Red Gold: Documentary on Alaska’s Bristol Bay to show at Emerson Cultural Center
Camille Egdorf spent her first summer near the banks of the Nushagak River in Alaska’s Bristol Bay before she was old enough to walk. Her father, Dave Egdorf of Hardin, founded Western Alaska Sportsfishing in the early 1980s. Camille has headed north every year since.
Now 21 years old and a student at Montana State University, Camille recalls the runs of sockeye salmon that course up the Nushagak and across Bristol Bay each year with a kind of reverence. She now guides clients at her father’s fishing lodge and has developed a close relationship with the land, its people and its fish.
“Alaska is known for its fisheries and wildlife and most of all its salmon,” Camille said Monday. “Bristol Bay is the last place in the world that has these big sockeye runs.”
Camille will speak next Wednesday at the Emerson Cultural Center during a screening of the film “Red Gold,” hosted by the Madison-Gallatin Chapter of Trout Unlimited and the Montana State University Fly Fishing Club. The one-hour documentary – which features Camille – by filmmakers Travis Rummel, Ben Knight and Lauren Oakes tells the story of Bristol Bay’s unique salmon fishery, the people and wildlife that rely on it and the controversial Pebble Mine project which could alter the area forever.
Advocates for the Pebble Mine project claim it will spur the Alaskan economy by creating jobs, generating tax revenue and reducing American dependence on foreign sources of raw materials. Opponents of the project say the mine could have devastating effects on the Bristol Bay watershed, the subsistence villages in the area and the salmon fishery that lays the foundation for much of the food chain.
In January 2010, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., which acquired the Pebble deposit in 2001, estimated 55 billion pounds of copper, 67 million ounces of gold, and 3.3 billion pounds of molybdenum could be mined from the area. According to its website, “the Pebble deposit is among the largest copper-gold porphyry systems, and one of the greatest stores of mineral wealth, ever discovered.”
However, the proposed Pebble Mine lies at the headwaters of Upper Talarik Creek and the Koktuli River which empty into Bristol Bay via Lake Iliamma, the Kvichak River and the Mulchatna River, a tributary of the Nushagak River. Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. proposes containing mine effluent and tailings behind earthen dams at the site.
Knight said that plan follows a long line of projects which have proven detrimental to the environment.
“Everywhere else we have meddled with the environment we have decimated salmon populations,” he said on Monday. “Efforts to restore those rivers and salmon have just not worked.
“(Bristol Bay) is the last remaining stronghold,” Knight said. “We just need to protect it. If you go up there it is just obvious. The place is teeming with life.”
Knight, whose previous films, “The Hatch” and “Running Down the Man,” made the rounds on film tours, said “Red Gold” represented a new direction in his career – and life – as a filmmaker.
“’Red Gold’ is the most important thing I have ever done,” he said on Monday. “The first time I saw salmon running in Bristol Bay it brought me to tears. Your first reaction to seeing something like that is that it is beautiful. Your second reaction is that it is something you want to share with people and share with your children. It is an absolute wonder of the world.”
“I want my kids and grandkids to be able to go up there and see it,” Camille said. “The salmon are really the foundation for the ecosystem and Pebble Mine puts that at risk. I think it is important that people are educated and that they know something valuable and rare is at risk.”
Red Gold: Considering the future of Bristol Bay, Alaska
Where: Emerson Cultural Center
When: Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Tickets: Available at local fly shops or at the door for $5 with proceeds to support the Save Bristol Bay Fund managed by Trout Unlimited.
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