King of Fish Book Drop

The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon

Thousands of Alaskans reading a powerful book about the history and future of humans and salmon.

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The book is King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon. It’s a tale of salmon and people throughout history in places such as Europe, the eastern United States, Canada and the continental Pacific.

Over two years we distributed more than 1,300 copies of the book into communities around Alaska. Our goal was to provide large numbers of books in small communities, in hopes of creating curiosity and a shared language for discussing the future of salmon in our state, based on the lessons of history.

We chose this book because many Alaskans — people who are actually sustained by salmon year after year — have simply never heard many of the stories in it. And we count ourselves among those. In reading this book you take something totally familiar and see it in a different light.

Reader Resources

We want Alaskans like you to dive into the book and have your own eye-opening moment, and then become part of the larger conversation that’s happening in person in living rooms and coffee shops around the state. You can launch your own community conversation using our resources. Simply download the discussion questions and book synapsis and gather a group!

  • Reading Guide — a 4-page synopsis of the book to help folks who haven’t made it all the way through it
  • Discussion Questions — The “out of the box” way to host a conversation on King of Fish!

If you’d like to go farther, consider Jim Lichatowich’s book Salmon, People and Place.