Kodiak Island, Alaska: salmon and bears adore this island. So do the rugged people who call it home

Despite their end-of-the-world isolation, the setnetters remain linked to the outside world, affected as they are by the realities of global trade. While setnetters tout both the health benefits and the quality of Alitak Bay's wild-caught salmon, they face ongoing competition from salmon farms. To give the catch greater brand identity, fish caught by island fishermen are now being labeled "Star of Kodiak, Wild Alaska Salmon."

Any edge is helpful in an increasingly difficult marketplace. In recent years, prices have crashed: In 1988 red salmon went for $2.89 a pound; this year the fishermen are looking at 45 cents a pound. While on a great day a setnetter can catch 5,000 pounds of fish, such days don't happen often. Regulations dictate that the fishermen can only set their nets for limited periods once enough salmon have reached the spawning rivers by staggered target dates. Openings can be as long as seven days and as short as 33 hours. In 2002, the fishery remained closed for the entire season, which typically runs from early June to around Labor Day.

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There is competition among the setnetters, with rivalries both low-key and longstanding. But at least once each summer, everyone comes together for a potluck, notable for its amazing assortment of fresh seafood and a community spirit akin to a barn raising in the Amish country.

With the potluck winding down, I make a disturbing revelation: In the six days that I have been on the island, I have yet to see a single bear.

That doesn't sit comfortably with the setnetters. You don't go to Kodiak Island without eating fresh-caught salmon, and you don't go to Kodiak without seeing a Kodiak bear. So for my last night at Alitak Bay, my hosts plan an outing to a surefire spot to see bears, the weir on Dog Salmon River.

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The shallows at the creek mouth are busy with salmon. The fish entering the creek are in the homestretch. These are the elite. They have survived as tiny fry, matured, and moved downriver and eventually out into the ocean. They spent one to three years at sea before picking up chemical cues from their native stream, where they have at last returned after running a gauntlet of purse seiners and the setnetters themselves.

We look down on the salmon as they mass against a final barrier--the fish weir, designed with a small gate that the salmon have to pass through, giving wildlife specialists a chance to count the number of returning fish. (The set-net fishery faces frequent closures to ensure that enough salmon come back to spawn.)

As one of the specialists clicks on a hand counter, the salmon swim through the gate, one by one. I almost want to congratulate them. What tiny percentage of the fry that hatched in this stream have made it this far?

Suddenly the salmon on the upstream side of the weir turn around and frantically swim back downstream, only to find themselves up against the weir. A male Kodiak bear has waded into the water. He's hungry. As powerful as the salmon's instinct to head upstream and spawn may be, it is trumped by the instinct to beat the retreat from a massive predator.