ARMSTRONG-KETA, INC.

Armstrong-Keta, Inc., (AKI) was founded in 1980 as a private non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporation that operates the Port Armstrong Hatchery, located on Chatham Strait near the southern end of Baranof Island.

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The organization's primary function is to significantly contribute salmon in an environmentally compatible way to the common property fisheries of Southeast Alaska, including commercial, sport and subsistence users. Commercial fishing is the backbone of the economy of small, often remote, rural Southeast Alaskan towns. 

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The salmon produced by AKI also provide income to processors, tenders, hatchery employees and many of the local businesses supporting this industry.

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As part of its core mission, AKI is actively involved in research and experiments to refine fish culture procedures and explore new technologies that will further hatchery salmon enhancement techniques.

PORT ARMSTRONG HATCHERY

The Port Armstrong Hatchery is located on the remote southern end of Baranof Island in Southeast Alaska. This beautiful, unspoiled wilderness can only be accessed via boat or seaplane. However, this rugged outpost of paradise has a rich history of fishing, whaling, and canning.

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Port Armstrong was the site of a whaling station for four years in the early 20th century, with whaling boats scouring the seas for whales up to 300 miles in every direction. Later a herring reduction plant operated there for several decades until 1953. AKI built the its salmon hatchery on the same site in the early 1980's and took its first salmon eggs in 1983, using local salmon runs for its original broodstock to supplement the healthy and sustainable wild Alaskan salmon runs.  

The topography of Baranof Island is generally very steep and rocky, with high glacier-clad mountains and deep fjords and bays. The rainforest climate and marine conditions are ideal for salmon runs, but the steep streams offer minimal locations where salmon can spawn naturally. The hatchery provides the missing link --- supplying incubators and human-assisted spawning --- to allow salmon to take advantage of these ideal environmental conditions and thrive in this location.

Two lakes nearly 300' in elevation above the hatchery supply the water for incubation and short-term rearing of chum, pink, king and coho salmon. The hatchery water pipelines also feed four small hydropower generators that make the operation self-sufficient for electricity and heat.