Still out next to the pack ice of the Arctic Ocean. I was supposed to be on my way home today, but the temps dropped below 40 below and stayed there, and that’s the cutoff for the helicopter to fly from Deadhorse to here to get us. One more day of work and pay won’t hurt. It’s too cold for the crew to build ice road in this, so lot’s of gabbing and card playing and tv watching and internet surfing tonight here.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

I’m at Pt. Thompson in the Eastern Arctic Ocean coast of Alaska. It’s about -40 F degrees here tonight. When I get home to Juneau, it is forecast to be about 40 F degrees. A gain of 80 degrees.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Caught 2 more marten this check. One where I caught the first one of the year, and the second at a set where I caught one last year. Also had one trap snapped but no fur. Went back to the cabin and skinned all three according to instructions I found doing it head first. Worked pretty well, and glad to have it done. Now need to make some stretchers.

Weather looks like it’s coming up after tomorrow, so will probably have to go and pull the line tomorrow or might not be able to get back over before I leave for start of winter work on the slope. It’s been about 40 during the days and all the snow was gone in the woods. Lots and lots of tracks on the beach where we got the last deer of the season last week, and the scat looked like the deer had been eating sea weed.

–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

I went over to Admiralty to set some traps for marten and maybe deer hunt the last day of deer season. I stopped in the cove where we’d got the deer two days before, and the boat that we saw there a few days ago was back. I anchored the boat off shore and quick-stepped it to check my set and make a couple others along a cliff where I’d seen marten tracks.

I was not gone long, but when I got back to the beach, my skiff was dry. And since it was only 2 hours after low tide, I knew I was in for an 8 hour or so wait. The 3 hunters returned to their boat at the same time. They had anchored out their boat with a raft, and taken the raft to the beach. When they loaded up to go, they put two fair-sized deer in the boat, so they had a good day.

I spent the first hour getting my skiff together for the long wait. I had a small cook stove and plenty of fuel for it, so that took care of heating my little canvas cabin. I also have an am/fm radio that will run by hand crank if the batteries die, and so tuned that to the college bowl football games. And I had a thermos of coffee, plenty of water, and Farm Show and Fur-Fish-Game magazines to read, so basically it was like being at our cabin but with less head room.

I hoped a deer might come out on the beach at low tide. After awhile, I loaded my rifle and took a walk to at least try to hunt the last day of the season, and set a trap further down the beach. I also went in to check out a cabin nearby in case I needed to hole up for the night. The cabin was padlocked, and I couldn’t find any hidden key. I’d not break in unless my situation turned into an emergency.

I walked down to a point and made a marten set. Then I went up the hill a ways and hunted my way back to the skiff. I called several times, but no deer. I did see some marten tracks, so was hopeful for some success there.

Back to the skiff, and I listened to the game and read my magazines. The tide was a long time in coming. It was not till 9 pm or so that it finally floated the boat. I idled out of the cove. Towards town there were the town lights that showed, but where I was going – to our cabin – it was near pitch black with wind and driving rain and snow. As I left the cove, I thought I should go back where I was as that was the safe thing to do, but kept going.

I had to drive standing up so I could try to see, behind the little canvas cabin, where I can barely reach the steering wheel. Since I’d been traversing this channel for over a decade, I knew where the reefs were. All I could do was try to stay in the middle, but it was hard to steer in the wind at just above idle speed, see with the driving rain and snow, and make out just where I was in the channel. I thought many times this was a dumb thing to do, but once I got started I just kept going.

I finally made it to the anchorage without incident. I put the boat on the easy-out anchor line, and hustled to the cabin. Got the gas lights lit, the propane oven going and a pizza with shrimp from Craig in, and then the wood stove going. Finally, a stiff drink and life was good again.

I got up today and cleaned up the cabin, which needed some tidying as we’d unexpectedly left two days earlier. I was not going to chance checking the traps I’d set the day before and getting tided again. I headed up to the traps I’d set a few days earlier, instead. The first I could see from the boat, and it looked undisturbed. The other set was in the woods where we’d left 3 gut piles on the beach from the deer we’d taken there a few days earlier. That trap had the first marten of the year hanging from the 120 conibear from the newspaper tube set. There still looked like lots of other marten tracks on the beach and it looked like another marten came in and got the bait the trapped marten was after, so I reset the successful trap and set another.

