Transport truck rolls, spills chum salmon across Alaska road

JUNEAU, Alaska – Alaskans are always excited by salmon runs, unless it’s across a highway.

A transport truck carrying chum salmon to a fishery in Alaska’s capital city rolled Monday afternoon, spilling the fish across three of the highway’s four lanes and backing up traffic for about 90 minutes.

Juneau police spokesman Lt. David Campbell said his police chief, Bryce Johnson, was one of six officers who responded to the scene, and the chief confirmed the area did smell.

Campbell says the amount of fish spilled wasn’t immediately known, but men who looked like fishermen in slickers were cleaning fish off Egan Highway.

The fish was destined to one of the canneries in Juneau, and Campbell says he didn’t know if the men cleaning it were from the cannery or the transport company.

The driver had minor injuries, but he wasn’t taken to the hospital.