Alaska’s obsession with fish began to dawn on me before I even got there. On a flight to Fairbanks some months back, I sat by chance next to Clinton Cook, a tribal president from Craig, a village in the state’s panhandle. A lively, friendly character, his conversation ranged across land sovereignty, logging and propane logistics. Mostly, and most animatedly, he talked fish: the alluring taste of raw halibut cheeks; how to gather herring roe using hemlock branches; a hack for drying filets on copper pipes.

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