The trip to town was enjoyable, with light rain and a southerly chop for some of the crossing. I spent the evening butchering 2 of the 4 deer hanging in the garage, and now to get ready for Sara’s 50th birthday party tomorrow.
–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

My new hunting partner this year, Matt, was good luck again this trip. Low tide was mid-day here in late Dec. With several inches of snow on the ground, it was a good bet deer would be on the beach looking for some easy food in the form of kelp. So Matt and I started down the back of our home island, but it’s very rocky and not much good for walking by man or deer. By the time we got to the good beaches, the wind was snorting across a point out of the Taku River, so we headed across Stephens Passage to Admiralty.

The crossing was not that fun. We didn’t get the full force of the wind and seas till we were out in the middle, but managed to make it safely across. These are some of the few times an open boat, with no canvas “cabin” as I have, would be better because every time a wave washes over the windshield, we’re temporarily blinded and sometimes don’t see the next wave coming.

We finally go past the Horse Island reef, and then proceeded to round Horse Is, where our cabin is located. I knew there were reefs there, and the tide was such that they weren’t quite exposed. The bad visibility made for some seat-of-the-pants navigation. Matt saw one reef just in time, barely under the waves. We did bump the lower unit once, but luckily incurred no damage.

Another Matt, the son of a good friend, had spent the previous few days at the cabin with 2 of his buds, and I had already heard from his dad they’d taken a big buck on the side of the ridge up from the beaver ponds. They had already left by the time we cruised the beach there.

We proceeded north, in the lee of Horse and Colt Island – the only decent water anywhere. We were not going to be able to anchor much of anywhere, though, because the tide was going out and the wind was blowing into the beach most everywhere.

I’d just seen 30 deer in a day cruising the beaches with my brother in law over Christmas south of here, so thought we’d better try it. We saw no bucks in the bucks-only area there, but some may been bucks that had lost their antlers and we just couldn’t tell.

We went by one tiny anchorage that had a boat in it, and I made a mental note to remember that place as I’d not hunted their before. I did get one of my 2 marten there last year, but not with the wind in the same southerly direction.

We went around a point and Matt said “there’s two deer!”. I immediately did a U-turn to get the boat back on the south side of the point, out of sight of the deer. It’s been my experience that deer will bolt from the beach if a boat motor changes sound as it does when it slows down. Or, of course, if you beach in sight of them.

I told Matt to go after them, and he headed down the beach to the point, where hopefully the deer were still standing on the opposite side. I threw the anchor out, knowing the beach was mostly sand and pebble, and we were about at low tide, so if the boat beached, it wouldn’t be long before we could float again.

I grabbed my rifle and headed into the woods above the boat and cut across the point in the woods. I was hurrying to fast, and didn’t quite get my foot over a log, tripped, and went right on my face and shoulder. Luckily, the gun did not get snow in the barrel as I forget to put electric tape over the muzzle, something I rarely forget. I moved about 10 yards, and thought I saw a flash to my left – just like the big buck a month ago. I moved up to where I thought I saw it, and then saw a medium deer moving away from me. I tried calling softly, but the deer would not stop. I didn’t see other deer or tracks close behind this one’s, so hoped it was not of the group we’d seen on the beach.

I moved down another 30 or 40 yards when Matt started shooting. At his third shot, I saw a deer stagger and fall just inside the trees from the beach. Another deer kept coming right up past me. I’d stepped up on a log for a better view when the shooting started, and now tried calling softly to stop the deer. It ran past me, but I didn’t see it continue, so I carefully stepped down from the log and then saw the deer between two trees. I had a clean shot, the deer hunched up, ran 20 yards and tipped over.

Matt soon came up in the woods full of adrenaline. He whistled, and I called back and said I’d gotten the one deer. He said he got one, too. I realized he meant a deer down on the beach, and said I saw another one fall just in the woods, and could still see it from where I stood. That’s when he realized he’d shot 2 deer. So the adrenaline rose again.

