My nephews came to Craig for their spring breaks. John is a senior at University of Tampa and will start training as a navy aviator right after he graduates. Kellen is a sophomore at University of Utah, and plays club lacrosse there.

I arrived two days before John was to arrive. Kellen would come 2 days after John. Brian dropped me at our place. I opened the container, then jumped in the truck and ran over to Hollis. One of my niece’s classmates is a crab fisherman, and I saw on his facebook page that he was selling dungeness crab at the Hollis dock for $10 each. Where can you buy a live crab for $10?  Yet he makes more money doing that than selling to a processor. Of course, I love that he and his wife (?) sell directly off their boat to his neighbors on Prince of Wales Island and Ketchikan as we did our salmon here in Juneau. I bought 20 crab to take with me to Bethel a few days from now when we go moose hunting. The skipper threw in several extra, as I’d bought shrimp from him before and he knows my inlaws there. This is called “bunya” in Sierra Leone Krio – a little extra to good customers.

I stopped to see my friends Lew and Patty on the way home. They live in Hollis, and Lew got me my job on the north slope. I gave them the rest of the donuts I bought at Black Bear on the way over, to keep me from eating all of them, and Patty looked happy for donuts. We chatted for about an hour. I asked Lew about one of my supervisors on the slope, and he asked if I wanted to read his book. It was not published, but written for a class or therapy, I think. About his time in Vietnam. I read the book that night and finished it the next morning. He went over when he was 18 as a Marine, and saw serious action. He came back after his first tour was up to the US, felt like he didn’t belong, and went back for a second tour. He came out at age 21 or 22, I think. Like most, the war never left him, as you don’t go through that kind of experience without it changing you. John is 22, and I thought about how different their lives were at that age.

When John arrived, we headed out to the big ocean as soon as the weather permitted. The weather was typical windy and rainy March weather, so most of the time it was too rough to fish out there. John caught a nice king salmon, and lost a couple others. We ate on that fish for the rest of the boys stay, as that’s what they said they wanted for dinner each night.

Kellen arrived, and we fished close to town most days. We caught a shaker about half way out to the big ocean, which was as far as we could get that day, and we still payed for in with a lumpy ride home. Ellen had us over for dinner one night for king salmon and turkey turnovers, and he and Brian had fun talking to the boys about their lives and telling them hunting stories.

Each morning, I’d make egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches for lunch in the morning, and the boys would bring their energy drinks and fruit and licorice they’d bought at the store, and me a thermos of coffee. We’d leave at first light at 6 am. We fished areas nearer town because of weather, but with no luck. We took John to the ferry 3 days later, and the weather was so bad we couldn’t even fish at Klawock, where it’s almost always fishable. So, I called the Bay Company, and Chet said he could get my boat in for the 20 hour service on the new engine right today. We dropped the boat there, then saw that the same fishermen I bought crab from in Hollis ended up having extra crab and brought them back to Craig to sell in the grocery parking lot. Kellen called my sister to ask his mom if they wanted crab: they did. So we got 5 of them, and of course he threw in an extra to make 6. We took these back to the house, where I showed Kellen how to clean and steam the crab. I vac packed the halves and put them in the freezer for Kellen to take to his parents.

A 10 foot container I’d bought for a bunkhouse arrived the day before, and I’d asked my friend Markos if I could borrow his forklift to get the container off the truck at our house. He said yes, and tomorrow you can use my trailer to get it to your house, the forklift to take it off the trailer, and my crew will do it all!  Wow. It’s good to have friends. I’ve helped out on Markos’ kelp (and now oyster) farm several times, and enjoyed talking to his lead Thomas, who was heading the oyster operation, on how it was all going out there. They had the container at our lot in an hour.  I returned to town with the boys and got gift certificates at the restaurant and the coffee shop as a thank you to the crew.

What a day. Boat maintenance done. Container offloaded. Crab bought, cooked, packaged and frozen.

