We are knee-deep in the largest Bristol Bay sockeye return on record.

Yet here in this little corner of Bristol Bay, the scene is joyous, absurd. For a complex set of reasons that likely includes climate change, habitat destruction, and massive influxes of hatchery-raised fish, Pacific salmon runs elsewhere have been crashing. As each of our footsteps parts a solid mass of salmon, I’m keenly aware that Bristol Bay’s huge returns are an outlier. Schindler has been spending summers here-living in a log cabin at the edge of Nerka Lake, which Sam Creek flows into-for 26 years, and he knows we’re likely not the only ones looking for fish.

“Heyyyy, bear!” he calls out over the rush of water. In chest waders and with hoods pulled tight to defend against biting flies, Schindler and I walk up the middle of the creek.

Sam Creek is half water, half fish, and another ball of salmon is thrumming in the lake below, waiting to barge upstream. Months earlier, fisheries managers had forecast an enormous run.But the scene in front of us is beyond staggering. Schindler is a lead researcher in the University of Washington’s Alaska Salmon Program, which has been studying Bristol Bay salmon since the 1940s and has produced what is likely the most robust dataset of its type in the world.

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