No Lamprey
1-10-08
Tim Bodony (KIYU)

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The commercial harvest of lamprey eel on the Yukon River turned out to be mostly a bust last month.   

The boneless parasites return to Alaska rivers each winter in droves, and fishermen in western and Interior Alaska catch the lamprey by cutting holes in the river ice and scooping them out with dipnets.   

But this winter, the lamprey were elusive. 

Kwikpuk Fisheries set up shop in the village of Grayling and Fish and Game permitted them to buy up to 40 thousand pounds of lamprey from local fishermen.   

The western Alaska fish buyer had stirred up interest for the prehistoric lamprey among gourmet chefs, pharmaceutical companies, science labs, and a variety of other markets.    

But Kwikpak General Manager Jack Schultheis reports that the fishermen couldn’t get to the lamprey this year.   

Schultheis: I guess part of the problem was that the river was not froze all the way across. They could only dip at certain points. It was just frozen out from the shore a bit. They feel that the eels probably ran in the center of the river, where it wasn't frozen yet, which caused them to miss the main hit of lamprey 

Fishing holes in the shore ice at Grayling, awaiting the lamprey. Photo courtesy of Jon Rowley

Schultheis estimates that only about 50 pounds of lamprey got harvested.   

A portion of that made it down to Chef Joseba Jimenez de Jimenez at The Harvest Vine restaurant in Seattle.  Jimenez comes from the Basque region of northern Spain, where lamprey are part of the regional cuisine.  He’s never been able to get river lamprey in the United States, until a bucket full of this year’s small Yukon River harvest was specially delivered to him. 

Like the Yukon River salmon they commonly feed on, lamprey have a very high oil content.  Jimenez says that makes them tricky to cook properly without losing their flavor.  One of the lamprey dishes he offered to his more adventurous customers was a lamprey pie, for which he roasted the lamprey to separate the oil from the meat.   

Jimenez: I reserve the fat and keep it for a sauce, because the fat gives me so much flavor that you are not going to throw it out. And then when I finish the pie, it is tender, beautiful, juicy, not dry, and full of the typical flavor of the eel. 

Schultheis says that other chefs like Jimenez and a variety of other customers from around the world were anxiously awaiting Yukon River lamprey, and letting them down was tough.   

Schultheis: We did have a lot of markets lined up that we could have got product into to show them what it is, and to establish ourselves as being reliable. Especially in the fisheries business, as a supplier, you need to be reliable.  Once you are determined unreliable by a market, you got problems forever over that.   

Kwikpak Fisheries is a subsidiary of Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association, the community development quota group for several lower Yukon villages including Grayling.  CDQ groups are charged with bringing fishery-related jobs and revenue to their member villages, mostly through guaranteed shares of the enormous Bering Sea pollock harvest, but also with smaller efforts closer to home.

Schultheis vows that his company will try to harvest lamprey again next winter, and says that the ultimate goal is to create a new economic opportunity for Yukon River villages. 

Schultheis: There isn't anything other than fish that the middle Yukon has as far as an economy. Once we get it established, this would be an annual thing, to where the villages in the lower to middle Yukon would have some financial fishery in the wintertime. 

Lamprey were common along both coasts of North America until hydroelectric dams, habitat destruction, and the loss of prey species wiped out many lamprey populations.   

Schultheis estimates that it’s been nearly a hundred years since a domestic supply of lamprey has been available in the U.S. in any sizeable quantities. 

Lamprey are commonly used as dog food in lower Yukon villages, owing to the high dosage of calories that dogs can receive from eating lamprey oil.  That makes Chef Jimenez jealous.

Jimenez: I want to be a dog in Alaska. I'm telling you, because if they eat that thing, I want it. 

Chef Joseba Jimenez de Jimenez in the kitchen of The Harvest Vine in Seattle, examining some fresh Yukon River lamprey
Photo courtesy of Jon Rowley