Naknek

Accessible via road through King Salmon, Naknek is a small community of 554 residents on the north bank of the Naknek River, adjacent to the northeast end of Bristol Bay and the world’s richest sockeye salmon fishery. Fishing is Naknek’s lifeblood and its strategic location is why the village supports six salmon processors that draw several thousand seasonal workers each summer.

Naknek comes alive during the red salmon run from mid-June to the end of July. Almost 70 percent of the world’s sockeye salmon is caught in Bristol Bay and Naknek is in the heart of it with 20 million fish passing through. Thousands of people flood the area during the fishing season, sending millions of pounds of salmon down the 15.5-mile road to King Salmon where jets whisk away the fresh fish to restaurants and markets in the rest of the country.

The abundance of salmon attracted Yup'ik Eskimos and Athabascan Indians to the region more than 6,000 years ago and Russians traders by 1821. The first salmon cannery opened on the Naknek River in 1890 and by 1900, there were 12 canneries in Bristol Bay. At the time land acquired by the Russian Orthodox Church through the Homestead Act on the north bank of the Naknek River was the first plots recorded in Naknek. Squatters setting up shelters on the church property were eventually sold lots in what evolved into present-day Naknek. 

The Russian Orthodox St. John the Baptist Chapel in Naknek, reportedly constructed in 1886, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Naknek is also home to the Bristol Bay Historical Museum, featuring archaeology, history and Native culture, and documents Naknek's history as one of the largest commercial salmon fishing and canning headquarters in the world. The museum building is the original Fisherman's Hall, an early meeting place for fishermen.