I got a text from a young married couple from Craig up here fishing. Do you want a sockeye? I think- my goodness, I have so much king in the freezer already…….- of course I want a sockeye. I wanted to see them anyway, as a bunch of canned goods from our pantry didn’t make it to them when the boys picked up the swim step they brought up for me on their boat from the friends we bought it from in Craig on facebook.
When I get down to their boat, the wife now wants me to take maybe two sockeye. And a steelhead. I say they must have friends who can use it. All our friends are fishermen, she said. They have fish. So we settle on a big sockeye and a steelhead.
When I get home, I see my neighbor is home, so I call her to see if she and her three young kids want a fish. Sure! She says. I tell her I have a sockeye and a steelhead. She said she didn’t know what a steelhead was, but knew she liked sockeye. I said you are a Juneau girl and know how to cut up a fish, right? To which she replied yes, I am a Juneau girl, and no, I don’t know how. Okay, I said. I’ll go cut it up and be over.
So I get out the cutting board and fillet the sockeye. It is beautiful. As good as it gets. Turns out the gillnetters know how to pressure bleed. The meat is clean as a whistle, with no blood. Wow.
I take the two sides of sockeye over to her, and we make a plan to teach her how to cut up fish. Then I ask about bucking up her logs for firewood. What’s bucking up mean? I explain it’s cutting the wood with a chainsaw to length. Then you split the wood so it will go in the stove. With a splitting machine, she asks? Well, I split by hand. I can see I’ve got some teaching to do here, and hopefully an eager student.
I come home and fillet the steelhead. It’s a white fleshed steelhead. Which I’ve never seen or heard of. I’ve caught many white king salmon, and just 3 white coho, but never heard of white steelhead. Huh! I let the fishermen know, and they haven’t heard of them, either.
Sara and I eat the sockeye frames from the fish which we gave the fillet sides to the neighbor, and save the steelhead for tomorrow to try and maybe give some away to other friends. I cut off the tails of the fish from the frames for crab bait with shears I brought back from the trip east just for this purpose from a family friend who is an employee of the Klein Tools cutlery where the shears are made in my hometown.
Returned to northern Appalachia to attend the funeral for our beloved cousin. A second cousin, I think is the proper term. The eldest daughter of my mother’s sister’s daughter. She passed away at 49 from an undiagnosed cancer that was found while she was in for a routine surgery a week earlier. She was the second of my second cousins to pass away. Both women and both from cancer, I think. And both way too young.
My cousin was a favorite of Sara and my siblings. She was full of energy. An EMT, she took care of my niece when she had a compound fracture of her arm at the remote Canada island on the Georgian Bay, calling in the Coast Guard, and keeping everyone calm. Sara was there for that. My nieces and nephews all loved her from their time spent with her in Canada. In her free time, she was all about scuba diving, and met her husband Ed through diving. They were quite a pair.
We went, as promised, to their wedding reception, which occurred sometime after the actual ceremony. Just like ours did. The only problem was her husband wasn’t there. Just a cut out of him, as he got called to work if I remember right. This wasn’t how I wanted to meet him. I wanted to meet him when the both of them finally came to visit us. Hopefully he’ll still come. And others from the gathering.
I was glad to see the mother of the first second cousin who passed away years ago. I can’t remember just when, and not sure I knew she passed away at the time. I hadn’t seen her mother in maybe 30 or 40 years, and it was good to catch up.
Last week also corresponded with alumni weekend in my hometown, and it was good to see several school mates. We’re moving up the “old” ladder at these events, with fewer and fewer of the older classes there, and we are becoming the old people. And so it goes. Listening to unprompted racist shit from people I’ve known since childhood makes me know it won’t be a bad thing when my generation and those ahead of me pass on. Hopefully the younger ones will do better. I wish I had more hope that they will. We’re all products of our upbringing to some extent.
Our childhood home is soon to be razed. The neighbor bought it, and is taking it down. And it’s time, I think. Many have lived there since my dad sold it, and most every time it was repossessed when payments couldn’t be made. The young neighbor was married to the daughter of one of our childhood neighbors across the street. He was happy to have us look around and allowed us to take anything we wanted. I took a little piece of siding that was put on when I was young. Just before we left, I reentered the house to stand in the room where my mom passed away, and that was good.
