Home Mark Stopha,Alaska

Another Trip of a lifetime up the Taku River

Leon took me up the Taku River to subsistence fish.  After a couple days of really heavy rain that followed days of just plain rain, we were welcomed to the trip with partly sunny skies and no rain.   The river was very high with the earlier torrential rains, and as we traveled at high tide, it was tough to see where the channel was and where the submerged sand bars were.  The first part of the trip in the saltwater is easy.  As we got near the first of 4 or 5 glaciers, we collected some glacier ice to keep the fish cool.  Then the fun starts.
Once you leave the ocean and enter the  mouth of the river, the river widens and it’s hard to tell where it’s shallow and where there’s a channel to run a boat.  Many Juneauites have cabins up the river near the Canadian border, and they have big jet boats that are tailored for this trip, but not as efficient for an all around boat since jet boats are less fuel efficient than prop boats.  
GPS has certainly helped things as once you run the river without touching bottom and record it on your gps, you can follow your track with pretty fair confidence for the rest of the season.  If you only go up once a year like we do, you can plan to try to vaguely remember earlier trips, and also have confidence in your partner that if we find the shallows, I will hop out in my chest waders to push us to deeper waters and then hop back in to feel our way upriver.
We moved up the river, picking our way and finding shallows.  Then a year-round river resident passed us in his boat, and we quickly followed him.  We cruised past 5 or 6 glaciers, some that come right to the river edge. We picked up some glacier ice chunks floating in the water for our ice chests to keep our fish cool.  It’s like another planet. 
We made our way up to our fishing site to find flooding like we’d never seen before in earlier trips.  There was no beach to fish from, so I lived in my chest waders, which was fine as the air temperature wasn’t too hot and the water not too cold.  We set our net after greeting the fish technicians operating fish wheel operation, and settled in for an overnight trip. 
We scratched a few fish here and there, mostly sockeye, but with a coho here and there, a surprise king once in awhile, and a few pinks.  Leon had me bring a smaller meshed net than his as he’d heard that the sockeye – our target fish – were running small.  We set our net off a point 20 yards from our net.  It sunk out of sight in about 10 minutes.  We pulled on both the shore line and the buoy line, and it was solidly stuck.  I didn’t feel any give to make me think it could have been a tree, and thought it must be wrapped around a rock, and maybe when the river subsided, the net could be retrieved.  When Leon mentioned this to the young men at camp, they were having none of it.  Soon, they had the net pulled up and out of the river.  It had snagged on a submerged cottonwood tree.  It was so twisted up I didn’t try to unravel it, but will when I have more time. 
About an hour later, the tree dislodged, and the top of it popped up out of the water.  And right into Leon’s net.  The boys again came to the rescue, and separated the tree from the net, tied the tree off to their boat, and got it out into the main current and sent it on it’s way.  
We set up Leon’s tent, and he cooked us beans and sausage on a bun for dinner.  We napped through the short darkness with the fish wheel below our tent, croaking and groaning away in the river.
We fished till about 230 the next afternoon so we could catch the high tide home.  We caught enough fish for Leon, an old timer he was proxy fishing for, and a friend I was proxy fishing for.  I took home one small sockeye for us to eat for dinner, as I already had plenty of king salmon from June in the freezer.  
Still no rain for the ride home, although the clouds were moving in.  We make it down to the glaciers without incident, but were confused as which channel to take when we reached the first glacier.  Getting stuck in shallow water going downstream is bad because the current may force your water onto the shallows, making it difficult to move the boat back upstream to deeper water and jump in and get going before you’re pushed into the shallows again.
Luck was on our side again, as here comes a river boat on step coming our way.  We pull over and let the boat pass, then try to keep up behind them.  We tracked through some of the narliest areas, but the boat was much fast than we were, and we finally ground out on a gravel bar.  I jumped out, and luckily we were  on the upstream side of the channel.  We soon found the channel, I hopped in, and we tried to track the boat that was now just a speck on the horizon.
The rest of the trip was uneventful.  The water was flat, there was no wind, and the gillnet opening had closed so no gillnets to dodge. 
We stopped at Leon’s in the channel to get his proxy’s cooler, then continued to the harbor.   I took my proxy’s fish and headed home.  Only then did it start to lightly rain.
Once home, I cleaned the 10 sockeye for our proxy and the one for us, and delivered the fish to our friend.  Another trip of a lifetime. 

