VIDEO: Alaskan Sockeye Run Seen From Above

This is just STUNNING footage.

I am always hesitant to share videos, but this is really amazing stuff.

When I studied this area after watching the video, I was really moved to post this to ask a question. First watch the video.

ABOVE ILIAMNA from Jason Ching on Vimeo.

If you ask me, sockeye is the most precious of the salmon species that we get to enjoy as fishermen. Don't get me wrong, chinooks hold a special place in my heart, after all they are the reason I live here in Washington.

But long before American land and wildlife management was born, we destroyed our salmon rivers here on the West Coast. Now they are nothing like the river in that film.

In Alaska, less waterfront housing and city and other development the last century have preserved what are now extremely rare salmon rivers with healthy populations.

In what could be an unfolding tragedy, at the location where they shot this film also sits billions of dollars in minerals and gold and a proposed open pit mine.

In the case of the proposed mineral mine, are those potential billions for one company worth priceless salmon rivers and runs?

Can you imagine the wild salmon runs that Lewis and Clark saw when they arrived on the banks of the untamed Snake and Columbia Rivers?