bored in Wrangell

I've had a lot of time to compose these things lately...

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We’ve moved south, though we’re currently in port in Wrangell instead of Ketchikan. This has definitely been the best week we’ve had since coming up here, and though we’re not dancing yet, some of the crummy vibes that we’ve been fighting for the last few weeks look like they might be fading. We’ve had the opportunity to work a bit more, fishing Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week, and are heading back out again tomorrow to fish until Monday.

Before talking about those days, however, I should probably explain the work I’m doing up here so that some of the terminology makes sense. The basic setup is a large boat (The Yankee Boy is 56x16 ft: some are larger, some are smaller, but that’s a pretty typical size), a small boat called a skiff (around 11x6 ft), and a 250 fathom long net (1,500 ft). The net has three parts: the cork line, which floats it, the web, which forms the barrier for the fish, and the lead line, which sinks the web. Rings hang from the lead line along the second half of the net, and the purse line passes through those rings. One end of the net is hooked up to the skiff, which has an enormous engine block that delivers nearly 300 hp, and the other end is hooked up to the big boat. While fishing, the captain and crew scout for “jumpers,” salmon that leap from the water and often indicate a school of fish, and when we think we’ve identified the direction they’re running we release the skiff from the back of the Yankee Boy. The Yankee Boy and the skiff then line out the net until it forms a taught semicircle, open opposite the direction of the salmon run, and tow for about 25 minutes. Once we’ve towed long enough, the skiff and Yankee Boy close up, forming a complete circle and the skiff man hands off his end of the net to the crew on deck. We hook the skiff on to the opposite side of the boat so that it can control our position while the Yankee Boy idles, and the captain comes down on deck to work the hydraulic controls. We use a power block—a large wheel suspended from the boom over the deck—to haul in the net, which the deckhands stack in preparation for the next set. The three jobs for deckhand are cork man, web man, and lead man: it shouldn’t be too hard to guess who stacks which part of the net. My job, web man, entails grabbing the bundle of web as it falls, and piling it in as orderly a fashion as possible while Harold and Tim stack corks and leads. As we haul in the net, Jim brings in the purse line using the winch, a large, metal rotating wheel, which draws the rings on the back half of the net together to form the purse. Once we have the purse formed we hop off the pile and hook the end of the net to the deck. Then Jim throws the power block into high gear and we stack at a much faster pace until we only have a small portion of the net remaining. This is the bag, and if we’re lucky it has a lot of fish it. We use a system of pulleys to haul the bag on deck, hook up the net to the skiff, and repeat for 15 hours a day.

Tuesday and Wednesday weren’t particularly thrilling: we spent two days in Anita Bay working to haul in just over 4,500 pounds of dog, and the red jellyfish were so thick that we felt they stung our necks, eyes, faces, and arms as they got pulverized in the power block and flowed over our rain gear. Though it would have been nice to do better, working is better than sitting on anchor and we didn’t have high expectations going in to the bay. The real day that we were all looking forward to was Thursday’s opening in area seven, south of Wrangell, where the pink salmon usually make a big appearance. Jim fired up the boat at 2:15am (I went back to bed until 4am, after we lifted the anchor) to scout out a spot and we made our first set of the day at 5am, hauling in about 2,000 pounds. Though this was half what we’d caught over the last couple days it wasn’t that much in absolute terms, and pink salmon are worth half as much per pound as dogs. We made a few more sets in the same spot, none of them larger than our first, and by 8am Jim was furious. “You know what you’re going back to school with, kid? A f*king baloney sandwich!” he would shout as we hauled in the net. I said that I liked baloney, but pepperoni was preferable if we could afford it, to which he said "Don't piss me off, kid. Cook! The kid's not eating lunch today" (I still got lunch).

It looked like it was going to be another long, discouraging day fishing for peanuts on the Yankee Boy. Around 9am most of the other boats had moved on, and we moved further down the eight mile stretch of beach to try a new spot. For the first time since we started fishing, it looked as if we were actually going to have a decent one—we could see fish jumping every several seconds in the wide area encircled by our net. Then we noticed that a large section of the cork line was submerged, presumably hooked on a snag, which could be a log, or rock, or anything else that hooks the lead line and drags on the net. This problem is of varying degrees of severity: at the best, your net pops up after a couple minutes and everything is cool. At the worst, the net gets snagged so bad the skiff can’t haul it in. In this case the skiff unhooks and the crew back-hauls the net, possibly mending some giant tears in the web, purse line, or leads. Though we were fortunate enough to be able to close up the corks stayed under, and Jim expressed what we were all feeling when he stormed out of the wheelhouse railing about how jinxed we were. “Why does it always play out this way?” I asked in my head "Why can't we just catch some fish?" Not a minute later, just as we began to stack the net, the corks rose to the surface, lifting our spirits: even though a couple had gotten away we knew that there were still fish in that net. We brought the bag in, and for the first time of the season had the joy of seeing the water boil and the boat keel over under the weight of a several tons of fish. Praise God!

