Herring season is just around the corner, and this year, KCAW’s herring coverage will look a little different. Reporter Katherine Rose is currently in Japan on a grant-funded reporting trip to investigate the journey of herring once it leaves Sitka.
Rose, who has reported extensively on herring in Sitka, says that the narrative usually ends when the herring leaves the island.
“Many of those stories end with a line, you know, ‘Once the herring is caught, it’s sold in Asian markets, generally Japan,” Rose said. “And that’s sort of where our narrative of the story ends, and where our understanding of herring as a resource and as an export ends. We know it goes to Asia, but we don’t really know what happens to it once it’s there.”
Rose says there’s some evidence that herring is declining in popularity in Japan.
“So the big question is, if it isn’t as popular and we are continuing to export it, where is it going and who’s buying it?” Rose said.
She’ll be traveling in Tokyo and throughout the Hokkaido region to learn more about the industry and culture surrounding herring in Japan. It’s a long-awaited trip – Rose was originally scheduled to travel in May of 2020, but there’s a silver lining in the four-year delay. She met Dr. Shingo Hamada, an anthropologist who studies herring in Japan, and he’s now accompanying her as a guide and translator.
“I’m really excited for that opportunity, and had COVID not happened, I might not have met him in time to make this happen,” she said.
The project is funded by the Alaska Center for Excellence in Journalism, a project of the Atwood Foundation.
