I found some letters on my computer that I wrote from Port Armstrong. We have beautiful weather today and I want to go fly my airplane so I am going to paste some of those letters here for now.
Boy, are we having fun with the bears! Ervin has been here for about two weeks. He just left today, but he was staying in the house down by my shop. His front door opens on a board walk that is just a few feet from the corner of the shop, and down about another 30 feet is the shop door. He calls that area of the board walk the “Main Intersection”. It is where we and the bears use the same section of board walk for about 50 feet. The second day Ervin was here, when he left his house to come up here for coffee in the morning, there were great big wet bear tracks on the walk right at his door. That afternoon we smoked some salmon on his second floor deck. The next morning a sow and her two cubs were circling the house and trying to figure out how to get on the second floor deck. I had some sheets of aluminum stacked against the wall and they knocked them down trying to get up to that good smelling smoked salmon.
They have been pretty regular customers here. We see them several times every day, and often closer than is comfortable for either of us. They have been catching fish under our upper bridge and then taking off under the boardwalk and behind Ervin’s house to eat them in the bushes. But that is only when they have a fish to eat or in a hurry. When they are just coming or going they prefer to use the boardwalk in this spot.
At least they are not aggressive. They don’t like to see us up close any better than we like to see them at close range. They take off running but stop and look around as soon as they get to the bushes. One day Ervin and I chased the bears up into the bushes and as soon as they got there, they all stopped. We saw three heads looking at us from behind the bushes, the two cubs’ heads right together and Mama’s just above. They must have stood up on their hind legs because they were looking at us over the top of the brush. Ervin said it looked like they were posing for a family portrait.
These cubs look really cute. They look like big teddy bears, and they act like a couple of kids. They are always playing and into mischief and curious about everything. But then you have to realize that they are really big. They are at least 2 and a half to 3 feet tall at the shoulders and must weigh close to 300 pounds. I saw one of them stand up on his hind legs and he must have stood 7 feet tall. And their legs are very long and big around. I have been amazed at how long the legs are on these bears. When they first came around last spring they stayed at the head of the bay and ate grass. They looked like buffalo with the big hump on their back! They really did! When they walk, they take very long steps. They just have very long, powerful legs.
We have been trying to convince them to stay down on the beach and not come up among our boardwalks. Lon got some cracker shells and another guy from the Little Port Walter hatchery brought over some screechers. The cracker shells are things you shoot from a 12 gauge shotgun. It sends out a thing that goes about 150 feet and explodes with a loud bang, and the screechers also go in the shotgun but they go out with a loud screech. They are lots of fun! Today, a three year old male came down to where I was welding in the raceways. He was about 30 feet from me and hadn’t seen me. I put a screecher in the barrel and a cracker shell in the magazine, of course I had three slugs in the magazine after that. But I shot the bear in the butt with the screecher. It didn’t screech but it sure sent out a lot of smoke and fire. I had to move off to the side to see around the smoke to see him run for the bushes. I shot a cracker shell into the bushes and it must have exploded right beside him. I haven’t seen him since.
Yesterday, Ervin and I were up at the lakes. I had to replace a valve in one of the 12” pipelines and then recharge it. We worked there for about five hours. When we finished, we loaded our gear into the canoe and paddled across the lake. When we were unloading the canoe we saw a big brown bear on the hillside just a little above where we had just been. He was walking with a strong limp. In fact, he was not using one front leg at all. He was coming around the lake toward us. When he got to within about 300 yards from us, I hollered. He heard me and immediately ducked into the bushes. Then we couldn’t see him anymore and I got really uncomfortable. I finished packing our packs as quickly as I could and picked up my 45-70 rifle and we headed down the mountain as fast as we could.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Port Armstrong Hatchery
I have had lots of jobs in my life but I think the most fun and satisfying was when I worked at Port Armstrong Hatchery. That is on the south east side of Baranof Island in Southeast Alaska. My boss, Lon Garrison, was great to work for. He gave me a list of things he wanted done on Monday morning and then left me alone to do it. At the end of the week he would see what was done and make up a new list for the next week. We worked very well together.
Before I was hired we were told that there were lots of Alaskan Brown Bears on Baranof and if we didn’t have bear stories now we surely would after working at Port Armstrong. It was really our biggest concern with Kay and Christy being 8 and 11. Lon had two girls 7 and 10 and they all played very well together. For three months during the summer when the bears were around the hatchery the kids could not even go between the houses without an armed escort.
