22/07/2025
https://aksportingjournal.com/going-salmon-crazy-in-kodiak-a-family-loves-its-new-alaska-life/
From Salmoncrazy Adventures' Jeff Sanford:
“I’ve fished all over the state, from Kenai Peninsula and saltwater of Cook Inlet and all down the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands, to Bristol Bay, and Southeast,” Sanford says.
“I’ve been to all these places, but one universal thing about Alaska is people from the Lower 48 – your run-of-the-mill visitors – they want to go to Alaska. They don’t realize they need to go to remote places like Kodiak or Dutch. There are, of course, countless wild places in Alaska, but not many people are equipped to go that far into the unknown. They see the pictures and there’s this idea in their heads about them wanting to catch all the giant fish and see all the scenery. Not a lot of them understand that to get to the real Alaska and the experiences they have in their mind, is to go to wild places.”
And Kodiak, perhaps not as chic as Bristol Bay, charming as Homer and the Kenai or as scenic as the Panhandle, is the real Alaska that Salmoncrazy Adventures hopes to show off.
“It really is the true Alaska that people want. They have it in the back of their minds. When they go to Homer, they don’t get that experience there. Homer’s cool; Homer’s neat, but it’s very touristy; very much civilized; it’s very much been conquered. It’s not that wild experience and that rugged outdoor wilderness that they have in the back of their minds. A lot of people just want to go to Alaska and catch a bunch of fish, and you can find that in Homer, or Seward, and it scratches that itch for a lot of people.”
“For me, I’ve always wanted to be teaching people,” Sanford says, “showing people something that they want to learn. And I have the knowledge and ability to convey that. That’s probably the most important impact of a teacher. People can be knowledgeable but have to know how to teach the su...