This is the 5th trip out of state since last September, between overseas volunteer fisheries assignments and funerals. Good to touch down last night on the plane home and know summer season is here and lots of family and friends coming in for boat trips over the next 2 months and I have no plans to go Outside for awhile. Glad to be back where I belong.
Time to replenish the wood we burned this winter. I waded up through the lush behind our garage to see trees and logs were down above the garage. I forgot about all the wood there from taking down the dangerous trees last year. I can’t fathom how I moved these logs to where they are, but I did somehow. Now to get them down to the driveway to buck up.
I used the truck and, depending on how far away the log was, I used either a short piece of chain and tow strap combo, or a length of blue line I bought over the winter for tie up lines for the tug when the temperature is below freezing, to pull them down to the driveway. I yarded out the logs, then started bucking them up.
I used the saw my dad bought for me – a Stihl 028 – when I drove to Alaska for the first time in 1983, until the bar seized up. I tried finding a bar in town, but no luck. So I got out the 041 I bought from Ron when he left town to finish most of the cutting. Should be plenty of wood to fill the shed.
Now I can split the rounds as I have the stamina to do so, and fill the shed little by little. Good to get some good exercise after so much time on the boat.
Got to splitting today. I think, along with cross country skiing, my favorite exercise. I’m not all that excited about bucking up the wood with the chainsaw. But splitting? I like it. And satisfying to see the wood split, and the split wood start to pile up. I split til I’m dog tired, but try not to go past the point I’ll be very sore the next day. Plenty of time to pick away at it, and we won’t burn this wood for 3 more years.
Left Juneau about 830 am with Kurt. Forecast for northerly winds about 10 kts for the next 5 days or more. We had flat seas for 12 hours. Saw about 3 humpback whales and some Dall’s porpoise til we got down near 5 finger lighthouse, where there perhaps 6 whales feeding in the area. Anchored in Cleveland Passage about 830 pm. Set the crab pot in about 40’ of water. Kurt made smoked black cod and rice with quinoa for dinner.
Saturday, April 29
Left anchorage about 5:30am. A northerly chop rocked us gently starting about midnight. Crabpot held 2 sublegal king crab (we were fishing for dungeness crab). We stopped in Petersburg. Eric brought Paul to the Salty Pantry and we had lunch. One of the best places in the region to eat. Then we got fuel – 25 gallons for 21 hours of running. ~ 1.2 gallons per hour. Still hard to believe sometimes. We went over 100 miles on 25 gallons. We ran the Wrangell Narrows and only passed a couple boats the whole way. Actually, we’ve only passed a few boats the whole trip. We ran across Sumner Strait and anchored in Red Bay. I had my left over sandwich for dinner.
Sunday, April 30
Left Anchorage about 6 pm. Fished Port Protection for about an hour and a half with about 3 other boats and no fish caught nor seen. Headed down El Capitan Passage. Sea otters to count by the dozen. Only passed one boat and a tiny tug with a tiny barge all the way down to the entrance to Salt Lake Bay, where we anchored just before 8 oclock. We’ll fish at St. Philips tomorrow, where I’ve caught 5 kings in the past. Had pizza for dinner and listened to the Kraken beat the Avalanche 2 to 1 for their first playoff series win.
Monday, May 1
Anchored at the entrance to Salt Lake Bay. Fished St Philips, then Cruz Pass, for no fish. Fueled at the dock on False Island, then Brian met us with Howard’s truck to offload his shelves and barbecue and Ellen’s food. Tied up at the launch ramp float, then Brian took us to the container. We pumped up the tire on the truck, and opened up the container. All good in the container, except I found out later the wall by the middle window is soft from moisture on the inside. Kurt dropped me off at the boat, then drove over to the harbor while I took the boat over. We stopped at the store for alcohol and some food supplies, and went to the harbor master office to register the tug for harbor fees and Kurt stopped for some hootchies, etc at Log Cabin store. The clerk was a classmate of Mellissa.