It was just me and Kellen for the last two days. We finally got weather that we could get back out to the big ocean, and Kellen got to see one of those iconic Uncle Mark days.

We left from Craig at first light. It’s been a cold March, and the temperature was about freezing. Kellen turned on the magic boat heater… and it didn’t work!  I had him look up the issue on You Tube on his phone, and turns out it was a low voltage issue. I’d have to fix that later. With the clear skies, we hoped once the sun got above the mountains, we’d be warm enough, and we were right. Once the sun was up, we were happy campers in the boat cabin, and would have turned the heater off anyway. We lucked out.

When we got to the bay we fished in, I threw over a flasher with small spoon attached.  Followed by lots of bad words. Uncle Mark forgot to attach the flasher to the fishing line from the rod. Goodbye twenty dollars.

We fished our way out of the bay, where it was a little lumpy, to the channel, where there was about a 10 foot swell. I was fishing into the swell, and when it came time to turn, I waited till we were at the bottom of the trough, then turned quickly back the direction we just came so as not to take the swell on the beam. When I saw the port downrigger line jump I thought: oh no. Then the engine quit and I thought: oh no… I’d wrapped the wire in the prop. Out in this big swell. Bad words were spoken. I had Kellen pull in the rest of the gear while I tried unwinding the wire from the prop by hand with a pike pole. No dice. It was wrapped tight. More bad words were spoken. Kellen was getting an earful of Uncle Mark yelling at himself.

I put the kicker down and prayed it would start. After a little coaxing, it did. We were able to make our way back into the bay and out of the big swell. I took us behind an island and hoped it was quiet enough there that the two of us could get the boat to the beach, jump out, turn it stern to the beach, and allow me to get the wire off. I found a spot, and I jumped off. Then Kellen jumped off. While he held the bow and stern lines to the boat, I worked on getting the prop off. The hardest part is always getting the cotter pin out, but I managed to get it out, and the prop nut off. The wire slid right off the prop, and I piled it the wire in the back of the boat. I quickly put the prop back on, followed by prop nut. The cotter pin was extra hard to get back on with the boat jumping up and down, despite Kellen hanging on. Eventually I got the pin through the prop shaft and prop nut enough to bend back one side of it to secure the prop nut, and we were back in business. I actually bought a prop guard to prevent this wire wrap issue, which John brought with him, but just never took the time to put it on!

We motored back out in the bay, I respooled the wire onto the downrigger, and put the gear back down. I was so relieved to be back fishing I lost focus, went over a pinnacle that came up to 20 feet, and broke off a cannon ball.  Good bye fifty bucks. More bad words.

I had a spare eight pound cannon ball, but the eye had rusted off. We searched the boat looking to make something to make it work. I ended up putting the ball in a fish glove, then tying the fish glove to the downrigger wire. Worked like a dream.

We stayed in the bay now, having wised up from the wire in the prop. Kev was also fishing in his skiff, and was staying out in the channel, so I figured he was catching out there in the slop. I never could raise him on the radio to find out. Even in the bay, it was a little lumpy, but not uncomfortable.

About an hour later, we got a fish on. On the glove wire!  Kellen got it near the boat pretty quickly, and I thought it was a shaker. Then it took off, and Kellen struggled to keep the fish out of the prop. I had him hand me the rod. I swung the line up and over the top of the roof of the boat cabin to the other side of the boat, then handed the rod back to Kellen. Now the boat was blowing us to the fish. Kellen thought he lost it as I said to reel, reel, reel!  When I saw the rod bend over again, I knew he hadn’t lost it. Then Kellen realized it as well. He was back to his business while I worked to get the downrigger wires and the other line in. Kellen was calm getting the fish to the boat, despite his Uncle’s unbridled excitement and flurry of advice. When I netted the fish I thought: that’s no shaker. A nice king. I stunned the fish and had Kellen fill a bucket with sea water. As I slid the fish head first into the bucket, I broke a gill to bleed it.

