Help! We need volunteers for the World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue to survive. This is now and for real.
Funny story. The tale of how our Salmon Restoration Association got into the position to ask this question now began with that same question 10 years ago. The need for willing bodies to run some of the most important institutions in town is an old story in Fort Bragg. But this is our last resort. Again.
The first time I went to cover the World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue (as a reporter only) in 2005, I mischievously set out to secretly debunk the braggadocio in that name. World’s Largest? Who says? Could I find a salmon barbecue elsewhere in the world that would trump this one? I wanted to and have a fun story. There were some big ones in Alaska, Canada and even around the Great Lakes. I contacted a few of them. None had the history nor the size of that Fort Bragg event that started back in 1971. This is a unique event and yes, it is truly the World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue.
When I went simply to write a story about the planning meeting for the 2005 barbecue, the meeting was more like the world’s largest shipwreck. Board President Brad Clark and the rest of the board were at wit’s end and exhausted. They said they would need new board members or the barbecue would likely be cancelled. Help! We need volunteers for the World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue to survive, they said. Now it’s the second stanza, same as the first.
At that moment back in 2005, I thought this was an instance of that board not planning ahead. I turned out to be wrong on that score. After turning in that article, I offered to join the board and we collectively saved the annual event by putting our shoulders into it.
About a dozen others also joined. Most didn’t stick around. Clark did for several years to make the transition work. Joe Janisch emerged from the pack immediately to become president and cover most of the organizational bases, along with his wife, Sandi. Brad stayed around for several years to make everything work. A retired leader of Arizona Fish and Game (yes there are fish in Arizona!) Joe had built a house in Fort Bragg so he could fish as much as possible. Joe loves fish and was willing to put in the many hours required to run the non-profit. Joe was instrumental in bringing in artists and money from the art community, which was a brand new direction for the organization. Art shows have raised money each year. He is a photographer and art lover.
Joe, and our vice-president Jim Martin, helped guide our always-evolving mission from running a hatchery to funding restoration and educational projects that benefit the salmon and steelhead resource. Martin has been around longer than any of us and serves on multiple fish and wildlife oriented boards. Myself and board members Ric Martin, Keith Middlebrook, Archie Tanner, James Joyce Larry Silveria, Professor Jeanine Pfeiffer and Cynthia Crocker-Scott have also worked hard at this free job. Scott and Middlebrook are also part of the artist group.
Although it pays zero, it’s fun being on this Board. As newspaper writers, we are critical of the problems but don’t actually solve them. Being one of those responsible has given me a new perspective much more interesting than the quick in and outs available to a newspaper reporter alone. Sometimes my dual role has brought curiosity and even animosity from SRA grant recipients or even newspaper readers. For me, I had no skin in the game either way and only a desire to learn and tell. So how could I have a conflict?
The learning curve was great fun. I saw otherwise off limits places in our great forests. I saw where salmon traveled more than 100 miles to spawn — just a short distance from the ocean where they started. I cut tiny adipose fins off fish at our now closed hatchery, so that the fish from there could be identified when adults. I walked a ruined spawning creek and saw the devastation created by legacy loggers who built a railroad in a creek bed and later drove a bulldozer up the creek.
When I printed my reaction to stream clearing late Councilman Jere Melo called me to give me a new perspective in the form of old Fish and Game memos that required logging companies to clean out streams of all obstructions. (Although this was after the bulldozing).
Environmental policy was as wrong and as destructive to the environment as could be imagined. And he was right; it was unfair to blame loggers alone.
Melo was a key figure in our barbecue, a former many and lifelong logging company man who loved the forest. He arrived before 6 a.m every year at the barbecue and stayed past the end. The kind of spirit that makes someone like me say, geez, I bet I can give that much too. Coming from different political viewpoints Jere and I had some interesting discussions, in which I was often surprised to find out how much I didn’t know. This rarely happens to me in life, especially with those with opposite viewpoints. But when meeting the fishermen, biologists and other doers of the salmon world, it has happened to me a lot.
As a skeptic, I didn’t believe salmon were the beneficiary when I first heard logging companies were getting paid for leaving trees in the rivers and creeks. On paper, it sounded like a waste of money. But walking that creek, which had an old railroad track in the bottom from those destructive bad old days, I could see it actually working. The trees created pools, minnows were hanging out in the pools. There is so much more to learn that I haven’t had the time for. Someone with some extra time on their hands could have a fabulous learning experience. We grant money each year to Mendocino High School for their School of Natural Resources (SONAR) program. High school sophomores and juniors are taught the scientific protocols for the study of adult and juvenile fish, redds (nests), crabs, shrimp and other species. Surveys are done in the Big River estuary, at a location near Camp 2 in the Woodlands and in the intertidal pools off the Mendocino Headlands. A few high school seniors serve as assistants. Many SONAR students have gone on to university studies and careers in biology and environmental science. You can be part of this.
The two teachers have offered to take us out when the kids study the ocean, river and salmon. Didn’t have the time. One time I missed a potentially significant discovery they made. After a few years I finally got into the correct spirit. Braggadocio is the correct spirit for the salmon barbecue. Fishermen have to have a dauntless spirit when they challenge the ocean. They would never be happy with the second largest. That’s funny because the BBQ is Fort Bragg’s second oldest (Paul Bunyan Days first) and from the number two industry (logging does edge out fishing over time).
