Postcard: Bristol Bay

摘要

Theo chesley noses his six-seat turboprop into a drizzly wind and levels off, soaring above the rich, silty veins of the Nushagak River in southwestern Alaska. The Nushagak is a salmon highway. To the west, its waters flow into Bristol Bay, home of the richest commercial-fishing grounds left in the U.S. About 40% of the wild seafood caught in the U.S. is fished right here.rnTo the northeast, however, something is growing that could change that. Some 100 miles upstream is the proposed site of what would be one of the largest mines in the world. The Pebble Mine, if it goes forward, could produce copper and gold worth more than $300 billion at current market prices. But opponents say its development poses a toxic threat to Bristol Bay's rich fishing grounds-and to a way of life that dates back centuries. "There's a whole lot of land and water in harm's way," says Chesley, a salmon fisherman when he's not flying charters. "I'm notrnan environmentalist, but I do give a s_rnabout the land."