Snaggin’ Again

Andrew picked me up to go snagging at the release site pond out our road about 7 miles.   Unbelievably, Sam came along.  Perhaps by force….  Lots of people around the pond snagging.   An older man with a cart full of salmon said the fish were at the far end – where I caught them a couple days ago.  Andrew walked around one side of the pond, and I the other.  Another immigrant, from Sudan, said hello to me and waved to Andrew across the pond.  He already had 3 fish on the beach.  I waded across to my spot, and not long after, he caught his fourth.  I casted and casted and not a fish.  Then Andrew got one on.  As he landed it, Sam came down from his spot in the woods where he was on his phone, and helped land it with the gaff.  Then Andrew got a second.  Then a third.  And me.  Still not a bump.
I decided to join Andrew.  I stood next to him and cast.   Nothing for me.  Number 4 for Andrew.  Sam came down again.  By now, the no seeums were relentless.  Even with bug dope on, they were getting into the creases of my eyelids.  I knew now that what I thought was some sort of skill my first night was nothing but luck.  And glad for it.  I am happier to clean fish than to catch them, and I started in on the pile, and Andrew cleaned his last fish.
Sam was less than enthused to carry the bucket with 3 of the fish, but just like scouts, when it’s time to go, he’s first in line and off he went.  Andrew carried his last fish on a stringer, and I carried my rod and our gear.
Sam declared  he was not going fishing tomorrow when his dad indicated he was.  Andrew then reminisced how different his life was growing up in a village in Sierra Leone, and how lazy his son was living here in the US.  Andrew said his dad would take him hunting when he was 8, and place him in a spot in the forest and tell him not to move.  At night.  He and his dad each had a head light, and his dad said when he signaled with his light to Andrew, Andrew was to signal back that he was okay.  Then his dad would walk through the bush with his head lamp and shot gun, hunting for deer or monkey or whatever else moved in the bush.  Andrew said of course he was scared at first, but over time he got used to it and so is not afraid in the forest.
When Andrew was 14, the rebels came to his village during the civil war in Sierra Leone.  Because his dad had his ancient hunting shotgun, the rebels shot him in front of Andrew.    Sam is not far from 14, but in a completely different dimension growing up in Alaska with it’s running water, electricity, and free education, and not a care in the world.   Part of Andrew (and me) is glad for that.  But part of Andrew wishes his son had more skills than working a cell phone.  By the time Andrew was his son’s age, he had worked on his family farm for 10 years, as well as gone hunting with his father.  Part of him misses that life.
As he’s said many times, he’ll never leave Alaska.  Where can you live and fill a freezer snagging salmon from the beach, he asks?  And he hasn’t even started hunting with me because he’s not had the time, but he soon will with his new job.  While supporting his family here, and his family back in SIerra Leone, he managed to earn a master’s degree in addiction counseling, and he starts a new job doing that on Monday.  
I’m not sure about his kids.  His daughter is putting herself through college and having grow up until high school in Sierra Leone, she is a go getter and all she sees here, like her dad, is opportunity.  For Sam, Alaska is all he knows, and is just the place he lives, not a special place to be, and he may want to go to some other exotic places like Chicago or Miami and make his own way. 

