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Ash Adams

Nighttime in Naknek, where in the summer months the days are long. Near the solstice, the sun does not set until close to midnight, and even then, the sky doesn’t fully darken before the sun rises a few hours later.

Meghan Gervais cleans up after feeding her children, Margaret and Rubis, in their locker in the PAF boatyard.

South Carolina Captain Taylor Kirkman (right) works on his boat, the “Jezeriah,” with Everett Lee (left), his crewman and long-time best friend who now lives in Hawaii. Commercial fishing operates in tight quarters, which is why if one person contracts COVID-19, the entire boat must quarantine aboard.

A four-wheeler drives down a road in Naknek, Alaska. During the second season of the pandemic, locals say that the streets are still much quieter than they would have been in years past.

During the pandemic, conversations about the 1919 Spanish flu epidemic, which ravaged communities in the Bristol Bay region, were a part of the discourse about whether or not to open up the lucrative commercial fishing season. Bristol Bay implemented strict protocols at the insistence of its communities, and there was not one documented case of COVID-19 in the local population in Dillingham until the fall. Statewide, Alaska Natives have the highest death rate from COVID-19 of any other group.

Rubis and Margaret Gervais play near their mother's boat in the PAF Marine Services boatyard while she works on getting ready for the season. Gervais says this year feels more normal than last year, when the children couldn’t visit with all of their neighboring boats.

Glass, a fisherman from Dillingham, Alaska, did not fish during the 2020 season. When things felt uncertain in the spring and much less was known about the novel coronavirus, he told his crew that he couldn't guarantee that he would go out even if the fishery moved ahead, and that they should look for other boats to work with. He moved his boat from the boatyard to his home to avoid the crowds and chose to work a construction job for the summer instead. This year, Glass went out with a new crew but worked on his boat, the Brown Dog, in his yard at home.

Kern is a port foreman at the port of Naknek. In 2020 and again in 2021, the port has been closed to the public to limit interaction between out of state workers and the local population during the pandemic.

Hurley stands for a portrait outside of her home in Dillingham, Alaska. A commercial fisherman, captain, and the executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, Hurley was active in organizing and petitioning the government for safer protocols during the commercial fishing season in 2020. “I was so thankful for our leadership, and the fact that our leadership said we’re not repeating history, we’re not doing this anymore, where industry and so-called economies outweigh the value of our people. We aren’t going to stand by and allow that to happen. We demand more. And I think Bristol Bay has been doing that for a while. If you look at the Pebble issue, we’re justnot willing to have a seat at the table, we’re going to run our own table, and we are not going to allow others to dictate our future,” says Hurley.

Davis and Mancuso are the newest owners of the Red Dog Inn, which has been a frequented haunt for 50 years. They purchased the local dive bar during the pandemic. The couple says that when Lynn Johnson, the former owner of the establishment who had owned it for 49 years, put the bar up for sale, they feared that a non-local would purchase the property or that it would be altogether lost. So they bought it. They were celebrating their decision to purchase the property in Saint Thomas, US Virgin Islands, at the start of the U.S.’s acknowledgement of the pandemic. Mancuso, also a fisherman, was hit in the pandemic in two ways; the bar that he and his partner were in the process of buying could not operate during the summer months, which are the busiest ones of the year in Naknek, and the strict mandates put in place for fishermen made fishing untenable for Mancuso as well. But the couple is hopeful. Davis has created a food program for the establishment that so far has been a success she says. Mancuso has chosen to lease out his permit and his boat this year to focus on building up the business at the Red Dog Inn. He believes that businesses like the Red Dog are important to the community because they circulate money directly within the community, while much of the revenue made from fishing leaves after the season ends.