Bill Cumberlidge, Aleutia project manager, said the organization's goal is to recruit 45 members for the summer, and purchase and sell a record 200,000 pounds of sockeye.

Last year, 40 harvesters - about 20 percent of the active salmon fleet in that region - delivered to Aleutia. This year the organization hopes to raise that total to 45 members, Barnett said.

"Because Aleutia sockeye is harvested at sea, it is naturally a premium product," Cumberlidge said. "But our harvesters go even further than that. They treat every single fish with extreme care. Every fish is live bled and iced immediately to ensure that it lives up to its reputation as the best sockeye salmon available anywhere."

Aleutia is one of several regional groups, including Copper River Seafoods and Kenai Wild, that is actively promoting wild Alaska salmon from specific areas of the state. Each sets high standards for care of the harvest, which results in a quality product and higher prices to fishermen.

Cumberlidge said Aleutia harvesters also help tell the story of this unique fishery and the generations of families who have centered their lives around it, in one of the most remote places on Earth.

"The Aleutia salmon fishery plays a gigantic part in all of our families' lives," said Bob Barnett, Aleutia president. "This sockeye is something we treasure. More and more consumers around the United states are beginning to treasure it too."

Aleutia is a nonprofit organization formed in 2001 to promote economic opportunity in the Southwest communities of King Cove, Nelson Lagoon, False Pass, Sand Point, Akutan and Cold Bay. It has been marketing sockeye salmon from the eastern Aleutian Islands and western Alaska Peninsula under the Aleutia name for four years.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaska