Since 1991, most of the salmon runs in the Northwest have been listed as threatened or endangered. Yet without the salmon there would be no Pacific Northwest as we know it. In Salmonlands producer Barbara Bernstein takes us on a journey into the land of salmon, why they are so significant to the culture and community of the Pacific Northwest, and what it will take to keep them from disappearing. Salmonlands looks at the many ways that salmon serve as a metaphor the Northwest region's historic abundance - that in turn supported a rich cultural tradition - as well as the actual source of that abundance. Native people appreciated that salmon carry nutrients from the ocean back to the headwaters of their birth and in turn the animals that feed on the salmon carcasses, often carrying them some distance from the streams, help spread these nutrients throughout the forest. What will become of a region, so dependent upon this animal for its culture, economy and ecological existence, if the salmon is allowed to become extinct? This is a reversioned "producer's cut" of the original half-hour program that aired on "Making Contact" in the spring of 2005. Salmonlands is also available on PRX as an hour-long program.

Since 1991, most of the salmon runs in the Northwest have been listed as threatened or endangered. Yet without the salmon there would be no Pacific Northwest as we know it. In Salmonlands producer Barbara Bernstein takes us on a journey into the land of salmon, why they are so significant to the culture and community of the Pacific Northwest, and what it will take to keep them from disappearing. Salmonlands looks at the many ways that salmon serve as a metaphor the Northwest region's historic abundance - that in turn supported a rich cultural tradition - as well as the actual source of that abundance. Native people appreciated that salmon carry nutrients from the ocean back to the headwaters of their birth and in turn the animals that feed on the salmon carcasses, often carrying them some distance from the streams, help spread these nutrients throughout the forest. What will become of a region, so dependent upon this animal for its culture, economy and ecological existence, if the salmon is allowed to become extinct? This is a reversioned "producer's cut" of the original half-hour program that aired on "Making Contact" in the spring of 2005. Salmonlands is also available on PRX as an hour-long program.