We bought the new boat, the F/V Minnow, a 26 foot
skiff with a wheelhouse forward, to dress and move
fish from the fishing grounds to our processor.

I went to the Taku area twice in September to buy
fish. The first day, I bought fish from fishermen as
they caught them. I got down to the fishing area just
before it opened, and spoke to a few boats about
selling me fish. I had 4 selling to me, and thought I
should get more as it started off slow. Gradually,
though, each boat brought their catch and got back to
their set, and in no time, I had all I could handle
and was grateful I’d not done more soliciting.

The boat is equipped with a 2 stroke washdown pump.
It worked fine, except it was like having a chainsaw
running all day. I switched to a 12 volt water pump
the second trip. That was much better, but I did have
to keep an eye on the battery so as not to run it down
too far before starting the engine and charging it
back up.

The seagulls were fun to observe. They knew I was
throwing overboard lots of good grub for them like
airbladders and roe, but just could not bring
themselves to come right up to the side of the boat to
get it. They’d let it sink before they’d cross an
imaginary distance to the boat where they felt safe.
You could almost see the anguish on their faces as the
roe sank out of reach to feed whatever critters dined
on it below.

The new boat looks like it will work great for what we
need. It was hard going further into debt at the end
of the season knowing the boat will now sit until we
can use it next spring, but I’m confident it’s exactly
what we need and the price was right.

Wow, what a lot of rain over the last 14 months, even
for the rainforest. I’m really looking forward to
some deer hunting once the leaves drop. With all the
rain, even if you get a day of relief and go hunting
when the foliage is still lush, you get soaked unless
you wear raingear as all the leaves hold the water
from the previous days rain.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com
“GET OFF THE SOFA and VOTE FOR STOPHA!”
for Juneau Assembly, Oct. 2006
Download Campaign Sign at www.GoodSalmon.com

It’s been a manic three days. At my first candidate
forum, I was the only candidate talking about the
harbor situation. I was frantically trying to get
some support the next day with a few phone calls, and
doubting I was getting my message out. However, the
next day, we all were talking about it, and again
today we talked about it. So, if I can get the
mayoral candidates talking about it, along with the
the other candidates vying for the 2 assembly seats,
I’ll have achieved what I set out to do. It’s really
fun not running to win, but just running. I feel like
I’m a lot less guarded in what I say. People are
coming up to me and thanking me for informing them on
the situation.

The forum yesterday was the Chamber of Commerce, and
probably one of the most important. One of the former
assembly members called after the meeting and
helpfully told me I had all kinds of Alaska Public
Offices Commission violations going on. I called APOC
and got the straight skinny, then did what I was told
to keep on the straight and narrow. We made the front
page of the newspaper today, complete with what looks
like a pitcher of beer in front of myself and David
Stone.

Hope to get the boat ready to buy fish this Sunday.
The boat is so freakin big on the trailer it scares
me. It’s going to take some getting used to. And, my
wife told me last night I was not to sell the skiff as
she thought it would be a waste to use the big boat
for short trips hunting and that it would be better to
leave the skiff unattended on anchor than the bigger
boat. What a woman!

Two days in a row with no rain. We even dipped to 30
degrees last night, and it finally feels like deer
hunting time. Doe season opened today, but I don’t
see me hunting till after the election.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com
“GET OFF THE SOFA and VOTE FOR STOPHA!”
for Juneau Assembly, Oct. 2006
Download Campaign Sign at www.GoodSalmon.com

Up to Anchorage to talk to the Marine Advisory Program
assessment team on Sunday and back last night. Flight
delayed 3 hrs north and 45 minutes south. The MAP
asked me to speak to the assessment team about how I
use MAP in my business. One of the assessment team
members is an old Peace Corps buddy, and it was great
seeing him.

Returned to find my boat in my driveway. My friend
Ken pulled it off the ferry and hauled it home. He
parked it just off the road, and I needed to back it
out to the road shoulder, move the hitch to the front
of the truck, and push it up the driveway. In doing
so, I took out my neighbor’s mailbox and newspaper
box, so off to the lumber yard to fix his roadside
post.

