of masks and totem poles.)

4) The Native American girl in Swimmer was also making a journey. Comparing their journeys with a Venn diagram.

1. The students will individually or as a group create a "story map" of the salmons' journey. This should be drawn on a large sheet of paper with plenty of room for expansion. Instruct the students to map the route described in the book Swimmer, using pictures or symbols to indicate where the salmon travels. Written explanations on the map should answer the questions of where did the journey start? What was the reason for the journey? How long did the journey take? Where did it end? Be sure to include the different environments through which the salmon pass. Also include some of Swimmer's enemies from the book including whales, sharks, seals, bears, dip boats and fishing nets. (This would be a good time to stress that salmon also face great dangers from logging, dam construction, irrigation, industrial pollution and destruction of wetlands. These might also be included on the map.)

2. Students will create a simple food chain.
Example:

Plants are foods for animals, which in turn, feed on other animals. Animals and plants that die and decay nourish bacteria. This starts the cycle all over. Chains that overlap or connect are called the "food webs."
3. Alaska has the healthiest salmon stocks in the U.S. and maybe even the world. Alaska is one of the last places where there is an opportunity to conserve fish populations.

Inform students of actions already being taken to protect salmon and other wild fish:
- Government agencies, tribal organization, and fishermen all cooperating together.
- Comprehensive management system where harvest levels are established differently because of salmon's life cycle.
- State regulates fishing areas with the number of fishermen allowed by limiting licenses.
- Gear types regulated to ensure that only targeted species are caught.

Students can now brainstorm ways they can actually help in this conservation effort. These ideas can be charted or made into posters for display.
Some ideas might include:
- Conserve Water
- Save Electricity
- Don't Pollute
- Fish With Care
- Don't Eat Farmed Salmon
- Adopt A Stream
- Join An Organization That Preserves Salmon Habitat (list included with lesson)

1) Present art lesson which is another opportunity for ecological learning.

a. Pass out paper with the mirror-imaged sides of salmon.
b. Students color the salmon using either the traditional colors of black, red, and green, or their own creative ideas.
c. Cut out the colored salmon halves and staple the top part of the salmon backs together.
d. Use excess material cut from around the salmon halves and stuff the salmon.
e. Staple the bottom salmon bellies together.
f. Talk about no waste/conservation.
g. Hang or display the salmon for others to see.

2) Have students prepare oral presentations to share story maps, food chains and conservation posters. These could be displayed in classroom or hallway for others to see.

3) Review the importance of conservation of resources. Who benefits from conservation? What benefits would there be to the world if there were more healthy fish?

Remember that everything salmon need, we also need: clean water, oxygen, forests and safe places to live. We need salmon and salmon need us to take care of the oceans, rivers, and streams.

Language Arts Application
1. Write about a journey you have been on.
2. Read a poem about salmon (included in lesson). Have students write one of their own.
3. Collect salmon vocabulary (especially the 5 kinds of salmon) and use as a weekly spelling test.
4. Work on included activity sheets.

Science application
1. Research other animals mentioned in stories that also make journeys in the spring like geese, caribu, who return to calving grounds, whales, ringed seals, sea lions and walrus who leave the warm southern waters.
2. Help a biologist track a salmon.

Math Application
1. Count up animals included in story.
2. Salmon problem solving.

Social Studies Application
1. Use a map to locate Alaskan and Canadian rivers where we can find salmon. Findout if salmon face any dangers on these rivers:

 2. Locate the wetlands habitats used by the five Pacific salmon.

- small streams
- sloughs
- large rivers
- lakes
- estuaries

Art Application
1. Make a diorama of the Native American fishing village.
2. Salmon people sheet.
3. Color salmon totems.
4. Create a mobile of animals and people who interact in Swimmer or the 5 kinds of salmon.
5. Have students create a "hand design" to remember the different kinds of salmon.

Miscellaneous Activity
Try one of the salmon recipes included to share with class.

Assessing Student Learning
1. Participation in discussion.
2. Contributions to projects like story map, food chains and conservation posters.

Cobb, Vicki. This Place is Cold. Walker and Co, 1989

Devaney, Laurel and Pott Clark. Discovering Alaska's Salmon. Alaska Northwest

Books, 1999

Field, Nancy. Discovering Salmon. Dog-Eared Publication, 1993

Gill, Shelley. Swimmer. Paws IV Publishing, 1995

Joe, Donna. Salmon Boy. Nightwood Editions, 1948

Reed-Jones, Carol. Salmon Stream. Dawn Publications

Renner, Michelle. The Girl Who Swam with the Fish. Alaska Northwest Books, 1995

Reid, Martine J. Myth and Legends of the Haida Indians of the Northwest. Bellerophon

Books, 1998

Robichand, Heidi. Alaska Over The Rainbow. Good River, 1994

Waterton, Betty & Ann Blades. A Salmon for Simon. Groundwood Books, 1996

by Donna Joe

Long, long ago, a boy lived in a village called kalpilin, the winter home of the Sechelt Nation. The boy's people lived in great longhouses along the seashore. It was a good place to live but the people often went hungry during the long winter months. In those days so long ago the salmon did not fill the creeks and rivers of Sechelt.

One beautiful summer day, the boy decided to escape the heat by going for a swim in the sea beside kalpilin. As he swam out from the shore, a giant chum salmon seized him and pulled him down under the sea to the country of the salmon people.

Although the country of the salmon people was beneath the sea, it was dry and the salmon people walked about the same as people do above the sea. Everyone lived in cedar plank houses and all along the beach their canoes were lined up in a row.

The giant chum salmon took the boy to his home and made him a slave. The boy was fascinated by these very special people and took careful note of everything they did.

