Salmon Nation
🌐A network of public benefit companies whose purpose is to inspire, enable, and invest in regenerative development across the Salmon Nation bioregion.
Bioregional Context
The Salmon Nation bioregion spans a vast territory defined by the traditional range of wild Pacific salmon in North America, stretching from the Salinas River in California northward to the North Slopes of Alaska, unified by salmon watersheds.
- Network Affiliation
- BioFi Project
Background
For thousands of years, the salmon's annual return defined the rhythm of life for the Indigenous peoples of North America, who developed rich cultural traditions around this natural abundance. This place—where salmon and human communities have been intertwined for millennia—represents a unique bioregion now known as Salmon Nation. Today, 30 million people live within the historical range of wild Pacific salmon, citizens of this nation whether they realize it or not. They inherit the benefits of an ecosystem that, when healthy, sustains not just salmon but entire watersheds and the communities that depend on them.
The underlying principle is elegantly simple yet profound: healthy runs of wild Pacific salmon, as they journey from mountain streams to ocean and back again, connect entire watersheds and serve as a comprehensive indicator of bioregional health. When human systems—agriculture, forestry, utilities, transportation—align with natural systems, salmon flourish. And when salmon flourish, so do we.
Salmon represent what one might call a Nature State as distinct from nation-states—a place defined by natural systems that has always existed, transcending political boundaries. The salmon's return represents the greatest nutrient transfer between habitats on Earth, nourishing forests, entire food webs, and future generations. This principle has proven transformative: in the Okanagan region, a remarkable alliance including three First Nations has revitalized sockeye salmon populations from a mere 3,000 fish 25 years ago to 800,000 in 2024. These returning salmon now represent 70% of the sockeye in the once-mighty Columbia River basin, simultaneously restoring ecological function and cultural connections.
Origins and Network
The concept of Salmon Nation emerged from three decades of conservation work at Ecotrust, founded by Spencer Beebe in 1991. Through work with First Nations and rural communities across the bioregion, Ecotrust developed deep relationships and insights about bioregional systems thinking. A formative early project involved the Haisla First Nation's protection of the Kitlope River Watershed—nearly a million acres protected through the first co-management agreement in British Columbia, an experience that shaped understanding of the inseparability of ecological protection, cultural revival, and community well-being.
In 2019, this vision crystallized into Salmon Nation Trust, a public benefit LLC designed to invest in bioregional institutional infrastructure supporting regenerative development. Governed by public-benefit-oriented Trustees, the Trust channels values-aligned capital from philanthropic and mission-driven investors who do not expect financial return. The Trust serves as the foundational organization for the entire Salmon Nation ecosystem, incubating and spawning bioregional ventures while operating on the principle that healthy ecosystems and thriving communities are inseparable.
Throughout the bioregion, Salmon Nation works with what they call edge communities—smaller communities, Indigenous communities, and rural communities at the edges of modern society. In these places, they find the Ravens– smart, tough, tenacious individuals who have said, "That old industrial system doesn't work for me, and I'm going to do it differently." This philosophy recognizes that in moments of disequilibrium, it's often those at the margins who demonstrate the most innovative approaches to regenerative living.
Activities
Storytelling of Ravens
The Trust's first major initiative was Storytelling of Ravens, an in-person convening format that began in Sitka, Alaska in 2019. These gatherings brought together Ravens from across the bioregion to share personal stories of local resilience and regenerative solutions. The events emphasize emotional and relational depth, fostering transformation through shared vulnerability and celebration of what's working. From Oregon to Alaska, these annual gatherings weave together a network of changemakers who share knowledge, build relationships, and inspire collective action.
Magic Canoe
From the Storytelling of Ravens gatherings emerged Magic Canoe, a nonprofit media and storytelling organization dedicated to amplifying the people, projects, and possibilities helping Salmon Nation thrive. The Magic Canoe name comes from a story gifted by Cecil Paul, a Haisla First Nation Elder who used this story to save his home territory from logging. He described how a magic canoe grows bigger as more people join, soon holding all of us as we paddle in the same direction. As the narrative engine of the bioregion, Magic Canoe uplifts place-based innovation and regeneration through articles, videos, digital platforms, and convenings, connecting regenerative efforts across watersheds through shared visibility and values.
Edge Prize
An early experiment in funding the work of Ravens, the Edge Prize launched in 2023 as a distributed bioregional accelerator—a novel methodology for growing community through an online accelerator and prize challenge. Offering cash prizes from $500 to $20,000, the initiative convenes groups, offers learning opportunities and community building, provides funding, connects participants to additional resources, and builds a library of successful approaches. This initiative spawned [[Regenerate Cascadia]], demonstrating how small-scale catalytic funding can unlock significant community innovation when combined with learning, networking, and resource connections.
Salmon Returns
Salmon Returns is a cross-border bioregional fund grounded in the migratory pathways of wild Pacific salmon, representing what founder Cheryl Chen calls a biocultural finance collaborative for regenerating place, culture, and economy. Salmon Returns reimagines finance as an act of cultural and ecological healing, where capital returns—like the salmon—to nourish the very systems that sustain life. The fund operates through the BRIDGE Framework—a living blueprint that ensures every investment is rooted in place (Bioregional Grounding), improves biocultural function (Regenerative Design), draws from Indigenous worldviews (Indigenous Values), distributes value and governance (Distributed Ownership), circulates value rather than accumulating it (Gift Logic), and generates circular returns that sustain future projects (Enterprise Continuity). Salmon Returns supports the transition to regenerative economies by restoring biocultural landscapes, scaling community-led enterprises, and transforming finance systems. The fund has developed an emerging portfolio across the Upper Columbia River Basin and Okanagan region, the Coastal Temperate Rainforest, and the Klamath River Basin—partnering with Indigenous and local leaders to advance regenerative agriculture, watershed stewardship, and ecosystem renewal. Flagship efforts like the Okanagan Catalyst Network bring together farmers, Indigenous nations, food cooperatives, and wholesale distributors to regenerate the regional food system. The fund has mobilized over $15 million for early projects, with $15M already flowing into aligned land acquisition and distribution infrastructure. Currently raising $2M in Phase 1, with a longer-term target of $100M in catalytic capital to unlock over $1 billion in public/private investment by 2035. By 2030, the fund aims to be self-regenerating through investment returns.
Salmon Biocultural Credit Program
Salmon Returns is developing a Salmon Biocultural Credit program—a verified unit of ecological and cultural regeneration representing the restoration of salmon lifeways, habitats, and the relationships that sustain them. Unlike carbon credits that excuse harm through offsets, biocultural credits fund repair, channeling capital into living systems and turning finance from a tool of extraction into an act of reciprocity and responsibility. These credits are governed and validated by Indigenous Nations and local communities, blending traditional knowledge and science to measure real improvements in ecosystem health and cultural continuity.
Vision and Legacy
Salmon Nation is a movement built on the recognition that when salmon flourish, so do we. Through Storytelling of Ravens, Magic Canoe, Edge Prize, and Salmon Returns, Salmon Nation continues to weave together a network of changemakers, flow capital to regeneration, and demonstrate that finance can be an act of cultural and ecological healing. As the network learns to "paddle together" in the magic canoe, it offers a model for how bioregional organizations can incubate, spawn, and support regenerative transformation.