A Northwest tribe pooled money to fertilize the nearby ocean with iron sulfate. They hoped to boost plankton, giving wild salmon more to eat.

They succeeded in spades. The salmon catch quadrupled.

This year, the number of salmon caught in the northeast Pacific more than quadrupled, going from 50 million to 226 million. In the Fraser River, which only once before in history had a salmon run greater than 25 million fish (about 45 million in 2010), the number of salmon increased to 72 million.

I deeply respect the tribe’s initiative and self-help in the service of the common good and of their customs. This is how people should live.

One of my most cherished memories is an Eagle Scout project where we spent a weekend in the mountains improving a stream to make it better habitat, including for fish for fishermen. The sun was bright and there was a breeze stirring the pines. There was something stirring in the soul too that we all felt; working to promote God’s creations, including in our own interests, was right.

I love to see the works of man commingling in harmony with the works of God, caribou warming themselves by an oil pipe, a hawk perched on a powerline, stalk-rustling pheasants in my corn patch to glean it in the fall.

God created earth and sky, water and land, algae and plants, fish and fowl, beasts and people, and saw them all together and judged them Good.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.