Tuesday, May 2
Left the harbor about 5 am and arrived Santa Cruz about 740 am. Got the gear out fishing about 8 am. Caught a nice king on the hootchie Kurt had bought about 10 am. Doug Rholdes was also out fishing alone and caught a king at 10 am. One other boat came in an mooched at the outer rock at high tide. No body caught any more fish that we know of here. We fished til high tide, then anchored behind the island at the entrance to the bay and took a nap about 1. We started fishing again at 3 pm to fish the flood tide again. Saw our first black vbear of the trip later in the afternoon on the beach by where we had anchored. No fish by 730, so we headed to the back of the bay to find as safe a spot as we could with the wind now and if it changed overnight. I saved the entrails of the king and baited the crab pot with it near where we anchored. We listened to the Kraken – Dallas hockey game that came on after we listened to the Yankees game for Kurt. Seattle scored 4 goals in the first period, and Dallas 2. Dallas scored two more in the 3rd period, and the same Dallas player scored all four goals. Kraken won in overtime. Love the Sirius-XM satellite radio.
Wed May 3
Started fishing about 6 am. Got a nice king at 815 at about same spot as yesterday. No other boats present. At high tide, we headed to Tranquil and fished that for an hour or two, and no fish and nobody else fishing. Returned to find Brian and Ellen’s dock in, so tied up there, and packed the fish home. Kurt butchered the fish and I vac packed. We had collars and half a tail for dinner and it was excellent, of course. Then came back over to Brian and Ellen’s for a drink too many.
Thur May 4
Kurt left on Seaplanes at 9 am. Beautiful sunny day. I changed the gear oil, and getting the hang of doing both the oil and gear oil now.
Friday, May 5
Fished Point Tranquil starting at low tide. Might have had a strike at the cross but no fish on there when I got to the rod. I stopped in to talke with Ellen, Melissa and her friend from Anchorage, who are down for the weekend to send up a plane in parts from Fred on the barge to Anchorage, and do some bear hunting and fishing.
Saturday, May 6
Desperate searches for a welder finally turned up a friend of Steven P. Welder is stopping by after Little League today to assess the job, and hopefully he can get the steel window frames welded in tomorrow. He said to take out one window to start in case we can’t get them all done in one day. So, I took apart the inner window framing and trim from all three windows. Then took to cutting out just the middle window on the outside so I could remove it in the morning. If this frame looks like it’s going in just fine when Emmett starts, I can work on cutting out the other windows while he’s welding. Funny thing yesterday was when Emmett asked where I got the steel window cases and told him I’d had them welded by Tyler a few years agod, he said he was the one who welded them as he was working there then!
Sunday, May 7
Took out the middle window and measured it against the window and casing I just took out- looks like it good fit. Emmett showed up at 930 and got started. He went to school with my nieces. He said he got his welding certificate at Seward Tech Center and welded for awhile, then got his CDL and drove for DOT for awhile, and now works as an apprentice lineman for AP and T. He was missing some gizmo that would have made the job go faster, but he did the best he could with the equipment he brought. It took into the early afternoon to get the middle window done, and the other two will have to wait. He emphasized that he wanted to finish the job and that was a good sign. He helped me put the window into the new frame, and I did a less than professional job as usual putting it in.
I had the container torn apart inside and tools everywhere, so slowly putting things away. The inside smells like welding slag. I’ve got the Kraken game 3 on the XM, and they just scored 4 goals in the second period to none for the Stars.
Brian took Mellissa and John and Mellissa’s friend Jaime out king fishing and caught 5. They got a bear on Friday evening. So lots of luck. Brian sent me photos of 5 kings they all caught at 4:45 pm. I had 15 minutes to race to Log Cabin to get the magic spoons, which I did.
Monday May 8
Went to the king spot on the outer coast for an overnight. Realized when I left my big cooler was missing. I remembered I’d sprayed it out and put it on end to dry and it must have blown overboard during the recent storm. Caught 4 kings, including 2 shakers, all on the lure I got at the store just before closing. Anchored behind the island there and butchered and froze the two kings. I ran out of water, so now the big question: is there enough of the emergency water in the 3? Gallon jug to make coffee for a couple days. I also knew I could always run to a creek for water as I’m gonna boil it anyway.
Tuesday, May 9
Caught one king today. Came back to town and got about about 4:45 pm. Beautiful 2 days of fishing. Would have liked to have stayed another day or two but a blow is coming to the outer coast, so I came back in and can fish closer to town for awhile. Water crisis averted.