That set was probably around 4,000 pounds. Though not huge, it was the biggest bag we’d seen to that point, and we immediately set in the same area. It had become a beautiful, sunny morning, unusually clear and warm, and we had an open view down the four mile stretch of beach to our north. This makes for both a pretty view and a clear salmon run, and we quickly realized that this set had potential: Fish were jumping two or three at a time throughout the entire 25 minute tow. We started piling, and as we got near the end of the net the water once again began to boil, except earlier, and over a wider area. The sound the fish make as the net pushes them to the surface before rolling the bag is somewhere between being under a tin roof in a heavy rainstorm and standing by a river swollen by spring rain. It is one of the most beautiful sounds a fisherman can hear, trumped only by the sound of those fish pouring over the side, and the sight of the seething, flopping mass spreading out over the deck, around the cabin, and flowing into the hold. At last! That set was probably about 20,000 pounds, and we were able to make several smaller, though still respectable sized hauls before some of the other guys further to the south rushed up and set down the beach to our north, interrupting our clean run. No hard feelings, though: we’d do the same thing in an instant.

It feels great to catch fish, but the experience of being on deck doesn’t get any less stressful. The work is hard, particularly when we have to pull in some of the cork line by hand when it gets behind the leads, or when I take Harold’s lead line and pile it along with the web while he helps Jim roll the bag. There’s lot of shouting, cussing, sweating, slipping, and plenty of opportunities to get hurt. On our largest bag of the day the fish were weighing down the net to the point that a few started to slip over the corks. As Tim and I strained to haul in the slack I looked down into the sea of fish below me and wondered, for just a moment, what it would be like to fall in. On good days fishing is stressful, dangerous, tiring and lucrative. On bad days it is just the first three. Yet, as I stood on the back of the deck in the afternoon sun, feeling its warmth spread over my weary arms and back, and looked out over the islands I felt happy and at peace. “This is what I came for,” I thought, “days like this make all the other stuff worth it.” I mentioned in passing in my last post some the struggle with self love and insecurity that my experiences up here have raised; how I came here, in part, to prove something to myself. Though I continue to wrestle with God in my heart about what it means to truly throw off attachment to outside approval, to quiet my restless spirit and truly seek Him in all I do, Thursday reminded me that I really do love this work, this place, and this brief season of life for what it is.

That’s all for now, folks, thanks for staying tuned. On Thursday we made around 1,700 dollars per guy, which means we’ve just about covered our liability and can start making money. Hopefully we’ve got a few more days of the same ahead. Jim and the experiences crew still aren't optimistic though: the possibility is still very real that we'll be back in August. In either case, being here is proving to be a reward in and of itself.

God willing, I might make it back with a baloney sandwich and a couple bucks,

Aaron

en route to Ketchikan

I'm taking advantage of my final free hours in Petersburg to try and condense the last three weeks into something like a coherent thought.

It's certainly been a different kind of season than the last time I was here. For one thing, the high price of fuel has doubled the cost of the 22 hour round trip from Petersburg to the Hidden Falls fishery in Chatham Straits. In an effort to save money, the gentlemen of the Yankee Boy have been camping out on their boat away from town for the past few weeks, far from the internet and with only limited cell phone service. The isolation and change of environment has been at once refreshing, nerve-racking, and trying.

The major challenge that we've faced is the lack of fish. Living for weeks on an 18x50 foot seining boat isn't so bad when you spend most days hauling gear (fishing), but the runs have been weak enough that the Department of Fish and Game, which is responsible for managing fisheries around the state, has only opened Hidden falls twice a week (at most) since we've been here. We've only fished four days so far, and we haven't done that great on any of those days. The high price of dog salmon in this area--over 60 cents per pound--attracted pretty much the entire southeast Alaskan fishing fleet of 150 boats. This resulted in way too many boats scrapping for far too few fish--if you didn't make a several thousand pound haul at 5am, when the day officially began, then you were looking at 15 hours of doing your best to mop up the leftovers, which has been the story of our life so far. Adding to the stress is the fact that the pink salmon, a lower-grade fish that pays 30 cents per pound and that serves as the bread and butter of most guys' summer earnings, have not made much of a showing anywhere in the state so far. The skippers are getting worried that we are looking at another bust of a season through July and August, and this is concerning for everyone, including cannery employees to deckhands. The simplified formula for my summer earnings is as follows: (gross stock of fish)*(price of fish per pound)/10 - (food and beer bill)/5 - (fixed fuel share) - (taxes). The middle two terms come out to around 5,000 dollars of liability, while taxes are taken as a share of the non-adjusted gross earnings (though some of my expenses are partially deductible). At a 10 percent crew share I've only made 2,500 so far, meaning that I'm 2,500 dollars in the hole with my skipper before taxes. If the pinks don't show up we'll be lucky to even break even on the season, and will likely come home in by early- or mid-August.