My old friend, Ervin Brackel, (Some say I should call him my long time friend but after all he is a couple years older than I am and that is old) came to visit and fish for halibut and salmon. He had a ball with the returning Cohos and he showed me a few things about catching them. Like when there were acres of Pink salmon on the surface, you could cast over them and let the lure sink below them and retrieve slowly and pick up a Coho under them.
After he made two trips up there from Montana we had a project that I didn’t have time for and I thought of Ervin, it was perfect for him to do. When I suggested it to Lon he went for it and we worked out the details. Ervin came up to help remodel the house that was very close to my shop. Little did he know that once he got there Lon made him sign a contract that he would finish the remodel project. That bothered him but I knew both Lon and Ervin’s abilities so I said, “Just sign it!” which he did.
Ervin always said that he expected to be working for me and instead he was just told what we wanted and “Go do it.” He did and did a great job and also had lots of fun fishing and had his airfare paid and made some money to take home with him along with his fish.
There was a board walk that went through out the hatchery. From the bunkhouse the board walk crossed a bridge over the creek and along side the west powerhouse, then right next to the house that Ervin was remodeling and living in and then on the other side of the boardwalk was my shop.
This board walk was about 8 feet wide and right after the creek there was a “Y” with a 4 foot wide board walk going about 50 feet to the south to the powerhouse. Then on the same side was the house Ervin was working on and about 10 feet after his door onto the board walk was the corner of my shop. You had to go about 30 feet on down to get to the door of the shop.
One morning I was doing my morning rounds which included checking out that power house. As I came out there was a brown bear on the main board walk heading to towards the shop. That section of the boardwalk seemed to be a main thoroughfare for the bears leaving the creek and heading for the south beach. We always hollered at the bears when they were on the boardwalk because we wanted them to know that those boardwalks were for us and they, the bears, were suppose to stay on the beach and woods. The bears were pretty good about it for most of the area but that spot between the house and my shop there just was no good place for the bears to go so they used the boardwalk there.
Anyway, as I was saying, this morning I was just coming out of the powerhouse and saw this big brown bear on the main boardwalk. I had my 45-70 with me so I just hollered and stomped my feet and the bear took off. He ran between the house and the shop and turned a bit heading down to the beach. Well, unbenounced to me, Ervin had come out on his house and on this beautiful morning he stepped off the boardwalk and was relieving himself beside a tree when I came out of the power house. He looked up as I hollered and saw the bear head right for him. He said to himself, “NO! Don’t chase him here!!!” He stepped behind the tree and the bear ran within about 3 feet of him. After he calmed down a bit he wiped off his boots and pant leg and told me what happened. The bear was long gone by this time so we had a good laugh about it.
Before I was hired we were told that there were lots of Alaskan Brown Bears on Baranof and if we didn’t have bear stories now we surely would after working at Port Armstrong. It was really our biggest concern with Kay and Christy being 8 and 11. Lon had two girls 7 and 10 and they all played very well together. For three months during the summer when the bears were around the hatchery the kids could not even go between the houses without an armed escort.
My old friend, Ervin Brackel, (Some say I should call him my long time friend but after all he is a couple years older than I am and that is old) came to visit and fish for halibut and salmon. He had a ball with the returning Cohos and he showed me a few things about catching them. Like when there were acres of Pink salmon on the surface, you could cast over them and let the lure sink below them and retrieve slowly and pick up a Coho under them.
After he made two trips up there from Montana we had a project that I didn’t have time for and I thought of Ervin, it was perfect for him to do. When I suggested it to Lon he went for it and we worked out the details. Ervin came up to help remodel the house that was very close to my shop. Little did he know that once he got there Lon made him sign a contract that he would finish the remodel project. That bothered him but I knew both Lon and Ervin’s abilities so I said, “Just sign it!” which he did.
Ervin always said that he expected to be working for me and instead he was just told what we wanted and “Go do it.” He did and did a great job and also had lots of fun fishing and had his airfare paid and made some money to take home with him along with his fish.
There was a board walk that went through out the hatchery. From the bunkhouse the board walk crossed a bridge over the creek and along side the west powerhouse, then right next to the house that Ervin was remodeling and living in and then on the other side of the boardwalk was my shop.
This board walk was about 8 feet wide and right after the creek there was a “Y” with a 4 foot wide board walk going about 50 feet to the south to the powerhouse. Then on the same side was the house Ervin was working on and about 10 feet after his door onto the board walk was the corner of my shop. You had to go about 30 feet on down to get to the door of the shop.