Had an interview with the local public radio station
today for the assembly election. I may have to watch
my coffee intake prior to these… I’m more than
certain I got across my issue of the harbor funding
and management, and probably offended many other
people with my stance on the nearby mine.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com
“GET OFF THE SOFA and VOTE FOR STOPHA!”
for Juneau Assembly, Oct. 2006
Download Campaign Sign at www.GoodSalmon.com

Scraped together all the money and credit I could, then flew down to Washington to see if I would buy the boat I had been investigating for a week or two after seeing it in Pacific Fishing Magazine. I did my preliminary homework of having a mechanic look at the outboard (compression test came in fine), and a marine survey. With those both looking good, I flew to Seattle on airmiles (it was $720 for a paid ticket!) at 1:15 am, took the 6 am bus to Mt. Vernon, WA, where I met my Peace Corps friend Andrea, who lives there with her husband. She gave me her car, and I headed over to the boat owner’s house nearby. We drove to LaConner to test run the boat. My first impression was that it was much larger than I thought it would be. At just 26 feet long, it’s a lot of boat. We took it for a test run, which went fine. I was down there trying to find something to stop me from buying a boat right now, but realized the boat was exactly what I was looking for. We met later at the owners house with the broker, traded checks and titles and bill of sale, and I was a boat owner again. I didn’t even have buyers remorse the next morning when the owner and I towed the boat up to Bellingham to put on the Alaska ferry, and that was that. I flew back and am here now waiting for the vessel to arrive on Monday. Unfortunately, my buddies will have to pull the boat from the ferry as I was invited to a meeting for Alaska Seagrant in Anchorage to talk about my fishing operation.

Had a great time with Andrea and Alan. They served in the Peace Corps in Liberia, and I trained with Andrea at the Univ. of Oklahoma for 10 weeks prior to our leaving for our assignments in Africa. Peace Corps friends are like people you grow up with – you may not see them for years, but when you get together, it’s like you haven’t seen them for a week or two, and you’re immediately at ease in their company.

I returned home to more rain. It was about 70 and dry in Washington, but not here of course. I opened my mail to find that I was not endorsed by the Juneau Central Labor Council, who I met with last week. They said they would not endorse my candidacy (which I never asked them to do in the first place) but “encouraged me to accumulate additional experience and greater familiarity with the many issues and concerns of working people and their families so I might sometime serve with understanding and effectiveness.”

Huh. I don’t know issues and concerns and am not familiar with “working people”. Apparently, starting your own business and running it on a shoestring with no paid leave, insurance, paid cigarette smoking breaks or holidays is not “work”. Offloading a boat by hand and pushing 500 lb totes full of salmon up a gangway at low tide because there are no mechanical means of doing so at our sorry harbor is not “work”. Taking all of the business risk and paying everyone (including their union worker’s wages) and hope like hell you have a dime left at then end of the month is not “work”. Maybe it only counts as “work” if you work for a union. I’ll need to look that up in the dictionary. Neat……….. I’ll tuck this letter in my assembly folder and hope to find out what “work” is when I attend the candidate forums. Should be fun!

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com
“GET OFF THE SOFA and VOTE FOR STOPHA!”
for Juneau Assembly, Oct. 2006
Download Campaign Sign at www.GoodSalmon.com

Went to the doctor and found out the accident I had moving fish 3 weeks ago was fairly serious.  I broke out a chip of bone that attaches to the tendon on the knuckle closest to the fingernail of the middle finger of my left hand.  It’s stayed swollen and red, even after I gained movement and use back.  Turns out that’s why I couldn’t straighten out the end of my finger anymore.  I’ll be in a splint for 6 to 8 weeks, and hope that it will heal, as I really don’t want surgery.

After the doctor’s appt, I entered the Assembly race for real yesterday at an interview with a coalition of local unions.  They had a hard time understanding at first how or why someone would run on a single issue like I am.  I came away convinced that my mission and campaign style were just what I wanted:  by focusing on the single issue of harbor funding and reform, I can hit people right between the eyes with both barrels again and again, instead of diluting my time with other issues.

