Fish & Water - Sounds Wild
Epic Chum

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Epic Chum

Nine hundred miles from the Bering Sea, a battle-scarred chum salmon swims through downtown Fairbanks. She left the ocean a month ago and she's covered about 30 miles a day, swimming up the Yukon River to the Tanana, and following the Tanana upriver to the Chena. The Chena River flows through the heart of Alaska's second largest city, and this is the second time this salmon has passed through Fairbanks. The first time, four years earlier, she was an inch long smolt headed downstream to the sea.

She was born in the clear, cold headwaters of the Chena's north fork, about 70 miles upstream from Fairbanks. Unlike coho or Chinook salmon, which spend a year or two in freshwater before heading to the ocean, chum salmon head downriver immediately after hatching.

This year on her upriver journey, this big female is loaded with eggs. Soon she'll do her part to create the next generation of Chena River Chums. But she's bringing more than eggs to the upper Chena. She's bringing nutrients from the Bering Sea to Interior Alaska. Like all Pacific salmon, she'll die after spawning. Her body will provide important food for birds, mammals, insects and fish, including the young salmon of the next generation. As she decays, carbon, nitrogen phosphorus and other essential elements will be released, benefitting all the life around the Chena River.