The history is also lots of fun. There are many old stories, from the first salmon rearing pond on the then-working millsite to the story of how the fish that Fort Bragg once, sent to Wisconsin to start what became a successful Great Lakes fishery there, came back to restart the fishery on Ten Mile River.
My favorite photo I shot at the World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue depicts a smiling Melo and Rand Scott obviously having fun cooking fish for our annual event. Fishing, logging and Fort Bragg have fallen, risen and stumbled again but these guys never stopped having fun.
There have been many other great moments with the likes of Vern Piver, Charlie White, Bill Townsend, Rick Sacks, Jerry Wall, Spencer Stiff, Tony Anderson and Randy Marler. A funny one, was interviewing Congressman Mike Thompson in heavy smoke from the grill. Thompson faithfully grilled from start until finish every year. My eyes watered but he didn’t seem to notice the smoke, so I kept writing. Later, I couldn’t read my notes.
Spending the SRA’s money requires some thinking and its rewarding finding the good stuff. When Brad left the board, Jim and I had fun throwing away some completely worn out and crumbling tables that Brad always said we could get “one more year” out of.
We can have more laughs and do a lot better in the future. Our organization is notoriously cheap, not hiring staff and using all volunteers. Grants are sometimes wasteful, sometimes corrupt. Many actually do a lot of good. We need eyes attached to good brains.
The world the programs we funded opened up to me was unexpected and amazing. With enough questions, oversight and time, we found some excellent projects. But there are duds out there too. It’s a fun challenge. Also, after a certain number of times falling for the government predictions for millions of salmon returning, I learned my lesson about that too. Linda Greenlaw said “all fishermen lie” which may be true. But biologists do too. Salmon remain as mysterious as they are magnificent. Official predictions show how little we know, not how much.
I’m inviting you out there in the community, to come join me in a very fun job of helping the salmon on their incredible journey. Come with your ideas for funding and a new direction, we are all ready to benefit the great migratory fish, salmon and steelhead. Maybe not just inviting…. More like begging.
Fort Bragg’s second biggest, second oldest and tastiest annual event is in jeopardy.
We need new volunteers to work year round to run the World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue or the cause of salmon restoration will suffer. And soon. A lot of history and money is at stake here.
As a board member of the Salmon Restoration Association, I had hoped never to cry “help!” as the last board did. I became a board member 10 years ago when I went to cover the meeting of Salmon Restoration Association for this newspaper.
Tanner has retired, VP Jim Martin is moving to Alaska and everybody is getting older and tired. The barbecue has been run by lots of great people over the years. There was the late Mike Maahs who died while crab fishing- the most dangerous of occupations. Alice Iver, Brad Clark and many more. It’s truly hard to imagine going forward without new people. The good news- thanks to all the volunteers who do most of the actual work this is truly a “turn-key” operation.
There is year round planning and monitoring of our projects that is fairly low key for everybody but the president. Then there are those three days out of the year for set up, barbecue and tear down, especially when you are new. Its hard physical labor setting the event up, filling in the many gaps and especially cleaning it up. It’s been my job and that of my small nonprofit, MendoPower Employment Services to find workers to help with the daunting cleanup on Sunday.
The 1971 fundraiser barbecue, not yet armed with the ostentatious “World’s Largest” was launched by fishermen to raise funds after the Department of Fish and Game told the group there was no money in their budget for salmon restoration. Putting on the event is truly a lot of fun and the best days are still ahead.
The 50th World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue celebration is coming up in 2021 We’d love to have new people by then. We need a person who can someday soon take over for Joe. And others to add to the board. There is a lot of fun stuff to tackle. We’d like to get more local fishermen selling local fish onboard. There are river fix programs on the Noyo and Big River, a film festival and whatever salmon restoration related stuff you bring.
We have always done the job without spending any significant amount of money. It all goes back to the cause of salmon. This event not only brings together the finest civic clubs in our town- Rotary- Knights of Columbus, Soropimist and more, it brings in thousands of visitors each year that stay in our hotels and spend money in our businesses, like people do when they are having fun. I have met and interviewed dozens of them over the year. (Actually hundreds if you count the brief surveys I did for the board to find out where people were coming from). They love the simplicity of the experience, they love the salmon, the live music and yes, the big happy crowd itself.
Our surveys found that the bulk of the 3,000 plus people who attend the World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue each year make a special trip to do so, most often from the North Bay and Sacramento Valley areas. Some pass up the ticket booth just for the beer, wine and music from the likes of the Earl Oliver, Rockfish and Steven Bates and Friends.
Most come from inland areas beyond the county borders. But the faces of these inland eaters have started to become familiar to all of us. Many of these visitors are back for their 10th or 20th or even 30th time. The event was started in 1971 by commercial fishermen, hoping to find ways to restore salmon populations and has been a fixture in Fort Bragg ever since. While we are pleading for board of directors volunteers, we have hundreds of willing bodies at the time of the barbecue. We appreciate all of them.
We don’t want just anybody for this board. We want people who truly love salmon. That puts fishermen, commercial and recreational, at the top of the list. And people who love the Fort Bragg community, who support our local businesses and probably already volunteer at one of the many other venues that benefit the community.
We have tried every other method for getting new board members over the past two years. None of us wanted to put out this call. The World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue is on the first Saturday in July, this year it’s July 4. If you want to volunteer, please call Joe at 707-962-0548 or email him at janischbythesea@comcast.net. We’ll stay and help but truly can’t keep doing it without extra help coming this year. We meet at 5:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of every month at the Company Store. Join us and then join us!