Snaggin’ with Andrew

Andrew fishes most nights now, and I thought it was time to go along.  He catches fish from the beach along Gastineau channel, by snagging, which is legal.
We went to the pond at Fish Creek and Andrew led the way to his favorite spot – where the pond feeds into Fish Creek.  We casted for awhile, and had no luck, nor saw anyone catch anything.  There was evidence of fish entrails all around the pond that were either left there by fishers or pulled out by eagles, a dozen of which surrounded the pond, swooping back and forth.
I saw fish rolling at the end of the pond towards the other side.  I wore waders, and so I walked across the outlet of the pond to the point opposite Andrew, and cast out to where the fish were rolling.  This spot would also be reachable by walking all the way around the pond, but it would be a hike.  Clearly, people fished from the site as there were some fish entrails there.  
I had an extra large snagging hook and could cast 2/3 of the way across.   I cast and cast, but no luck.  I took a break and sat on a crooked tree and watched the water go by and the eagles fly.
Andrew was getting discouraged and yelled across that we could go at any time.   “One more cast” I said, and I let it fly.  
I felt a bump with a fish – my first of the night – but I didn’t connect.  I cast again, and about the third pull, the rod bent over and I knew I had one.  I quickly loosened the drag and tested it so the fish could take line as needed.  I worked the fish to the beach and conked it with my gaff.  The fish had another snag hook and wire leader it in.  Score number 1.  As I pulled the plastic jar out of my pack, my pack moved, and there in the gravel was a knife in a sheath!  Score number 2.   I got out my stringer, broke a gill, and put the fish in the stream to bleed.  The next cast I had another one on, but lost it.  The next cast, I got another one on, and this one was a bigger fish.  I finally landed it, and it was about a 20 lb fish, and ended up being a white king.  Another cast or two, and I had another one on and lost it.  The last fish I got on I landed, and it was a smaller one like the first.  
Three fish in about 20 minutes, and the only one catching around the pond.  And my first time fishing there.  
The no see ums were now in full mob mode, and the school moved.  It was also getting dark at about 10 pm.  I cleaned the three fish, and carried them across the outlet and put them in Andrew’s bucket for him to take home.  We already have all the king salmon we need for awhile after our trip to Craig.  And I was already ahead with the snagging hook, wire leader, and knife I’d found.
Andrew was beside himself with taking me to his spot and me having good luck.  

Juneau Camp Out

We hiked the mountain above Juneau – Mount Roberts – for our first scout camp out since the pandemic began.  All the scouts had to pack their own tents and cookware and food.  Only stoves would be shared. Sam had a full pack, but he made it.  The hike is uphill to nearly the top of the mountain.  Keith planned the camp out so we could watch the big fireworks show put on by the city, but the fireworks were cancelled.  However, the camp out was already planned, and we knew there would be plenty of people lighting off their own fireworks.
We from the trail head about 4 pm and hiked uphill for about two and a half hours.  I’d been up to the tram on the trail once, but never past it to the camping spot a half mile further.  Our site looked up to the top of Mount Roberts another half mile away, and over looked the bowl under the face of the mountain.  The bowl was like our own little zoo.  We saw a sow with cubs, some black tailed deer, mountain goats, a ptarmigan and brood, and marmots were whistling all day.  We could see everything with the naked eye.  
Sam had his tent set up by himself first, then crawled inside, at the dinner his dad cooked and sent with him, and was down for the count and in recovery.  He was up a couple hours later, running around with the other scouts.  I inflated my sleeping pad, laid it out on the grass, and laid down for a couple hours and then went up to the edge of the bowl to look at the wildlife and talk with some of the parents.  I slept in the open with a light blanket and tarp as there was no rain in the forecast.   We looked down on the fireworks and it was very pedestrian, although lots of noise.  The fireworks continued til long after midnight, but did not keep me up.
We rose about 8 am, and the scouts quickly had their tents down and packs packed and ate breakfast.  It took about an hour and a half to climb back down the mountain.   As Sam and I drove through town on what is usually the busiest day of the summer, with about 7 cruiseships in town and the big parade with locals packing the streets, the place was a ghost town.  No one was on the streets.  Like a science fiction movie.   I wondered if this would be the same scene next year, or the pandemic would pass.  I know by this time next year, we’ll have had a presidential election, and it may be a new normal all the way around.

