With a bleak salmon return this year in Northwest Alaska, a lifelong fisherman reflects on a season marked by empty nets and big questions.

As nearly every commercial salmon fisherman in Upper Cook Inlet can tell you, the 2019 season fell far short in every department.

Biologists blame the Blob of warm water in the Gulf of Alaska for poor sockeye returns that also led to the second lowest commercial harvest in 50 years.

A decades-long decline in salmon in the Yukon River has reached a crisis this year, forcing harvest closures and prompting emergency shipments of salmon from other regions of Alaska to river residents who are otherwise facing food shortages.

With some of this year's salmon runs projected to be the lowest on record, West Coast salmon fishermen are demanding disaster relief from the federal and provincial governments.