Some women made cedar root baskets and hats. Others made shredded cedar bark capes, skirts and mats. Some men carved house poles, welcome poles, feast bowls and dugout canoes from the wood of the cedar.

In the winter, when the work of the summer was done and the longhouses were full of the salmon they had dried and smoked, they celebrated with singing and dancing for weeks at a time. Each house had its own singers and dancers. This was also the time for storytelling. Their food in winter months was salmon which had been smoked and dried the summer before.

In the spring, the people were hungry for food that was fresh. First they gathered the eggs or roe of the herring, then they peeled and ate the soft green shoots of the salmonberry and thimbleberry bushes. Soon berries ripened on the bushes and the people ate their fill of the tasty fruit.

In the summer, families left their winter longhouses, packed their things into their dugout canoes and paddled across the water to small cedar sheds where they lived and worked during the sunny weather. During this time, the people picked large amounts of berries, huckleberries, blueberries and blackberries, and dried them on mats for use in the winter. They also fished the spring for pink and sockeye salmon. In the fall the chum and coho started up stream to spawn. Great quantities of these fish were dried, smoked and stored away to feed the people during the winter.

The boy studied the salmon people for one year, memorizing all the things they did to keep from going hungry. In the fall, the salmon people got ready to start upstream to their spawning grounds. All the little salmon began to cry, saying they wanted to go, too. The elders told them they could not go until they were four years old, but the boy was allowed to go with the giant chum salmon who had captured him.

When they were ready to start, they took all their canoes and paddled to a small stream. They were a glad and merry party, and sang as they jumped in the water.

When the salmon went up stream into shallow water, the little boy jumped out, went home to kalpilin and told the Sechelt people about the many wonderful things he had seen in the land of the salmon people.

In this way the Sechelt people learned many things. The most important thing they learned was that the salmon are themselves a proud race. They are happy to come ashore each year and give their rich flesh to feed the people of the land, but they must be treated with respect. The people were on no account to break the neck of fish caught in the early days of the run or the salmon would never return. The salmon creeks and rivers must always be kept clean and healthy, and each family must take only as many fish as it needed, never wasting any.

From that time forward, the Sechelt Nation always treated the salmon properly and its people never went hungry.

The Raven and the Salmon

The Raven had discovered the first people. Then after the flood he provided them with fresh water by creating the lakes, rivers and streams, but he still had to populate these empty waters with all kinds of fish for himself and the Haida people to feed on.

While traveling about one day, the Raven saw in the distance two men whom he knew to be Beavers. Before they caught sight of him he took the form of an old man, and when they came closer he greeted them as good friends. The Raven looked so friendly that the two men invited him to go home with them and offered him a place to sleep and food to eat for as long as he wanted to stay.

They lived in a huge traditional Haida house made of red cedar planks with handsome carved interior house-posts representing the Beaver crest. Inside, at the very back of the house, was a doorway screen with an entrance leading into to what appeared to be a storage space. On the sides of the entrance hung the skulls of two mountain sheep. One of the men took a skull in each hand, and banged them together, causing sparks to fly. These set fire to a pile of wood, and soon a good fire was burning in the center of the house. The other man in the meantime had gone behind the screen and returned, carrying some fresh salmon for their dinner.

During the meal, the Raven, who is usually a glutton, restrained himself and ate sparingly, playing his role of an old and well-mannered man rather well; but of course it was very much against his inclination.

The Raven decided to stay as long as it would take him to discover the secret of the Beavers’ food supply. He noticed that whenever the men needed fresh salmon they went to the back of the house and returned with all they needed.

He waited until one day his hosts went gambling, leaving him alone. As soon as they left, the Raven decided to investigate the storage space at the back of the house, behind the screen. Instead of a place for keeping fish, to his amazement and delight, he discovered a complete lake and river system teeming with salmon, with fish traps already in place to catch them. In the presence of all that food, he soon forgot the conventions, table manners and etiquette required of him while he was a guest in the Beavers’ house, and quickly gobbled up as many fish as he could possibly hold. As the salmon berries were ripening in abundance along the lake, he picked a basketful and ate them also. It took quite some time and much more food to satiate his appetite, and he would have kept on eating even then but it was now time to stop because the Beavers were coming back from gambling.

After a good night’s sleep, the next day, the Beavers decided to go gambling again. This time the Raven decided to steal the lake, the rivers and all the fish as well as the land around them. The trouble was that they were far too big for the Raven to carry. But a little difficulty like that never stopped so determined a master of magic as he, so he simply rolled the lake up like a mat and put it in his beak.

The Beavers were on their way home and as they reached the threshold of their house, they saw the Raven trying to fly away with their property. The rolled up landscape was so heavy that he could only fly a short distance at a time, stopping often to rest in whatever tree was nearby.

The returning gamblers knew they could not catch the Raven as long as he was flying, or perched in a high tree, but they quickly formed a plan which they hoped would catch the thief and recover their food supply. It meant returning to their natural forms, to Beavers, and using their powerful gnawing teeth to cut down the tree where the Raven was perched. However as soon as they attacked the first attacked the first tree, the Raven flew to another one. They felled several trees on which the Raven had perched but just before the trees began to fall, the Raven flew to a safer perch. In despair they sent the Marten and the Loon to pursue him, but they also failed to catch him.

The farther the Raven flew with his burden the easier it was for him to carry it. Soon he felt strong enough for the long flight to Haida Gwai. There he dropped the lake and streams and salmon berry bushes, and planted the salmon in pairs, one female and one male in all the waters of the islands. In time the fish multiplied and supplied the favorite food to the Raven and incidentally to the Haida people as well.

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