The Harvest is On

Sara and I volunteered on the harvest crew at the Craig kelp farm today. The kelp farm is set up like a football field.  The “side lines” are engineered lines anchored to the bottom and held at the surface by large buoys.  The “10 yard lines” attach at either end to the sidelines and are the lines where the kelp grows. 

It takes a village to harvest a kelp farm.  There were two commercial fishing boats hauling the grow out lines aboard.   A skiff tended the lines for each commercial boat, untying the grow out “10 yard” lines on each end from the anchored “side lines” so they could be hauled aboard.  If only it was so easy.  Most of the lines had some sort of tangle with the lines next to it, and the boys in the skiff had their work cut out for them, tossing a grapple hook to bring the line to the surface, then pulling themselves along the heavy, kelp-laden line to figure out what was tangled where.   A fifth skiff worked independently of the harvesting boats, collecting anchors and buoys from the grow out lines so they were ready to be pulled aboard.  Four crew were jammed on this boat, and all were young and full of youth and flexibility and strength.  A tender vessel – a small commercial seine boat with a crew of three- arrived mid-day to take what we’d harvested back to town.  

On board our harvest vessel, the skipper (Melissa) pulled the line with a hydraulic crab pot hauler over the gillnet roller at the stern, across the hold to a block tied about 7 feet high at the mast, then through a line stripper to the crab block.  A crew member with a long sharp heavy knife (Alan) whacked the ribbon kelp at the holdfast off the grow out line and into brailer bags in  the hold.  Another crew member (me) coiled line as it came off the pot hauler.  Sara served as a gopher, gathering stray kelp that didn’t fall into the hold and helping tangles over the gillnet reel.  The skipper was also in charge of clearing the line stripper, which regularly clogged and had to be dismantled and the tangle of holdfasts and seed twine cut away. This left lots of time for Alan, a constituent from Haines, to talk with Sara about the goings on at the legislature.

We started harvesting about 7 am, and by midday, we’d filled all 8 braler bags.  As the lines came over heavy with kelp, I could only think – this farmer is onto something.  All this food produced from native kelp seed planted the fall before,  which grew with just the sun for photosynthesis and nutrients from the ocean.  No additional fertilizer needed as with land farming, nor disturbing of the marine environment other than the anchors sitting on the bottom. In fact it was creating it’s own habitat of neat crustaceans and invertebrates we saw come aboard among the kelp which certainly were food sources for little fish in the food chain.   All this food grown in one little spot of the ocean – no wandering around the sea searching for it.  And it tasted good.  Real good.  Right off the line.  I keep thinking of this farmer like I do Bill Gates.  He saw the future and made it happen.  

We untied the commercial boat from where it was tied off along one of the “side-lines”, and motored over to the tender.  There, the tender crew pulled the brailer bags out of the hold and dumped the kelp from the bags into fish totes onboard their vessel to take to the processor in town.

 
They let our volunteer crew go at 330 pm and the rest continued on through the evening. The commercial boats have fishing to do soon, and were giving it their all to get the kelp harvest in before they had to leave for the salmon grounds.

