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

Took the bus from Akureyi to Rekyavik today, a 6 hour
ride of which I probably slept for 3 hrs. Narrow
roads wind through the mountain valleys. There were
the famous Iceland horses on farms all along the road.
Each farm seems to consist of a fenced in area of
grassland, with horses on it. I also saw a few cattle
and sheep, but horses seem to be everything unless I
missed something like hogs that were inside. Houses
are simple and very neat. The simple life.

I asked the bus driver what they did with all the
horses, and I couldn´t understand only making a living
owning horses for riding. He said they also are used
for meat, which made alot more sense for making a
living farming.

Essentially, the bus ride was through horse farm
country about all the way here, and few homes at that.
It´s mostly very low vegetation or no vegetation from
the valley right up to the mountain tops, which are
not far apart, creating a very surreal, rural sense of sightseeing.

–
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

We toured two plants here today. One in Akureyri and
another in a small town of about 1500 people 20 miles
or so from here. Both are modern plants, highly
mechanised. One plant was doing shrimp and the other
cod. In both places, the raw product comes in one end
and a finished product comes out the other end, ready
for market. Very clean, and the workforce looked
dedicated. Pay here is about 13 dollars/hour, similar
to wages paid in the Danvers plant we toured near
Boston, and well below Alaska processing wages.

The plant was not large, but very sophisticated, with
computerized machinery. At the cod plant, fillets
come down a line to a row of women workers, who slice
the fillets into several different cuts. The women
are paid a premium for fast, quality cutting, and some
make an extra 3 to 4 dollars an hour, according to the
tour guide.

The weather was sunny and warmer today with less wind.
After the tour, I took a hard nap, still adjusting
from the 9 hour time change from Alaska. I then took
a walk around town. I ate at Greiffins Restaurant. I
wanted to try something local, so I had the salt cod.
It was steamed, on top of moussed potatoes, and the
that was surrounded by a red wine sauce which
contained some fresh bell peppers. Very, very good.
And service is wonderful here.

Tomorrow, instead of taking the plane back to
Rekyavik, I´m taking the bus. 6 hours through the
countryside that will be spectacular if today´s
weather holds.

Prices are somewhat higher here for goods. Although
it sounds like heating (all geothermal) and
electricity (all hydro) are not expensive. Would be
interesting to see what the total cost of living is,
not just comparing the price of a beer here vs.
Juneau. Lots of land with not lots of people, either,
so I wonder what housing costs are.

–
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