I took my skiff over to our cabin at Horse Island
yesterday afternoon. After 2 months of wrangling with
the state over regulatory issues, much of that stress
drained away when I rounded the corner to the boat
launch, and saw the mountains with snow through the
clear sunshine of the late afternoon. I’d collected
many issues of old Alaska magazines by listening to
our buy-sell-trade show. A lady had tried selling
them for a time, and then said the magic word “free”
and I was there asap. The old Alaska magazine were
stories written by ordinary Alaskans living all over
the state – from teachers to fishermen to trappers to
hunters. Not like today’s version, which is
essentially a tourist guide to the state.

I post-holed through the snow into the cabin with all
those magazines on my back and a few in a bucket in
one hand, food in the other. I stopped often to rest.
I was lucky Ron had been there a few days earlier, as
I at least had footprints to mark the covered trail,
which is easy to lose.

I spent the evening and next morning listening to the
bad news in Virginia and reading the life of Alaska
for which I came here for, but which I feel I was a
little late for. I’m sure people decades from now
will yearn for these “good old days” as well. Seeing
the freedom the early entrepreneurs had free of much
of the unneccsary and overbearing government
regulation we have today in fish handling made me know
those days are gone.

Today, I decided to take the long way around the
island, walking away from the boat first to the front
beach and then walking around the end of the island
back to the boat. This was much better, since it’s in
the big timber and there was no snow. As I rounded
the corner to the back of the island, a sound of
spring stopped me in my tracks: a hooter calling out
from Admiralty Island. These are the blue grouse that
inhabit our rainforest. The males begin staking out
territories and calling females by getting up into the
tree tops and “hooting”, which sounds like blowing in
a bottle. We usually hunt these birds during this
time of the year, but with all the snow, I don’t know
this year. We’ll have to see if we are able to resist
the sound of the hooters – snow or no snow.

On the way back to Douglas Island, I spied two
humpback whales. A cow and calf, I think. Another
sign of spring.

–
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

I went to Costa’s diner for my weekly installation of
news and views of owner Collette, a Juneau original.
If you get to Juneau, get to Costas. It’s right next
to the only stop light downtown.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t there. The place was
packed, but I got my coffee, wrote down my order on a
sticky note, and found a stool at the counter after
awhile in front of the window that looks out on
mainstreet.

I could see my truck parked. A raven flew and landed
on the tailgate. I have a canopy but no back window
in the canopy as I have a lift gate for getting half
totes of fish into my truck. The raven tried to look
unassuming, and kept checking that the coast was
clear. He then hopped down inside the bed, which has
always got some array of fish boxes and assorted other
stuff.

Every so often, I’d see the raven pop his head up to
look out the back to make sure the coast was clear,
and then go on with whatever he was getting in to.
The only thing I could think of was that he was
tearing open gel pacs.

Someone finally walked by, and that was all it took.
He hopped up on the tailgate as a lady approached on
the sidewalk, and when the raven realized she was
going to pass by the truck, he flew off.

When I got back to the truck, I saw he’d opened up the
pizza box I’d thrown there for recycling day, and had
cleaned up any morsels of tomatoes and cheese on the
box bottom – any eats are good eats this time of the
year for the raven. Free entertainment is always
good.

My breakfast arrived, and was down in no time – the
dreaded Mexican Breakfast Lasagna – and then off to work.

–
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

Spring is finally here. With snow down south, we’re
basking in ever longer days and highs in the mid to
upper 40s. Ranger Dug and I went out with the crab
rings to try our luck in the channel in front of town.
It’s pretty cool to be able to fish right in front of
a capital city of a state.

We caught maybe 6 or 8 dungeness and tanner crab
fishing for an hour or two. The rings are made of
rebar, about 6 foot diameter, with netting across the
rebar ring. You put some bait in the middle (we
usually use salmon scraps from my processor), and toss
the ring over with a line attached to it with a buoy
at the other end. We set about 5 rings out and then
put some water on, drink a cup of coffe, and check
them. If we do well, we throw the ring right back
where it was. If nothing, we move it deeper or
shallower to see if we can find where the crab are.
We caught lots of tanner crab that were just a hair
under the legal sized, showing the effect of the crab
fishery a month earlier that got most of the legal
sized ones. Those just undersized should be large
enough later this summer after their next molt.

After things slowed down on the Douglas Island side of
the channel, we moved to the mainland side, near the
mouth of Sheep Creek. As we were setting the rings –
I drive and try to watch our depth and Dug throws out
the rings at intervals, we happened to pass a black,
algae-laden bouy that looked like a crab pot that was
abandoned/lost. After we set the last ring, the wind
blew us back up the channel. Dug saw the black buoy
again and alerted me so we thought we’d check it.