We dragged the deer all down to the snow line of the beach, then I went and brought the boat around so we could get our knives out of our packs. We dressed the deer, and I carried, instead of dragged, them to the boat to avoid loading them with sand and gravel. I made a marten set just inside the woods, as there appeared to be marten tracks going from the woods to the beach (I can’t yet tell mink from marten tracks). With all the gut piles, I hope it attracted some attention.

I made 2 more sets on the way back, and we reached the cabin just about dark. Lucky for us the cabin was still pretty warm from the boys stay there. I could also see I needed to start getting more firewood bucked-up and split.

The next day the plan was to hunt till about 2 and get Matt back so he could work today. We anchored where we’d seen the boat the day before, and split up. I checked my set, but no luck. I then moved uphill and ended up finding a large muskeg and brand new country I’d never hunted. There were still tracks going in and around the muskeg as the snow was not so deep as to cover all the plants. I tried calling in a few places, but nothing showed. I was sort of turned around and tried to get my bearings, but my GPS batteries had died. I pulled out the compass, got my bearings, and headed south. Right off the edge of the muskeg I was surprised to see water already, and I got down the forest edge at the beach, which was up a 30 foot cliff. I walked the game trail along the cliff, and noted what I thought were lots of marten tracks, so plan to go back there and make a few more sets.

I got out to the beach about 140 pm, and saw Matt coming down the beach. I also noticed the wind had increased, and it looked pretty lumpy in Stephens Passage, but not so bad that we couldn’t cross. When Matt reached me at the boat, I asked if he’d seen anything, and he said “just the one hanging in the tree!”. I’d never heard him shoot. He said he went up a trail that lead to a small clearing, and moved a doe in the brush alongside it. He waited to see if the doe would bolt or not, and it didn’t. Then he got ready to shoot, and softly called a few times. The doe started walking parallel to him, and gave him the shot.

He went up and got the deer, and carried it to the boat as he’d seen me do with the deer yesterday. We loaded up and headed to town.

We just cleared the reef north of the islands and felt the full brunt of the wind. As we got further into Stephens Passage, the waves got bigger and bigger and I didn’t like the looks of it. Again, the waves would temporarily blind us as the earlier crossing, only these waves were bigger. I turned into the waves to head back to the lee of the islands. Matt would have to miss work.

We bounced so hard, and maybe even went airborne once or twice, as we slugged our way back to the lee of the islands. It was a welcome relief to get back to the anchorage and the warm cabin. My head hurt as if I might have incurred a slight concussion from the brief of filling-ejecting pounding getting back.

We crossed today in calmer seas. I think much of the rough water yesterday was a result of the tide running against the wind. We left at high tide today, and it was much calmer. We made it across Stephens Passage, then I had Matt drive as I pulled the plug to drain the copius water in the bottom of the boat from taking on waves and probably some from the snow. Water can also freeze from sitting on the trailer, and then will melt when the boat goes back into salt water.

When we got to the boat ramp, the snow storm forecast arrived at the same time. By the time we beached and were pulling deer out for Matt to take to the garage, the wind was honking, and I couldn’t see Admiralty. So, I decided to play it safe and come home for now and get back to my trapping when the weather abated.

–

Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

A true pioneer of salmon trolling passed away today. Hard to believe. And I was quoted in the article since I put down an observation about John in my blog a few years ago. John Claussen was a true pioneer, and still lived in the remote village of Pelican. More can be read about him in trolling books like Pacific Fisherman. Here’s an online memorial from today’s Alaska Dispatch:

Alaska fishing legend dies
Craig Medred | Dec 27, 2010

For more than 60 years, John Howard Clausen survived everything the wilds of Alaska and the Gulf of Alaska seas could throw at him, only to fall victim to a bizarre accident fueled — some suspect — by pre-Christmas excitement. Clausen was backing an oversized all-terrain vehicle up to an floatplane in Pelican two days before Christmas to unload to gifts for friends when the vehicle went off a dock. The 89-year-old longtime commercial fisherman was trapped in the ATV’s enclosed cab. By the time a diver got to him 38 feet underwater 18 minutes later, he was dead.