On the next pass, the starbard line got back over something in the outboard. It didn’t wrap in the prop, but maybe got into the dolfin above the prop, or maybe the trim tab. I was able to get to the line behind the boat, and pull in the flasher and lure by hand, then cut the line. The line now came back through whatever it was caught on and back to the rod.  I was worried a bit that I’d nicked the line, so I cut a bunch off before retying the terminal gear back on.

An hour later, we got another fish on that line. Kellen played it to the boat, and it turned out to be just undersized. I removed the hook, laid the rod down with the terminal gear over the side, and put the fish back into the water in the net. I let the fish revive until it swam from the net. When Kellen went to reset the line, the terminal gear was gone!  Somehow it hadn’t parted when the fish was on, but must have been nicked and parted when the flasher was dragging at the surface. More bad words……Goodbye 20 bucks.

We fished another couple hours and only caught a little bomber rockfish. We headed home about 2 pm.

The wind was behind us on the way home, so a nice ride. When we got off of St John’s island, some humpback whales spouted, and we stopped to watch them for awhile.  Then back to dock and on to the house.

Kellen said king salmon for dinner again. The boys were easy to cook for.

The next day, we were up early to get Kellen to the ferry in Hollis for his ride over to Ketchikan. On his way to Craig, his flight was delayed from Seattle, and he had to overnight in Ketchikan when he missed his flight from there to Klawock. Now his flight from Ketchikan to Seattle was delayed, and by the time he got to Seattle, he’d missed his flight to Salt Lake City. The airline put him up in a hotel and he made it back the next day. We’d packed the frozen crab inside his clothes in his suitcase, and it made it home all good, the clothes having insulated the crab well.

I was leaving the next day. There was left over crab, potatoes, red onion, butter, and baby romaine for dinner. I put in the rest of the butter, sauteed the onions, then put in the already cooked potatoes and crab, and lastly the romaine. When it was all hot, I dished it onto a plate, poured over the last of the homemade salad dressing, and sat down to eat. I’ve had some of the best meals out of that electric frying pan, and a million dollar view from our container cabin that makes it taste all the better. A great week with the nephews.

Paul’s daughters, with help from the rest of us, put on a great memorial for Paul. It was held at the Moose Club in Petersburg. At Paul’s request. It was his go to place to take people for dinner. And where he participated in sports’ pools for decades. The place was packed.

Kris gave a long biography of Paul’s life. I think everyone there learned something they didn’t know about Paul. I didn’t know Paul had been on the city council at one time. There were lots of pictures of Paul on tables, and many of the model airplanes he made in his lifelong hobby hung from the ceiling.

His grandson told a funny story about bugging his grandpa all day on the boat about seal bombs, and at the end of the day, Paul finally relented and uncharacteristically handed his grandson a lit seal bomb!  The grandson retreated to the back deck and threw it off the boat before it blew his fingers off.

I met Paul on the road from Freetown to Bo in Sierra Leone in about 1987. His daughter Nina had arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer a year before me from Georgetown, where she attended college with Patrick Ewing. She worked in a coastal village introducing improved fish smokers, if I remember correctly.

I had just graduated from UAF, and, on the advice of another mentor, Don Jackson, I joined the Peace Corps to work as a fish farming extension agent. Paul and Nevette were over visiting Nina and I just happened to meet them on the road. This was before I met Sara or lived in this part of Alaska.

Years later, I would meet and marry Sara when I moved to Juneau. Sara, it turns out, had been friends with Nevette since they were in high school. Paul came up to me at a troller meeting in Petersburg when I was there working for ADFG in about 1997. It was the first time I’d seen him since we met in Africa.  That started a friendship that grew stronger every year till he passed away this past Aug 1.

Paul and his best friend Tyler duck hunted together for decades. Paul was very secretive about just where they went down the channel from the house. So much of that trip was tradition and culture between the two of them. I knew I was “in” when I got invited on my first of several duck hunts with Paul.

Their duck blind was a large tree that had, I assume, come down the Stikine River. Paul said the tree had been there since he first came there duck hunting – so likely the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. The saltwater had preserved it well.

