Kake’s Organized village of Kake set the groundwork for the first modern clam farm in Alaska in the early part of August. The village hopes that the garden will help preserve a vital food source and keep old wisdom alive.
An eight-member group from the Kake community members woke up at dawn to make sure they could beat the rising tide. They were required to lay a row of stones that is 60 feet long along the shoreline of the village. They’ll add throughout the summer, until it’s two feet tall. The wall, they hope will eventually hold thousands of cockles and clams.
Aiden Clark is a junior at Kake High School, and is a part of the Alaska Youth Steward Program. He was eager to spend a day out of his summer vacation dragging large rocks around for his clams garden.
“It’s quite a bit of rock to remove, however, it’ll benefit the local community,” said Clark. “The number of clams is beginning to decrease a bit …”
Clark is correct The clam population is beginning to decrease significantly. The EPA predicts it that Shellfish consumption across the U.S. could fall to nearly half at when the year is over. The administration believes that climate change caused by humans is the reason warming water temperatures are attracting predators into bivalve habitats, and ocean acidification is degrading the delicate shells of these fish.
Simon Friday is the natural resource coordination for Organized Village Kake The tribal government of the village. Friday explained that the garden would help to make local shellfish more resistant to changes in the climate in three ways. The first is by helping them survive the storms that are known to destroy the coastline.
“So that’s why shellfish gardens offer protection for the beach from eroding due to hurricanes” explained Friday. “That’s something which is likely to happen [more often] as climate changes increase.”
The other reason is that Clam gardens boost the amount of shell fragments that are found in the area, increasing the amount of minerals clams require to build their shells.
“We’re hoping this will aid in the process of preventing acidification of the ocean, caused by the calcium content of shells” added Friday.
Third reason: the rock fortress might aid in trapping food for clams.
“The gardens alter the way the beach drains and allows for phytoplankton to be more easily accessible,” said Friday. “So they can have more food available and will allow them to develop faster, stronger and larger — and all the wonderful stuff.”
But Friday added that Kake’s clam gardens aren’t only to help the local marine life. When the COVID-19 virus was circulating there was no food deliveries arriving on time and shelves at Kake’s sole supermarket were empty. As things are settling and calmed down Kake prepares for the next outbreak.
“We also realized that due to the changing climate, we’d need some type of localized, protective measures to ensure that we can continue to enjoy the food we love,” said Friday. “One of them is: the clams.”
They’re also hoping that it can assist in fixing the limiting and costly food options currently available. Eloise Peabbles oversees Kake’s Alaska Youth Steward Program in Kake She’s also aiding youth volunteers in helping remove boulders in the garden. The local food security issue is a top priority for her.
“[And that’s] mainly because we already have a limited supply of our food choices due to having a tiny grocery store and having these prices become extremely costly,” said Peabbles. “In order to maintain the best diet possible it is essential to depend on the soil and water all around us.”
For hundreds of years, various Indigenous communities along in the Pacific Coast gardened shellfish. In time, their practices did not just increase the production of shellfish however, they also increased their habitats and increased the diversity of species, according to the findings of a study of shellfish gardens at Simon Fraser University.
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community of Washington State built the very the first modern clam garden that was built in the United States last year. Friday visited it a couple of times to get some tips from gardeners and to help with work. He’s delighted to see the community involved in the creation of a shellfish garden that is their own.
“You’re simply shifting rocks that weigh a lot,” said Friday. “You require at least as many hands as is possible. When you’re constructing these gardens, it’s really a community-based event. It’s just lots of workand many people to move rocks.”
Once the foundation has been laid there is only one thing to do is to stack it up to a height of two feet. Friday stated that the primary goal of the exercise is to educate. Therefore, the bivalves that establish themselves in the garden are merely an added bonus.
