Salmonfest returns to Ninilchik with music, art, education

Salmonfest wrapped up Sunday night at the Kenai Peninsula Fairgrounds in Ninilchik. The three-day festival began Friday, kicking off a weekend of feel-good community gathering.

On Saturday, festivities and advocacy were available in ample measure. Headliner Michael Franti & Spearhead celebrated the eclectic nature of the festival. Franti told concertgoers it’s because the festival is a community celebration with a purpose — in support of natural resources — that he was so excited to return after last appearing in 2018.

Looking out at the crowd of “6,000 complete freaking weirdos” gathered before the River Stage in the ARCHES Amphitheater, Franti said he knew he was in good company.

“I might be completely lost, but I’m not alone.”

Other performers similarly celebrated Salmonfest as a community gathering. Hope Social Club vocalist Melissa Mitchell said Saturday while performing on the River Stage that the festival has “graciously” opened itself up to local performers for over a decade.

Between performances on the River Stage, Salmon Champions spoke or shared information. Before Chicago-based Lowdown Brass Band appeared before the crowd, Sophie Swope and Nels Ure called for attendees to oppose the Donlin and Pebble mines based on concerns for their environmental impact.

“We’re here because of salmon,” Ure said. “They support our environment, they support our culture, they support our economy. They support who we are.”

At any time on Saturday, up to four performers could be seen on the festival’s four stages. In the Salmon Causeway, people shared their endeavors to protect salmon and the environment.

At one booth, Cook Inletkeeper’s Ben Boettger shared information about a home energy rebate and surveyed attendees about what sort of renewable energy they want to see developed on the Kenai Peninsula.

Boettger was sharing information, specifically, about the Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates and the Home Efficiency Rebate, which will provide Alaskans funding for “critical electrical upgrades” in their homes, per a flier he provided.

“With gas prices set to rise, this program provides a timely opportunity to shift from gas-burning appliances to electric ones,” the flier reads.

In the evening, the Salmonfest Marching Band led a parade through the causeway and around the grounds, ending at the Ocean Stage. They joined the Roland Roberts Band onstage and the two groups together drew a crowd as they energetically sang and danced, the band’s guitars joined by piccolo and trumpet.

“How’s that for a … sound check?” Roberts asked. “I had no idea any of that was going to happen.”

The art and advocacy continued on Sunday, with performances from Alaska favorites like the Super Saturated Sugar Strings and Blackwater Railroad Company, and musicians from the Lower 48 including Portland-based indie rock band Glitterfox, Lily DeTaeye who is located in New York City, and The Devil Makes Three, a headlining group from Santa Cruz, California.

The energy was high during the back-to-back performances, evidenced by the ground trembling rhythmically from hundreds of pairs of dancing and stomping feet at the River Stage Amphitheater near the rear of the fairgrounds.

Several of the performing artists bantered and shared anecdotes with the audience in between songs, commenting on their experience at Salmonfest and in Alaska generally — particularly those for whom this year’s music festival was their first Alaska experience.

“We humbly apologize for how long it took us to get here,” said The Devil Makes Three guitarist Pete Bernhard. “We finally made it. We’ve never been to Alaska before, or Hawai’i — now we’ve just got Hawai’i left.”

In between Glitterfox and Blackwater Railroad Co., Yup’ik storyteller and poetry slam artist Quentin Simeon continued Salmonfest’s speaker series, giving a performance of his poem “Mother Hugger,” which he said he wrote 20 years before.

The poem centers on the fraught relationship that humanity has with “Mother Earth” — Simeon describes at the outset the anger that “our mother” has at witnessing the way people treat her, themselves and each other, among several other themes.

“We are an entity, a geophysical force, all singing ‘we are human,’ like a chorus. And I’m tired of watching us destroy ourselves, sitting pretty, filling our shells with garbage we don’t really need, trying to fill the void spurred on by greed as we pierce our mother, making her bleed,” Simeon said in his performance.

Political and environmental advocacy groups were stationed along the Salmon Causeway on Sunday, including Defend the West Su standing against the proposed West Su Industrial Access Road, Protect Mother Kuskokwim standing against the proposed Donlin Gold mine, and Salmon State working to stop wasteful trawl bycatch.

Also in the Causeway were workshops from individual presenters and organizations, like Yvonne Flynn who led a fish skin tanning presentation for several festivalgoers and staff.

More information can be found at salmonfestalaska.org.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com. Reach reporter Delcenia Cosman at delcenia.cosman@homernews.com