Candidates who want to get elected say things people want to hear.  Last year, one ran an ad that said “Build the Pool” and, in the same ad “Put the Lid on Taxes”.  He won, of course, even though construction of the pool would have increased the tax load to pay for operations.  Another candidate jumped on the “affordable housing” bandwagon.  He won, too.  Then, as his first act of supporting affordable housing, he voted to open up some of the most expensive land in Juneau, with the justifcation that “the rich people will buy this land, and the rest of you peons can buy the houses they move out of”.  Trickle down economics at it’s best.  I’ve just got a mission I want accomplished, and come in with an actual plan that no one at the table questioned yesterday.  I told them I didn’t care if they voted for me or the other candidate: the issue would remain and the fleet would continue leaving town if nothing changed, and that’s what I wanted the community to hear.

The campaign manager for the other candidate was there.  It will be interesting to see if he now raises this issue after being silent about it during his first term, along with all the other assembly members, the mayor, and city manager.  My bandwagon is big and there’s plenty of room, so I’ll welcome anyone and everyone aboard.  Better late than never!

I had coffee with a current assembly member today. What I found most interesting was that he said he went along with what the harbor board and Port Director told him because he wasn’t familiar with the harbors and so didn’t want to really challenge what was going on.  This just reiterated to me that I’m on the right track.  He did like my incentive program for commercial fishermen, and I’ll be interested if he steals my idea or gives me credit for it.  It also showed me how clueless and apathetic the assembly is to the commercial fishing fleet here.

Spent the rest of the morning trying to find some pink salmon, with no luck.  I spoke to a seiner in Kodiak who said that bled and unbled pinks tasted the same after 1 year in the freezer.  This may be true for bled fish in the traditional manner of breaking a gill or stabbing fish as they roll out of a seine.  I’d like to compare unbled fish with our pressure bled fish to see if there’s a difference.  I hope that getting the blood out as thoroughly as we do does make a difference.  I know the product is beautiful.

We got the engine report on the boat we’re looking to buy, and it all checked out.  Now just waiting for a survey.  I really would rather not buy a boat right now, but know it’s the only way we’ll be able to achieve the quality and inventory we need to operate and make a living, so here we go.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK  99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com
“GET OFF THE SOFA and VOTE FOR STOPHA!”
for Juneau Assembly, Oct. 2006
Download Campaign Sign at www.GoodSalmon.com

Today is my first “forum” with city interests for the Assembly election. It’s in front of a bunch of unions, so that should show them just how not-ready I am for politics. We’ll see.

Spent 4 hours last night re vack-packing orders to go out. The vac packer is one of the weak links at my processor, and I’ll end up doing at least 1/2 of what they’ve done for me over again. Last year, the unit didn’t seal well. This year, it didn’t draw quite enough vacuum for me when they did some of our fish. The fish are okay and there’s no air leak for now and probably months, but the machine didn’t quite get all the air out to my standars. An untrained eye might not notice, and I’m sure lots of fish is sold like this, but I think that the fish won’t be as good if someone pulls it from their freezer 6 months from now, so I’m redoing it. That way, I sleep better, and if we don’t make it, it won’t be due to poor fish or customer service.

This is one reason I sold the boat and went to this game plan – I can pay attention to stuff like this, and put out a great, consistent product in every order. Unlike last year, screw-ups have gone way down since I’ve taken over packing. As the last person to see our fish before they get to a customer, I’m now attending to be sure people get the right volume they ordered and sure that good looking fish goes in the box. If it doesn’t, it’s my fault and mine only – not someone just punching a time clock.

We’re getting closer to buying a skiff so that I can haul fish next year, and handle them to meet our standards. We’re already out of sockeye and will be out of pink salmon soon enough. Fishermen are NOW calling, after I solicited fish over a month ago, wanting to sell me king salmon next season! We’ll be lucky to get in enough coho this season, particularly if the troll fishery closes early, but we’ll do all we can. We tried buying fish from processor inventories last year when we ran out of our own, and we were not happy with the product quality – it’s fine for the commodity markets, but when you’ve been producing fish to our standards, it’s pretty hard to see fish that have not been pressure bled.

Kind of like my wife and coffee- once she discovered likes espresso and lattes, and can’t ever go back to coffee from the can. Funny thing is, I’m just the opposite – I only like coffee from a can. Anyway, we’ll get all we can and hope I can find work this winter and then roll out our updated business model next spring if we get the boat.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com
“GET OFF THE SOFA and VOTE FOR STOPHA!”
for Juneau Assembly, Oct. 2006
Download Campaign Sign at www.GoodSalmon.com