When we brought it up, it was a dungeness pot just
loaded with huge dungeness crab and one or two
tanners. The pot was “ghost fishing”, as the prior
user did not put the required “bio twine” on the latch
strap for the pot. That strap keeps the pot lid
closed, but the strap is supposed to have a
biodegradeable piece of twine so that if the pot is
lost – like this one was – the twine will eventually
degrade and break and allow the crab to get out of the
pot. A pot without this strap just keeps fishing and
once the crab are in the pot they cannot get out. As
the crab in the pot die, they attract more crab, etc.
Not a good thing.

So, we brought back in the pot, notified the state
that we had the pot and that they could take it or
we’d, of course, keep it, and then made a lot of
friends happy distributing our bounty.

–
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

I spent my free morning before my flight on a 2.5 hour
bus tour around Rekjavik. We visited the national
museum , a big church, the “Pearl”, which is a
restaurant, snack bar and observatory atop the
geothermal hot water supply for the city. The
building stands on the highest point in town, and so
can gravity feed the home heating systems.

One interesting thing the guide pointed out that I
hadn’t noticed is that when you look across the
Rekjavik skyline, you see zero exhaust from any
buildings. No smokestack emissions of any kind. The
guide said if there is any smoke seen, the offending
source is quickly addressed. This makes for very
clear, pollutionless skies and is part of the Iceland
culture. I noticed that vehicles – even the buses-
did not spew out any noticeable exhaust, even in the
cold air, much unlike vehicles (my own included) in
Alaska.

With regard to population density, there are about
300,000 Icelanders on an island 100,000 sq.
kilometers.

Finally, I grilled the guide about the fishing
industry. He said that when the country went to and
individual fishing quota system, where the catch was
divided up somewhat like a stock in the stock market,
the larger companies quickly bought up most of the
fishing rights from the smaller boats. As the small
boats sold their quota, the processing plants they
supplied their fish to went out of business. This
caused a general migration of Icelanders from the
rural fishing towns to Rekjavik, where jobs are many.
He said the unemployment rate was under 2%. About 60%
of Iceland’s population now lives in the greater
Rekjavik area.

I flew out without incident. I’d hoped for another
bump ticket on an oversold flight, but it appears that
the flight the previous day – a Sunday – was oversold
due to the large number of college kids who came to
Rekjavik for spring break. I had an emergency row
seat right at the door, so it was easy on and easy
off. I lucked out again in Boston, where the US Air
ticket I was supposed to have flown on the day before
was cheerfully reissued and I got out without further
cost or delay.

–
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

I went to the mineral hotsprings spa here today the
Blue Lagoon (BlueLagoon.com). It’s between Rekyavik
and the international airport, so I just stopped there
on the way to my flight. GREAT! I was off the bus,
and in the water in less than 10 minutes. You can
rent swim suit and a towel for about $10, then don’t
have to worry about wet clothes for the suitcase ride
home.

The milky water was just the right temp, and I stayed
in for 90 minutes, which is forever for me. Then I
took a bump on an overbooked flight, so get to spend
another night here, AND now have a free ticket to come
back! The Iceland Air flight service agent was
extremely helpful – got me a room, meals, bus ride to
and fro, the free ticket, a great seat on the next
flight out, and even walked me all the way back
through customs and to my bus!

Ate a variety of seafood at dinner tonight – shrimp,
gravalax, cod a few different ways. I was not
expecting the great food here, and sure am enjoying it.

–
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

Touring the capital today. Went to the fishing docks
first and looked over the trawlers and a few smaller
boats that I didn´t know if were commercial or charter
boats. Then found my way to a greasy spoon on a side
street on the wharf. It was smoke filled with
everyone drinking coffee, so it looked a fisherman´s
coffee klatch to me. They looked like they were
talking about fish and politics. None of them had
boots on, and with all the boats in town and the
harbor pretty full I surmised it´s off time for them
and they are in there by force of habit.

Snowing and blowing hard now. I went into a store and
spent a cool 4,000 kroners on my wife and friends.
Good thing is, it sounds like alot, but I don´t even
know how much it is!

I went to the maritime museum along the wharf as well.
Nice display, and always fun to see that fishing is
pretty much the same anywhere you go.

I also went to a sportsmans shop. Looks like salmon
fishing and duck hunting and pull-behind campers are
the primary outdoors activities. Saw some cool
campers, and would be a great way to spend tooling
around Iceland in the summer. I also thought how nice
it would be not to have to worry about bears or snakes
or anything else – I think you could sleep in a tent
with no worries except for maybe mosquitoes.

The service here is definitely of a different tone
than it was up country. Many of the clerks, etc. are
pretty cranky, even when they´re trying to sell you
something. I must say the two ladies who were
volunteering in the store I bought the gifts at (it
donates proceeds to charity) were delightful.

We leave tomorrow. Hope to hit the blue lagoon hot
springs for a ‘swim’ as they call it here on the way
to the international airport and back to Boston.

–
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