The fishing days themselves have also been trying. We showed up late to a Thursday opening at the fishery three weeks back, after having driven the whole night, and immediately started setting up our gear. Hidden Falls is aptly-named. From Catham Strait, between Baranoff and Mitkoff Island, one sees waterfall’s majestically cascading into various coves and inlets, fed by glaciers of the surrounding mountains. On a nice day, particularly at sunrise or sunset, the place can be breathtaking and you realize why so many people come up here on Alaska cruises. That Thursday, however, Hidden Falls was somewhat more forbidding. A thick, clammy layer of marine fog veiled the coastline, and above the fog the mountain peaks were covered with snow, speaking to the unseasonably cool weather coming on the heels of a severe winter. These mountains released a cold, constant blast of wind, which stirred up white caps in the strait, tossed our boat, and prompted us to wear extra layers of clothing under our rain gear. We started fishing around noon, and it wasn't long before I had the privilege of meeting Jim Glenovich the deck boss, who only bears a faint resemblance to Jim Glenovich the cheerful and easy going sea captain. "You f*ing cocksuckers! Haul that gear! f*k! F*K!!! I need four new guys, goddammit!!! Our luck is like sh*t!" Anyone who has been doing this for a while will tell you that the secret to not breaking down or blowing up is letting the skipper's tirade role in one ear and out the other, a lesson that I'd internalized during my time on the Reality, but that first day was a rude awakening nonetheless. I have never in my life seen anyone who gets as hot as Jim. It's as if underneath his normal self there is some incredibly deep well of rage, bitterness, and shattered hope, all of which boil to the surface during the 30 minutes or so per set that he's alloted to do his "ass-chewing." To be fair, we've been having an incredibly tough time. Just about every set we make we have to negotiate a new problem: the net gets snarled up, the ring bar get bent, the hydraulic oil starts leaking, the bunt get snarled up as we're rolling the fish on deck, or worse, the boat drifts over our cork line and releases a couple hundred pounds of salmon. We never had these problems on the Reality, and I get the impression that Jim isn't used to dealing with them either. Though I'm learning quickly, I often confront the same struggle on deck that I confronted while playing rugby: knowing how to put yourself in the right place at the right time, and make a substantive contribution to the team. When the lines are snarled, the wind is blowing, my face is covered with jellyfish tentacles, Jim is screaming himself hoarse, and Harold and Tim are frantically scurrying around trying to set things right I tend to either get paralyzed, or bumble around like a fool and try to look busy. It's getting better, though, praise God, and I've even been the one to catch several errors and set a few things right on deck the last couple openings.

A useful mental trick I found for staying upbeat: Despite all attempts to stay positive, there will inevitably come a time when, in a challenging or uncomfortable situation, your mind says "let's be honest, this stinks," and you really are in no position to argue. The appropriate response at that juncture is "yes, but it's funny." Then you start laughing. A couple weeks back I was up on the top deck helping keep watch for jumpers, fish that leap from the water and often indicate a school, and Jim was still seething: "this is a f*king goat show. Our luck is sh*t!" I couldn't help laughing, to which he snapped "you're f*king broke! do you like that?!" "No, I hate it" I replied, "but all we can do is keep hauling gear." I have no doubt that God has a clear purpose for my time here. Though learning to trust in his provision when circumstances are beyond my control--as they are in every sense of the word right now--I'm also learning to tap an inner strength and resilience that I'm sure will serve me well in times ahead.

When not fishing I've spent a lot of that time reading--so far I've got through The Gates of Fire, The Audacity of Hope, Chaos, and am currently working on Bill Easterly's White Man's Burden--playing guitar, working out, eating, chatting with my crew mates, and getting off the boat to hike around whenever I can. Some highlights so far:

• Drew (the 20 year-old Western student who joined our crew the day we left) and I went to check out the salmon hatchery, and in addition to making friends with the employees saw a momma grizzly and her cub at a distance of about 50 feet.
• One morning, as I was sitting in the galley eating breakfast I heard a loud “SNUFFF” followed by a “THWOCK.” I hustled out onto the deck just in time to see a humpback whale—recently arrived from Baja Mexico in search of cooler water—in full breach, fins out and splayed wide as she rolled her belly up towards the sun before hitting the water with a terrific spray of white water and foam.
  
