Once again the salmon are returning in lower than desired numbers to the Yukon River draining Alaska's vast Interior, but in the aftermath of last year's disaster it looks better to some.

"It's all relative," said Jack Schultheis, the general manager for Kwik'pak Fisheries in Emmonak.

Little over a year ago, Emmonak and other villages on the lower Yukon appeared on the verge of death. Then Gov. Sarah Palin was joining evangelist Franklin Graham, son of celebrity preacher Billy Graham to prevent starvation as Western Alaskans wrestled with a tough choice on whether to spend money for food or to buy fuel to heat their homes to prevent freezing to death.

The summer of 2008 had been a bad one along the river. Commercial king salmon fisheries -- the economic mainstay of villages on the low river -- had been reduced to almost nothing because of weak runs. It was hard to imagine 2009 could get worse, but it did. King salmon fisheries were closed, and the subsistence fisheries that provide food to get people through the winter were restricted as well. Scientists' inability to explain exactly why the salmon weren't returning or what the future might hold only added to anxieties.

"You couldn't get any worse from last year or we'd have nothing," Schultheis said. So merely being allowed to fish was a plus. "Generally, it was a good to fish," he said. "Just the attitude. It got everyone thinking there was hope, and it got some money into the community."

He estimated the 800 or so holders of commercial permits for the Yukon averaged $3,200 in income on king salmon and early chums, which Kwik'pak markets fresh around the country as "Keta salmon." The fishermen could make more on fall chums if it is decided that enough of those fish are coming back to allow a commercial fishery.

About 93,000 have entered the river so far. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game figures it needs about twice that to swim past its electronic counter before it can allow a commercial fishery. "I've got guarded hope," Schultheis said.

Even without the additional fish, though, fishermen are vastly better off than they were last year when the average earnings per permit was $700. Ten years ago, however, they were averaging $17,000.

Their fortunes have fallen with the salmon, and no really knows what has happened to the fish. Bycatch of young salmon in commercial trawls for pollock in the Bering Sea, climate change, disease and shifts in food sources have all been blamed from time to time. Or it could be the runs are just naturally cyclic. Native oral histories are rich with tales of people starving because of periodic crashes in Yukon salmon returns, and large oscillations have been documented even in recent times.