You had to get to the island as the tide was flooding, and be sure you left before the tide had fully ebbed, or you might be there another tide cycle before you had enough water to get home or back to the Forest Service cabin. We beached the boat on the shoreline opposite the tree, then hauled in more shells then we’d ever shoot in a weekend. Then the beer.

Paul tossed out decoys onto the mud flat in front of the log blind at shooting distance. When the tide came in far enough, it would float the decoys, and then the ducks should start flying in to them.

Paul then told me he hoped I didn’t mind, but since we had to wait for the tide, he and Tyler liked to enjoy a beer waiting for the ducks. Sounds good to me, I said. Then he said we also like to listen to the Seahawks game (it was a Sunday) that was carried by the local Christian radio station, as it didn’t seem to bother the ducks.  I told Paul I thought maybe we were Siamese twins separated at birth!

Paul sat at one end of the log, and Tyler at the other in the root wad.  They had me a short distance from Tyler is some other sort of woody cover. I’d hear Paul yell down to Tyler asking if the game was on yet, and Tyler would yell back, “No Paul, it’s time to pray!”. That was the beginning, really, of a lifelong relationship.

From that point on, the phone calls between us became more frequent. In the last decade, they were weekly and more. I started going down to Petersburg for every Super Bowl, and we were joined by Kris, Steve, and Dick – and Tyler when he was in town. All now my friends, too. In later years, I also went down for the college football championships, and maybe a college basketball final.

The night before Paul’s memorial, Sara helped Nevette and Nina and Andrew and Peter put on a meal for several dozen people who gathered at the family house on arrival from out of town for the celebration. King and coho salmon from Petersburg, moose sausage, Portugal seafood tins, and imported cheeses from us, and baked goodies for desert from the in-towners that joined us.

The family house has become one of the most familiar houses I know now, having spent so much time there over the past decades. I always feel at home there, and glad the girls are hanging on to it.

After Paul’s celebration at the Moose, we again gathered that evening at Paul’s house, with left overs from the night before and left overs from the Moose Club. Most of the wine and booze was taken care of as well.

The next morning, Steve rode his ebike to the house, and he and I went up to the Petersburg landfill for scavenge day. We got there shortly after opening at 9 am, and one guy who had got there before us was busy taking part an electric box of some kind. A fresh 4 inches of snow overnight covered everything, making it a little difficult to see just what was there.

I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. The last time I was there, I was looking for seine netting, which I found right away in a recycle tote designated for fish netting. Then Steve helped me get some beautiful aluminum plate that now serve as the bases for the downriggers and pole holders on the tug. I also gathered hundreds of dollars worth of stainless steel nuts and bolts and washers.

On this morning, I spotted some kind of structure that may have been an antenna tower, all taken apart and in a bundle. There were multiple heavy wires with loops crimped in both ends that were stays to hold the tower in place. Each end was attached to a pad eye with a stainless steel quick link. I tried loosening one of the links by hand, and it backed right off. Soon, Steve and I were busy removing every link on the pile of antenna tower. We got 37 of them in the end, worth about $300 or more at the hardware store. Steve took some lengths of the wiring and a couple links to use on Paul’s boat, and that’s all he wanted. I took the rest of the links home with me to Juneau. They will come in handy on the boat or for pulling logs down the hill if I can keep track of them, which is always an issue with a hoarder.

We got back to the house from the dump at 1030 am, and people were gathered for coffee and pastries. Most of us were on the 1 pm flight north to Juneau and beyond. An hour later, we started to filter out to drive the short distance to the airport and fly to Juneau on a beautiful crisp sunny winter day.

Paul would be happy with his weekend.

A mutual friend of my nieces’ cousin called on the cousin’s suggestion. I know the mutual friend just casually through trapping correspondence, and remember he told me his sister lived in Madagascar when I was planning my work trip there.