Wed May 10
Up early and down to boat as wind shifted from NW to SE. After hearing Craig area forecast, I took boat to the harbor, and fueled up along the way. Boat burned ⅔ of a gallon per hour in two trips for 12 hours of running and 40 hours of trolling and using the heater. Ran out with Brian to set a skate of long line gear. Crap, we might get pounded tomorrow pulling it, but he had thawed out octopus bait that he didn’t get to use when Mellissa was here so that’s why we were setting. When I got home, I put the Mariners game on and started making sugar kelp salsa from the 5 gallon bucket of it Ellen got me from the giveaway day from Sea Grove. I’d chopped it and froze it when I got it. Today, I thawed the frozen packages of kelp slightly so I could chop it further, then ground it more in our ancient Vita Mix. I needed 16 cups of kelp for a double batch of salsa, and it took most of the 5 gallon bucket of kelp, which was great. I love my sugar kelp. I make it as chunky as I can, and like it alot better than the then kelp salsa I buy in the store.
Spent 1030 am to 530 pm butchering the 200 lbs of moose meat I picked up from Alaska Air Cargo. The meat has nice and cool and in great shape.
I dropped off some meat to Chris and the fish plant, and we talked for awhile about this coming summer’s sale plans.
I took 50+ lbs of frozen moose meat from last year to the Sierra Leoneons as I know it will get used up soon. When I put it in their freezer, I was even happier, as they were low on fish and game. There weren’t very many salmon to be had from the beach last summer, and the 2 bears I sent up from Craig were gone, too. I felt even better when I left. I talked with Sam and Dorothy about school. Dorothy is growing fast.
When I got home, I texted several friends to come get some meat, and got to processing. I sent meat with Sara to work for her staff and Colette.
For jobs like this, it’s all about getting started, I think. Once I got going, it was easy to keep going. Lots to be thankful for, and one is not taking another moose! Part of one is plenty enough.
Friends stopped by during the day, and I told them the story of the trip to Bethel. Naomi stopped by, and brought with her berries and cherries for us. Bob stopped by. Then Max, who relived his catching a 20 lb king off the beach when fishing for dollies, and then the pain in having to release it since the season is closed! The Ukranians stopped by, excited to try something new, and asked how to cook it. Keith stopped by just as I finished with the butchering, and we got caught up on the scout troop and my old work place. When I ran to the valley to pay for the Empty Bowls fundraiser for the Glory Hall, my friend Mariya was there, and I gave her some moose, too. Finally, the eldest child from next door came by, and got me caught up on her joining all kinds of dance groups in town. I told her to be sure to hit us up for money when they are fund raising.
I took out some fresh moose, and sliced it into pieces. I put them in some hot olive oil, then salt, pepper and garlic powder. While they were frying, I got out some greens from our CSA, and cut it up for a salad. I put some salad left overs from Sara’s dinner container from some function I was lucky not to have had to attend last night. I turned over the pieces of moose, and turned off the heat so to just brown the other side and leave the moose rare in the middle. I let the moose rest a few minutes while I put a dressing I made from some home made blueberry salsa, mayo, mustard, olive oil and vinegar. I put the moose on the salad, and ate in satisfaction after a day of processing.
That was yesterday. Today is vac packing, burger grinding, and more vac packing day. First thing this morning, I took 50 lbs of burger meat and 5 pounds of organic pork fat to Jerry’s meats for them to make us brauts, louisiana hot links, and summer sausage. I took some meat to Scott, the owner, for himself, and dropped off more meat to Jeffy at Dick’s. Sara took in some meat to Maridon.
The moose meat looks so good, as it was butchered in the snow in the winter, so never gets much of a chance to get dirty or warm.
Now to the finish with packaging and on to readying for a boat trip to Craig.
I took the moose meat to air cargo this morning to send to Juneau. It took an hour and a half to get it booked. not that I was in a hurry.
Pro Tip: AK Air club 49 members can send up to 100 lbs of cargo anywhere AK Air flies in the state for $49.
I was slightly over 100 lbs because we used a luggage scale that obviously wasn’t precise and that created problems charging for the first 100 lbs at the special rate and the 7 extra pounds at regular rate.
Next time, I’ll put the meat on the scales at airfreight and then add or take out meat to get it to 99 lbs and that will make it easier on everyone.
Doug, Ashley, Val and I left for a picnic an hour later. We ran snow machines upriver about 20 miles to a tributary of the Kuskokwim River and had lunch there. We cooked moose brauts and reheated pizza over a birch fire for lunch, with a PBR. Then I took a nap in the sun. A perfect afternoon.
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