#TheYearofBelief | #TYBsalmon

Cutting Salmon: Learning Lessons for Research

🌿 From the Land: Salmon Season Comes to a Close

Salmon season has come to a close in Kotzebue.

In its final days, we found ourselves surrounded by tubs of bright red meat, fish skins like glossy ribbons, and the hum of different hands doing the work in different ways. And that’s what we want to share this week: there isn’t just one way to cut a salmon. There are many—each one shaped by purpose, tradition, skill, and the specific moment we’re in.

We cut bellies for barbecuing—those rich, fatty pieces saved for family feasts.
We cut strips for the smokehouse—thin and even, layered with dry rub, stirred and cured and dried until translucent.

We cut thick, careful filets to freeze and put away for next summer—when Cana’s oldest (Paisaq) has their wedding reception in Anchorage and the salmon will be served with pride at the reception–caught with love by Paisaq’s Uncle Lance and Cana’s husband Michael.

Some of us used ulus. Others used fillet knives. Many start with cutting off the head then making pilot cuts along the spine. We worked from muscle memory, from what our moms, aunties, relatives, and friends showed us, from what the fish seemed best for. There was no standard way—only practiced variation. And always, always, the goal was care and nourishment.

And even the clumsily cut salmon? Still feeds us. Still gets shared. Still makes people smile when they taste it—even if they also smile wryly when they see it (lol!). It’s not about perfection—it’s about purpose.

We have to start somewhere. And that beginning takes humility and a willingness to try. But it’s easier when someone is willing to show us how. It’s easier when we have an example to learn from—when someone says, “Here, let me show you how I do it,” and makes room for our hands to learn.

Then we practice. And practice. And one day, we find ourselves on the other side: the one doing the showing. The one helping someone else get started.

But even while we are still learning, we are showing that it is possible.

[[Video: Corina teaches her friend Jodie how to use an ulu to cut the bottom jaw and gills off of a fish head. It takes some muscle! We boil the heads to eat—they are delicious and a great source of collagen!]]

The season may be done, but the labor of it—the learning, the laughing, the figuring-it-out-together—that stays with us. There are as many ways to cut a salmon as there are people who love and depend on it. And every cut is a story about what matters most.

This week, as we reflected on the many ways we approached the same fish, we were reminded: this is what equitable Arctic research looks like too.

It isn’t about one right way. It’s about many hands, many tools, many reasons for doing the work. It’s about cutting carefully and collectively—thinking ahead about who we’re feeding, and how our choices shape the future. It’s about paying attention to what the moment calls for, and adapting with intention.

Just like with salmon, you don’t need to know every technique before you start. You just need to begin with respect. Pay attention. Try. Learn from others. And trust that your hands—and your heart—will learn what to do.

Because believing you can do equitable and effective Arctic research starts right here: with the willingness to prepare something that matters, and to do it in a way that nourishes everyone at the table.

🏛️ From the Institutions: Learning to Cut, Learning to Act

In their article Bridging Analysis and Action: How Feminist Scholarship Can Inform the Social Justice Turn (2018), Petersen and Walton offer a compelling invitation: that scholarship must not only examine injustice but also act to address it. They argue that too often, academic work stops at critique—naming the problems—without committing to the practice of transformation.

This connects directly to the act of cutting fish.

There’s a difference between analyzing a salmon and feeding people. Just like there’s a difference between analyzing a system and changing it.

If the knife never touches the fish, no one gets fed. And if research never touches the world—never tries to do anything—it fails to live up to the responsibility it carries.

But here’s the grace in Petersen and Walton’s approach: they recognize that taking action isn’t about perfection. It’s about willingness. It’s about trying. It’s about sharpening your ulu and cutting the next fish—better this time, but still good enough if not.

When we cut fish, we learn from our mistakes. When we do equitable research, the same must be true.

It’s okay to be clumsy at first. It’s okay to not have the cleanest lines. What matters is that we’re trying. That we’re willing to make a meal with what we have, and to invite others to the table. That we keep cutting, keep learning, and one day, teach someone else.

This is what research can be: not a distant critique, but a shared labor. A meal prepared with humility, attention, and care. A belief that even as we’re learning, we’re already nourishing something greater.

🧭 TYB Framework: Start Where You Are

Know Who You Are:
You’re someone who participates. Someone who says yes. Even if it’s your first time. Even if your contribution is small or a little uneven. You’re someone who shows up.

Do the Next Right Thing (Even Imperfectly):
Perfection is not required. Precision will come with practice. What matters most is stepping into the work—saying yes to learning, yes to effort, yes to responsibility.

Invest in a Community of Support:
You don’t have to figure it out alone. Watch how others move through the work. Ask questions. Accept guidance. Offer what you can. Be teachable, and teach in turn.

Reinforce Hope with Grit:
There will be setbacks. There will be days the work is awkward, inefficient, or slow. Keep going anyway. Your persistence matters. So does your care.

Remembering Forward: Cut the Fish

Where in your research are you holding back—waiting until you feel fully ready, perfectly trained, or 100% sure?

What ideas, questions, or approaches are you carrying that might nourish others, even if they’re still messy, half-formed, or rough around the edges?

And who around you—especially students, community members, or junior collaborators—might benefit not from your perfection, but from witnessing your process? What if your willingness to try imperfectly gave them permission to do the same?

This week, we invite you to take the next small-but-real action.
Start the thing. Ask the question. Share the draft. Reach out. Post your ideas and thoughts in the comments, on our EAR Facebook Group, or ARCUS’s Connect the Arctic portal!

Cut the fish.
Even if the strips are crooked. Even if your ulu slips (aatchikaaŋ!!). Even if you’re slow or awkward or need to stop and sharpen your blade (only use a SHARP ulu, please!). The meal still matters. The act still feeds. The trying still teaches.

Every clean cut began with a first clumsy one. Every practiced hand was once uncertain. And in Arctic research—like subsistence—it’s not about doing it alone. It’s about learning together, again and again.