The pilot of the plane had offered to unload, but Clausen was a man used to doing things for himself, even in his later years.

“He said, ‘No, I’ll get it,'” friend Karen Stepanenko said by telephone from Pelican Monday. “He was just so excited and in a hurry.”

Nearly all of Pelican, which has lost so much in recent years, spent the Christmas holiday grieving. Almost since the founding of the small community built on a boardwalk along Lisianski Inlet near the northern end of the Alaska Panhandle, Clausen had been a community mainstay.

When an Alaska Coastal Airlines plane went down in the Chichagof Island mountains south and east of Pelican in 1954, Clausen was the first to rush to the aid of the survivors of the crash. “A fisherman identified as John Clausen left on foot for the wreck scene soon after daybreak from Pelican, carrying only a gun,” wrote one of the newspapers of the day.

Clausen actually had more than a gun with him. One of the survivors of the crash, noted Alaska Native elder Charlie Joseph Sr., in his autobiography remembered the cookies and comfort Clausen gave the injured man and his wife.

“Fisherman” would be Clausen’s perpetual identity, though he was more than that. As with most who succeed at life in rural Alaska, he was a capable jack-of-all trades. He built his own offshore boat for trolling salmon and helped pioneer the salmon troll fishery on the Fairweather Grounds off the northern entrance to the Alaska Panhandle. The area was destined to become famous for the king and coho salmon supplied to high-end Pacific Northwest restaurants, the tough-minded people who worked there, and the treachery of its seas.

Clausen somehow survived it all.

“John is a mountain of muscle and sinew and bone,” fellow troller Mark Stopha of Juneau wrote on his blog only three years ago. “I saw him climbing up the ladders to attend to his tattle tales and trolling pole tag lines in the morning. Not that unusual in most circumstances, but John, I believe, is well into his 80s. A quiet, reserved man, he’s a living legend and commercial fishing pioneer and still lives with his lovely wife in Pelican, Alaska.”
ATT

Clausen would move his wife, Betty, to the Sitka Pioneers Home not long after, but he himself couldn’t leave his beloved Pelican — a community that had fallen on tough times.

Once a major Southeast fishing port, Pelican was built around a company — Pelican Cold Storage. The community was, in fact, named for the F/V Pelican, the ship that came north with the materials to build the first cold storage in 1938.

By the end of the 1980s, the year-round population of Pelican was up over 200 people with twice that many or more collecting there in summer. Then the Alaska fisheries began to change. The halibut derbies that had resulted in short fisheries with big catches that fueled the cold storage were restructured to guarantee fishermen more time to fish and a steadier supply of flatfish.

Suddenly, both halibut and salmon fisheries became all about “ocean-fresh” product, and ocean-fresh was more easily delivered from Sitka, south along the coast from Pelican. Sitka has a runway servicing jet aircraft. Pelican doesn’t even have an airstrip. As markets changed, the cold storage struggled. In 2004, the Juneau Empire, the newspaper in Alaska’s capital city 70 miles to the east, headlined “Pelican, Alaska: A company town without a company.”

Eventually, the cold storage closed. The city now owns it and is trying to get it restarted.

Pelican, Stepanenko said, “is still a going place,” but it just can’t seem to catch a break. The latest tragedy only adds to the suffering.

Someone tried to grab the ATV just before it went off the dock, Stepanenko said, but it got away with Clausen still trapped inside.

“It lurched off the dock and struck the pontoon of a Dehaviland Beaver (floatplane) where the ATV hesitated before entering the water and sunk with Clausen in the cab,” troopers said.

An obituary in the Juneau Empire described Clausen as “a square-headed ol’ Norwegian, as stubborn as he was, well, stubborn.”

His friends said he would not have objected to the description. “John always assumed he’d live forever, and now no one will ever be able to convince him otherwise. It’s just like him to win an argument,” the obit added. “A memorial will likely be held in early February, weather permitting. A small Viking longship full of afterlife necessities will be cast aflame into the sunset in his honor.”

Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com