Increases in chum and pink salmon abundance in recent years may in part offset the loss of Chinook for salmon-dependent people.

Although among the smaller regions, nearly 5,000 km of Norton Sound streams and rivers are known to contain at least one species of salmon. However, only a few locations are known to produce sockeye salmon, given the lack of large lakes this species needs for rearing juveniles. Conditions favoring increases in chum salmon have been observed in recent years.

The region has a long western history of mining (70 mines are still apparent on the landscape) which contributes to the third highest human footprint across the state. Habitat connectivity is potentially a problem, with 90% of the known 104 culverts potentially impacting fish passage.

All communities in the Norton Sound region harvest salmon for subsistence purposes; several areas support commercial fishing activity.

Indigenous salmon people in this region are represented by three distinct groups. Archaeological evidence suggests that ancestors of these groups, believed to have arrived by overland migration from the Chukotka region of Russia, first settled 10,000 years ago. Trade has long been and continues to be a hallmark of life in the Norton Sound region.

Today, communities on the coast of Norton Sound vary considerably in their dependence on salmon. Unalakleet and Shaktoolik subdistricts take the largest catches of commercially caught salmon in the region. Regionwide, a majority of subsistence salmon are pink, chum, and coho although there are sizeable sockeye salmon runs in the Port Clarence and Unalakleet areas.

A portion of Norton Sound was the site of Alaska’s only Tier II subsistence fishery, in which participation is limited to those who score highest on a permit application.

Recent comprehensive household surveys show that salmon make up about 17% of the total subsistence harvests of wild foods. Because of fishery managers’ concerns about chum salmon escapements in rivers around the regional center of Nome from 1999 through 2005, chum salmon fishing in Subdistrict 1 was managed as a Tier II fishery, the only such fishery in Alaska.

Individual applicants are scored based on their historical uses of the particular fish stock and their ability to obtain alternative foods. When chum returns improved beginning in 2006, this fishery was managed as Tier I, in which any Alaska resident may obtain a permit but other uses (commercial, sport) are prohibited.

Salmon fisheries of Norton Sound have historically generated more than $45 million in revenue since 1975 (2017 inflation-adjusted dollars).

Historically, the largest revenue share went to local rural residents of the region, followed by local urban residents (residing in Nome) and nonlocal urban residents. This pattern of revenue shares is similar to the patterns observed in the Kuskokwim and Yukon regions, indicating that commercial salmon fisheries in these regions provide important cash income for local rural subsistence cash-economies. The cash earned in commercial fishing supports cultural activities including subsistence fishing and hunting.