Field of Dreams

Went back to the pasture today for more fiddleheads.  It was a rainy day and I was hedging on whether to go or not.  I stacked firewood in the morning, made some bread with the rhubarb I had in the fridge, and was about ready to get my rain gear and go, as it was a light rain.  Then heavy rain let loose and I lost interest.  A couple hours later, the sun was out for about 5 minutes, and in that time I collected my empty gallon pretzel jars and scissors and headed up the mountain.
I dropped off some pesto I made from the first batch of fiddleheads, nettles and devils club buds, along with some bagels, for Laura and Bob. 
I parked up the mountain and headed for the creek crossing.  As Laura predicted, the creek was running pretty high.  There was still some snow along the creek, and as I walked on it, it was very hard and supported my weight.  Until I broke through in a little overflow channel along the creek.  Down on I went sideways.  Up to my elbows and soaked my pants. Oh well.  Not going back now.  I quickly pulled my pant legs out of my boot tops so they wouldn’t soak my socks, and walked to the tree that lay across the creek and served as my bridge.
I crossed without incident, but when I climbed up and over the root wad on the far side, I slid down the roots and figured I couldn’t get back up that root wad when I came back – how did Laura do it a few days ago?  
All the devils club on the other side of the river had buds that were perfect for picking.  But I didn’t need any more than those I’d already picked this year, and I didn’t have the salad tongs for picking them.  But noted to self for next year.
When I broke out of the rain forest onto the hillside, I decided to explore to the left, as we’d gone to the right the last time.  I already saw plenty of fiddleheads and wanted to see if nettles were more plentiful, as we saw few nettles on the first pick.  I pulled out a plastic 1 gallon (?) container and stuffed it in my bib overall top.  There was a zone of fiddleheads that were ripe for picking along the lower part of the hillside where the forest ended and the open avalanche chute began;  not far uphill from this zone the ferns had already grown and unfurled past picking.  
Maybe this zone was somehow more shaded by the mountains above and the tall spruce and hemlock behind than the plants further up the hill.  And everywhere there was twisted stalk.  I usually eat a few leaves of it when I’m picking fiddleheads but I’ve not collected it as I think it can only be eaten fresh, really, but boy was it everywhere.
Many of the ripe fiddleheads had long stems with a still tightly sheathed fiddlehead on top, and this made for a larger plant for each head picked than picking earlier in the year when the fiddleheads are just coming out of the ground, and I quickly filled my containers.
As I side-hilled and picked fiddleheads, I looked for nettles along the banks of the little creeks that came down the hill.  I didn’t see any in the first creek bed or two.  When I had nearly filled my 4 gallon containers of fiddleheads, I hit the right creek bed, and there were lots of nettles.  After filling all my gallon jars with fiddleheads, I packed  a 1/2 gallon jar with the tops of the nettle plants for Laura.  
She had given me all of the few nettles we’d found on our first trip because she knew I needed it for my Tongass Pesto recipe, so now I could drop these off on the way home for her and give her the good news about finding the mother lode.
I ambled back down to the creek, and made mental landmarks of which direction I needed to go the next time I came across the log bridge to get to the nettles.  As expected, I could not get up the root wad to get onto the tree bridge.  The water was shallower above the tree, and I hopped to the middle of the creek, where I could climb up onto the log bridge from a shallow spot in the creek.  I went over my boots a little, but not bad, and I was already wet from the first time.  It was smooth sailing back to the car.
I dropped the nettles to Laura and relayed the news of the nettle find.  When I got home, I went looking for what I had in my mind would be the best container for cleaning the fiddleheads in the dryer – a nylon duffel bag. I found two nylon sleeping bag duffel bags, each of which held a gallon of fiddleheads, and which I could tie three half hitches with the cinch line to tightly close the bags. I theorized if I used two bags in the dryer, they would tumble against each other and be better than just putting in one at a time.  I was right!  I pulled the first two bags out of the dryer after 15 minutes on air fluff, and they were clean.  I did the same with the other 2 gallons of fiddleheads.  I then put the fiddleheads in the salmon egg basket I garage saled from somewhere that has holes big enough to let the chaff through but not so big that the fiddleheads fall through.  I shook the basket till the chaff had winnowed through and left behind cleaned fiddleheads.
I rinsed the winnowed fiddleheads again through the basket to remove any remaining chaff, and put the cleaned fiddleheads in colanders to fully drain and dry out a bit in the fridge.  We’ll eat some fresh, and freeze the rest.