Directed by Alaska filmmaker Ryan Peterson, The Super Salmon is a super-inspiring film chronicling what could have been something super-shitty: the proposed Susitna-Watana dam on Alaska’s Susitna River. The 300-mile river is home to all five species of pacific salmon, including the state’s fourth largest chinook run. The latest concrete threat called for erecting the country’s second tallest dam at a price-tag of $6 billion. That dam plan was officially killed earlier this year.
“In following this journey, Peterson documents the importance of the river and its fish to the region—its economy, communities, and culture. The story outlines the threat posed by the Susitna dam and the work of the Susitna River Coalition, which is aimed at protecting our free-flowing, healthy watershed so that future generations of salmon, wildlife, and humans can depend on it as we do today.”
In delivering that story, The Super Salmon has gone on to pocket multiple awards including the 2016 Banff Mountain Film Festival Special Jury Mention, the 2016 Port Townsend Film Festival Audience Choice Award, and the 2016 Anchorage International Film Festival Jury Award. It also won Best Conservation at The Drake’s 10th Anniversary Flyfishing Video Awards in Orlando back in July.
And now you can watch it online, in its entirety, for free—here.
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.