His two boats were dead for now, and he needed to go out and check his trapline. I’d told him years ago if he ever needed someone to go along, I wanted to go to see what dryland trapping for big furbearers was all about. Did I want to take him in my boat tomorrow?  You bet, I said.

The hour was late – approaching 10 pm – as he’d already tried asking a dozen other friends, and only came to me when the cousin suggested it. Normally, I’d like to leave early on such a trip, but the boat hadn’t been out of it’s stall in over a month, and I didn’t recall just how much fuel I had. So, I told him to meet me at 8 am, in case we needed to stop at the fuel dock.

We left at 8 am, as tanks were nearly full. It’s a 3 hour ride over to the mainland where his traps are in my 6 knot boat. It was a fine winter day, with some blue patches of sky and almost calm seas.

I put him off into the punt to row ashore at his first beach trapline. I was having issues again with my charging system on the boat, so ran offshore a bit, killed the engine, and changed the V Belt. That seemed to help, and I could tell now that the other belt was stretched out, so maybe not working just right. I wasn’t sure how long he’d be, and so I dallied around the boat putting things away and such. With nothing else to do, I put out my fishing gear to see if there were any king salmon around. I fished up and down the shoreline. No action, and nothing showed for feed on the sounder.

About 2 hours after I dropped him off, I saw him come down to the beach for a spell, and eventually to the punt. He radioed that he’d row down the beach to the point, check his traps there, and be done in about 20 minutes.

The 20 minutes turned into an hour. Eventually, I saw him coming through thigh deep snow through the trees behind the beach. He would pull something out of my view towards him, trudge a few steps more in the deep snow, and pull it towards him again. When he got almost to the waterline of the snow I could see it: he’d caught a wolf. A big wolf.

He pulled the punt down to the waterline, loaded his trapping gear, then dragged the wolf to the boat and rolled it in. Out he rowed. The wolf was massive. The largest I’d seen in person. The only other wolves I’d seen were on Prince of Wales Island, and they are smaller and leaner. This wolf looked all of 75 lbs, with huge feet. I can only imagine how impressive the 100+ lbs wolves are up in Alaska’s Interior. My friend also caught 3 marten – two of which were almost jet black in color. Much darker fur than those I’d caught on Admiralty Island or down by Craig.

We motored to the second beach, and repeated the process. My friend rowed to shore, and I fished. Nothing showing for feed on the sounder along this beach either, nor any birds working. This check was shorter, and produced one marten.

I dropped him at a third beach. I almost wasn’t going to fish here since I’d seen nothing at the other two spots, but there were a few gulls on the water. They weren’t diving on feed or anything, but looked like they were there for a reason. I put the gear out – I put 50 feet of wire out and fished in about 60 feet of water. I fished out of the little cove past the point where the beach turned north, then turned back into the cove. There seemed to be some feed on the sounder here and there. And then it happened. I looked back like I had all day, and this time the rod was bouncing up and down. I immediately thought I was in too shallow of water, but the sounder showed I was not. I put the boat in neutral, and ran back and grabbed the rod. The fish was taking drag. A few more runs, and I thought it was a keeper for sure.

When I got the line tight, I cranked up the down rigger wire the line had been attached to. Then stepped over the wolf on the deck to the other rod and down rigger. I managed to get both of them up and out of the way, playing the fish as necessary in between.

I got the landing net under the fish, and the king salmon was on board. I stunned the fish, removed the hook, broke a gill, and slid the fish carefully into a bucket of seawater to bleed.

It was almost dark now, but I put the gear back out and made a pass where I caught the fish. When I didn’t hook another, I cranked all the gear up, as it was now dark. My friend was soon rowing out, the twinkle of his head lamp moving to the rhythm of the oars. We got him on board and the punt secured for the run home. He caught nothing in his traps on this beach.

Two hours later, we neared the harbor, and  stopped at his last beach. He had a couple otter sets here, but neither connected.

We got back to the harbor, long after dark, about 9 pm.

As I tied up, I thought: I’m never leaving this place.