Idaho Matters

(Otto Kitsinger / AP Images)

What happens when you go to vote and you don’t have a driver’s license? Can you still vote? What kind of identification do you need, and how do you get one?

Voters will decide the future of our country for the next four years as well as many key state and local races in the upcoming November election. Because it’s a presidential election year, there’s been a lot of focus on not just who gets elected but also on how our election system works at both a national and local level.

Idaho's Secretary of State Phil McGrane joined Idaho Matters to take a closer look at these issues and answer the questions that have come up this election season.

(Frankie Barnhill / Boise State Public Radio)

One of the things that seems to be missing from the upcoming November election is civility on all sides, and we wanted to find out more about the tenor of the campaigns.

Dr. Sam Martin is a professor and political scientist at Boise State University. She sat down with our Morning Edition host George Prentice to talk about the reliability of polls and whether there truly are uncommitted voters.

(Hanna Merzbach / Wyoming Public Media )

Excitement was in the air as people spent one of the last Saturdays of summer lined up in a coffee shop parking lot in Teton Valley in Eastern Idaho. They were there for fresh Alaskan salmon — 10-, 20- and 40-pound boxes of fillets and ground sockeye.

“This is it right here,” said Carlen Hervig, standing at the front of the line under a blue tent “So, see. It just looks so beautiful.”

Hervig pointed to the vacuum-sealed bag of bright red-orange ground-up salmon.

She was picking up for a neighbor and getting herself some foot-long fillets to serve at dinner parties.

“It's a pretty big piece, so once you're going to thaw one out you kind of want to know, 'OK, I'm having friends over. I can serve this many portions,'” she explained.

( Courtesy of Kirstyn Sterling)

Hervig has been coming back for this wild salmon for years. It comes from Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska. Fed by six major rivers, the bay is home to the largest wild salmon run on the planet, and it’s sustainably managed.

Hervig said the fish from there just tastes better than the farm-raised stuff you find in the grocery store. Plus, wild salmon is hard to come by in this part of Idaho since many varieties are endangered and illegal to fish.

“I think the first year we delivered seven boxes and we thought that was a huge deal,” said Amanda Wlaysewski with Kvichak Fish Company. “And, now, it's grown into, what, 70 people.”

That’s 3,600 pounds of salmon today.

(Hanna Merzbach / Wyoming Public Media )

Wlaysewski first got hooked on Alaskan salmon after spending a summer at a cannery in Naknek, Alaska after high school.

Now, she and a friend from the cannery run this company, working with fishermen on the Kvichak River in Bristol Bay.

“When we first were starting out we just assumed that we were gonna be a company that put fish in a box and shipped it all over the country, and right away, we stopped doing that,” she said.

Instead, they opted to keep operations small. They now ship the salmon by barge and truck to Bozeman, Montana — where Wlaysewski lives — and load it all into a bright blue freezer-cold trailer. Then, once a year, Wlaysewski, her sister and her business partner haul it to different pickup spots in Montana and Idaho.

(Hanna Merzbach / Wyoming Public Media )

They started serving this small community in Driggs, Idaho, in 2016. Wlaysewski was friends with a fisherman who used to deliver here, and when he retired, she helped locals continue to have access to wild fish.

“They care about knowing where it comes from because the economy around here is focused around agriculture and food,” said Wlaysewski, “and just a desire to support small producers because a lot of them are small producers themselves.”

In recent years, at least three other companies have started bringing wild salmon here and across the state line in Jackson Hole.

(Hanna Merzbach / Wyoming Public Media )

In Salt Lake City, Kirstyn Sterling runs a similar company.

“We all started out with this because it was like, ‘Oh, you're a fisherman in Alaska. So how do we get fish?’” Sterling said.

She fishes every summer in Bristol Bay, living in a 700-square-foot cabin with her husband and two kids. For the rest of the year, she sells salmon in the Mountain West.

“If you're an expecting mother, this is like the most perfect food for you ever,” she said. ‘If you are a little baby that’s just starting out eating, this is the most perfect food for you ever. If you're a dog, this is the most perfect food for you ever.”

(Courtesy of Kirstyn Sterling)

Sterling’s business has been growing, but part of her job is still convincing people that wild sockeye is healthier than fish raised on farms, which are fed pellets, antibiotics and dyes. But her fish is ruby red from eating plankton and krill in the open ocean.