• We hauled a 7-8 foot long salmon shark onto the deck last Thursday. This was a legitimate, Discovery Channel-style, coal black eyes, sharp, pointy teeth, shark. When it came time for me to hop onto the deck after we'd rolled the bag of fish over the side I'll admit that I hesitated for a second! It was awesome to be in the presence of that animal, and I felt bad that we gaffed it in the gills, hit it three times on the head with a hammer, and then left it to struggle around on deck for half an hour. When it came time to hoist it over board we put a strap around its tail, and then used a winch to lift it over the side. Jim told me to grab a vickie, a thin sharp knife around the size of what you use a the dinner table, and saw its tail fin off. I told him didn't want to--it seemed kind of gratuitous to ruin such a powerful and beautiful animal that way, especially when I knew it was still alive--and he said "oh just cut the strap, then, you f*kin p*sy!" I was pleased to see the shark joyously thrash around in the water to free itself of the strap before diving out of sight. I was also glad we didn't haul it in again on the next set: in between whimpering parodies of me refusing to hurt a living thing, Jim threatened to leave me bleeding on the deck if we caught it again and it bit me. I couldn't help but laugh the whole time.
  
• Conversations with Jim and the crew have been awesome as well. For all the above, I don't want to leave the wrong impression about my skipper: though he gets mad, he doesn't stay that way, and when the day is done so is the ass-chewing, and he reverts to his normal self. He's opened up a bit about Vietnam, his philosophy about living well, thoughts about God, and has shared many hilarious stories of misadventures on the high seas. One of the things he has tried to impress the most upon me has been the importance of staying humble and genuine while in authority. His philosophy as a skipper is that he isn't good for much if he holds himself over his crew. He lives this out, getting up before any of us, working on different projects the whole day, doing dishes occasionally, and eating and drinking with us, instead of by himself in the wheelhouse. He tells me that I am here in his world only for a time to learn about this, and about the people who live in a reality that I will only ever be a guest in. Thought-provoking stuff.
  
• Bushwhacking in the Baranoff island mountains and hot tubs in the natural hot springs have been rejuvenating as well. I love being outside, and am awestruck by how beautiful my surroundings are every time I stop to look around. I forgot my camera back at the boat, but I hope to upload some photos soon.
  
• Reading Chaos and The Audacity of Hope was well worth it. I could write a full blog post about each of these books but I would boil it down to this: if you haven't read Audacity but are even somewhat interested in one of the most important Presidential contests in America history, read it. If you're scientifically or mathematically inclined, or are interested in how systems with fundamentally simple rules can generate complex behavior, read Chaos.
  

I'll wrap this up with a quick reflection. I've been asking myself over the last week or so "why did you come here?" There is rarely one answer to a question like that, but not a small portion of the answer in my case is that I was chasing this vision of the Rhodes scholar-fisherman, a man of both intellectual talent and gritty simplicity. A man whose mind dwells in the realm of lofty aspiration and service to God and humanity, but whose spirit and body have been tested by the strain of the real world. If this sounds pompous and silly to you then you're tracking right with me. My pursuit of this vision amounts to a deeply-held insecurity that I am not, when all is said and done, a person of substance. My foray into the world of commercial fishing is, in this sense, yet another attempt to prove to myself the contrary. Yet with fishing days few and far between I have progressively come to the realization that the situation I'm in doesn't really qualify as the kind of furnace that is capable of firing body and soul. After all, I've spoken with a 15 year old kid who worked 19 out of the last 20 days on cost recovery--around 380 hours of work in 2 and a half weeks--and my own little brother is pulling 100 hour weeks in the King Cove cannery (I'm proud of you, buddy, if you're reading this!!!). By any comparative metric, life for me has been pretty easy these days, and I feel my vision fading away into disappointment. I am coming to the painful realization that unless I abandon the irresponsible self-love that leads me to seek affirmation from my peers and my experiences I will forever be a slave to my insecurities. Both my friends Dan Blocksom and Cynthia Matthai have inspired me to consider once again the question "what does it mean to truly live one's live for an audience of One, letting all other concerns flow from there?"

The practical application of my struggle with this question has been around my alcohol consumption and language. If you think to pray for me, that my heart would stay soft and my mind sharp, I would be very grateful.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts/responses, and to know how you are doing. We're sailing south for leaving for Ketchikan in one hour: Pray for pinks!

With much love and respect,
Aaron