Veteran Bristol Bay fisherman Bill Hill has tossed his hat into the 2026 race for Alaska's lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
"I want to ensure the Alaska way of life is protected, access to the land and waters of Alaska," said Hill, 56, an independent who grew up in Kokhanok, on Lake Iliamna, in Southwest Alaska.
Hill's entry into commercial fisheries began as an eight-year-old, picking salmon from setnets off the beach at Naknek. "When I was 12, my dad said it was time I joined him on the boat, and I haven't missed a season since," he said on Friday, Jan. 30.
A lifelong hunter and fisherman, Hill said he's an advocate for reauthorization of the Young Fishermen's Development Act's national competitive grant program and increased funding for NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Coast Guard.
Other primary election candidates challenging incumbent Rep. Nick Begich III, R-Alaska, are two Democrats, Anchorage pastor Matt Schultz and John Brendan Williams.
Along with more funding for NOAA Fisheries and the Coast Guard, better international cooperation and more effort to track fish from boats to consumers are needed, he said.
On resource development, Hill said he would support efforts that benefit Alaskans. "That means that projects that bring in out-of-state workers for five or 10 years may not clear that bar," he said.
"I would always weigh heavily the considerations of protecting fishing and hunting across our state, which are subsistence activities that some of my ancestors have been engaged in on these lands for thousands of years," he said. "I do not support Pebble mine, because it could devastate the most productive salmon run in the world, where I have been commercial fishing my entire adult life."
The father of four and grandfather of seven is also an award-winning educator who served as superintendent of the Bristol Bay Borough School District from 2013 to 2023.
In 2022, more than 30 years after his graduation from a Bristol Bay Borough school, the Alaska Superintendents Association named Hill the state's superintendent of the year. Hill, a member of the Naknek Native Village Council, is of Dena'ina, Finish and German-Irish descent. The Dena'ina culture has always been a part of his life, he said.