“You're paying a little bit more, but it's so much better for you and it tastes so much better,” she said.

A single piece of wild salmon can be about $18 a pound — about twice as much as the farm-raised grocery stuff. But the Alaskan fish can be cheaper if you buy in bulk or ahead of the season, like folks in Teton Valley, Idaho.

Back at the pick-up, local resident Kyle Barrus is cramming 15 boxes into his Subaru Outback. He works at a nearby ranch. Some of the fish is for him, but he’s also picking up for family and neighbors.

(Hanna Merzbach / Wyoming Public Media)

“I've come to just really like these guys,” Barrus said. “I like supporting Amanda [Wlaysewski], and I like supporting small business.”

And just like having a deer or elk in the freezer, Barrus said he’s excited to have all this wild salmon stored up for the long winter ahead.

Can he taste the difference from grocery store salmon?

“I don’t know,” Barrus said. “It’s delicious. I know that.”

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

(iStockphoto)

Doctors prescribe a lot of things every day, like medications and advice to help their patients feel better.

Now some doctors are prescribing electricity to their patients. They believe not having access to reliable power can have a direct impact on the health of their patients.

Dr. Anna Goldman is the medical director of climate and sustainability at Boston Medical Center, which has adopted a clean power prescription program, and she’ll be talking about how it works as part of St. Luke's lecture series on climate and health.

People carry flags as members of the Jewish community gather at a park in Sydney, Australia, on Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, as mourners marked the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)(Rick Rycroft/AP / AP)

Today marks one year since Hamas launched its surprise terrorist attack in Israel, the deadliest attack ever on Israeli soil, taking 1,200 lives.

Since then Israel has responded by declaring war against Hamas. In the aftermath of the growing conflict, Gaza has been left in a humanitarian crisis, and thousands more have been killed.

Shockwaves of the war have been felt across the nation, and according to the Anti-Defamation League, there have been more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents in the United States since the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel, making it the highest number of incidents ever recorded in any single year since the ADL started tracking in 1979.

American Jewish Committee regional director for the region that include Idaho Regina Sassoon Friedland joined Idaho Matters to talk more.

( Boise City)

Many Boise homeowners have three trash cans: a gray one for trash, a blue one for recycling and a green one for compost.

The compost program started in 2017 and has been very successful, turning one-third of the waste that used to go into the landfill into compost. Now, Boise is expanding that program for people who live in apartments and condos who might not have the green compost cart.

Lisa Knapp, who runs Boise's compost program, and Catherine Milner, who runs the reduce and reuse programs, joined Idaho Matters to talk more.

(Raymond Lines / Flickr)

October is a great month to look up into the night sky and see some of the wonders of the universe including “the comet of the century,” the northern lights and a second moon.

Dr. Irwin Horowitz is a mathematics professor at the College of Western Idaho and past president of the Boise Astronomical Society and he sat down with our Morning Edition host George Prentice to take a look at the night sky.

The 2021 Memorial Day commemoration will be a full in-person ceremony.( Idaho State Veterans Cemetery / Facebook)

Every December, wreaths are placed at each headstone at the Idaho Veterans Cemetery. The program was recently taken over by the Idaho Veterans Network, and they need community support to ensure that every grave gets a wreath this year.

Ron Bowers and Jake Faulkner, State Veterans Cemetery Bureau Chief, joined Idaho Matters to talk more.

Smoke from the Valley Fire in southeast Boise.( Michael Martin)

The Valley Fire threatens homes in southeast Boise, Boise State's decision to forfeit a women's volleyball game continues to make the news and it's political debate season but some candidates aren't taking part.

It’s Friday, which means it's time for our Reporter Roundtable when Idaho Matters gets you up to date on all the news that made headlines this past week.

Our journalist panel today:

The Missouri Capitol is shown on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in Jefferson City, Mo. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)(David A. Lieb/AP / AP)

After months of gathering signatures, filing petitions, and navigating lawsuits, constitutional amendments that will protect or expand abortion rights will appear on the ballot in ten states in November.

These states include blue-leaning, red-leaning, even swing states as voters go to the polls and cast their ballot for reproductive rights. But what could these outcomes mean for Idaho?

Joining us now to talk more are Melanie Folwell, lead organizer for Idahoans United for Women and Families, McKay Cunningham, a constitutional scholar and a graduate professor at College of Idaho and Dr. Loren Colson, a Boise-based family physician and president of the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare.