About Us
The smokehouse is a gathering place, a place of abundance: it is the smell of smoldering alder and cottonwood curing our fish, meat, and hides; it is the laughter of aunties telling long stories late into the night under the midnight sun.
The smokehouse defines the harvest of our summers.
The Smokehouse Collective imagines a thriving community and food hub built on a foundation of collective Indigenous Values utilizing earth-based technologies and contemporary sustainable design to lead us through this next climate transformation. We imagine a community of individuals, Tribes, and organizations that are committed to invigorating mutuality to strengthen and grow an adaptive Indigenous food system throughout Alaska and connect with likeminded efforts across the circumpolar north and Turtle Island. We hope this community will share abundance of food from the land and the water and will be able to respond to the changing food sovereignty and security needs of Alaskans. The Smokehouse Collective will be a place where we are intentionally healing by connecting with our non-human relatives and creating a safe space to reconnect with what nourishes us through difficult times.
mission
The Smokehouse Collective is an Indigenous food hub focused on growing, harvesting, processing, and distributing salmon from Bristol Bay to climate-impacted communities across Alaska. We will mobilize regional and statewide partnerships to establish a widespread network of trade through collaboration with local airlines, volunteer donations, and portable deep freezer technology. The Smokehouse Collective site will host community members who have lost access to fish to travel to Bristol Bay and partake in their culturally-relevant processing methods. We will provide access and infrastructure to preserve Indigenous relationships to salmon and reinvigorate our traditional trade to create food security through the climate crisis. This will be a healing space for the community to gather and practice climate resiliency, adaptation, and community building through crisis.
This project will act in multiple ways:
first
To secure a source of salmon and to distribute it directly to food-insecure communities across Alaska that is Indigenous-led and governed by a values-based framework, thereby creating resilient networks of food security.
second
To provide space, access and infrastructure for communities experiencing scarcity to come to the site to practice fish camp, teach traditional ways, and spend time with their salmon relatives, thereby preserving potentially lost cultural practices.
third
To revitalize traditional trade networks across Indigenous communities of Alaska, strengthening our relationships and seeding trust for future mobilization and collaboration.
fourth
To run a Native-owned processing facility in Bristol Bay and sell direct-to-market high quality products, preventing the undercutting of fishermen and incentivizing equity, with profits to return to the stewardship of this land.
fifth
To create investment in the protection of Bristol Bay and this keystone species. Our Bay stood united against the potential devastation of Pebble Mine and this project will increase our impact in lobbying for permanent protections.