One morning I was doing my morning rounds which included checking out that power house. As I came out there was a brown bear on the main board walk heading to towards the shop. That section of the boardwalk seemed to be a main thoroughfare for the bears leaving the creek and heading for the south beach. We always hollered at the bears when they were on the boardwalk because we wanted them to know that those boardwalks were for us and they, the bears, were suppose to stay on the beach and woods. The bears were pretty good about it for most of the area but that spot between the house and my shop there just was no good place for the bears to go so they used the boardwalk there.
Anyway, as I was saying, this morning I was just coming out of the powerhouse and saw this big brown bear on the main boardwalk. I had my 45-70 with me so I just hollered and stomped my feet and the bear took off. He ran between the house and the shop and turned a bit heading down to the beach. Well, unbenounced to me, Ervin had come out on his house and on this beautiful morning he stepped off the boardwalk and was relieving himself beside a tree when I came out of the power house. He looked up as I hollered and saw the bear head right for him. He said to himself, “NO! Don’t chase him here!!!” He stepped behind the tree and the bear ran within about 3 feet of him. After he calmed down a bit he wiped off his boots and pant leg and told me what happened. The bear was long gone by this time so we had a good laugh about it.
Friday, February 26, 2010
More from Burnett Inlet Hacthery
When we were at Burnett Inlet living on the sail boat Kay was 3 and 4 and Christy 7 and 8. We had the CAAJACK, our sail boat tied on the inside of the hatcheries big float. Our boat was named CAAJACK because that was the first initial of each of our children in order of age: Cheryl, Asha, Anu, Jenny, Andy, Christy, and Kay. We had a ramp up to the bottom of the two stair wooden ladder that hung over the side of the boat. One Sunday afternoon we were all on the boat and Kay and Christy wanted to go out on the float. They loved to play there. Kay used to lay on the side of the float with her head and shoulders over the side and she fished stuff out of the water with her hands. One day she had several little clear jelly fish on the float beside her. If it floated buy she had it. Sometimes she had long pieces of kelp. And Christy had her fish pole and caught lots of fish from that float. I kept wondering if she was going to hook up a big halibut. She didn’t but she sure could have.
The hatchery manager’s son, Jason, was a year older than Christy so he spent a lot of time on the float too. He and Christy caught lots of sand sharks. They are about 2 to 3 feet long and had a really sharp set of teeth. The kids had been warned about them and never had an accident with them but they sure caught and killed a lot of them. Christy would haul one in and Jason would take it off the hook and he liked to stab them.
Anyway, this one Sunday afternoon the girls want out of the boat and on the float. They always had to put on their lifejackets anytime they got out of the inside of the boat. Christy climbed off the boat first and Kay was following. She didn’t turn around to go down the stairs backwards that time. Instead she went down facing out and slipped. She fell down between the boat and the ramp and landed in the water. We heard a splash and a scream so we both piled up and out of the boat. When Kay went down the edge of that ramp caught her right under the nose. She was in the water when I got there. I pulled her out and couldn’t believe what she looked like. It was absolutely heart breaking to see this beautiful little girl with her nose pushed half way to her left eye. Her whole nose was a half inch off center and ¼ to ½ inch higher than it was supposed to. Thank God she had her lifejacket on.
Sue brought up a towel and we got Kay dried off and we went up to the hatchery bunkhouse. We were going to call Ketchikan for a charter plane to come get us for a doctor, but Tod’s oldest son and his fiancé were there. When someone heard our story they told us that Tod’s son’s fiancé was a doctor. We called her and she examined Kay and with her fingers she pushed the nose around and decided that it wasn’t broken. Her upper lip was swollen way up with all black inside. And after that gal manipulated her nose a bit it was much straighter. She didn’t think that the doctor in town would be able to do anything more for Kay so we didn’t go. I remember saying that Kay didn’t even look like herself. Kay must have heard that said more than once. After about three days I remember her coming to me with tears asking, “Dad, when am I going to look like me again?” It was absolutely amazing to see how fast she healed up. Within 10 days you couldn’t tell that anything had happened.
We had lots of Chum and Pink salmon swimming around in the bay. That hatchery produced 40 million eggs of each type. The returning adults mill around the mouth of the creek for several days before starting up. During that time for about an acre of salt water around the mouth of the creek it just gets black with fish. It was fun to take a fish pole and catch some. Christy liked to go with dad and one day the two of us were in my little 12’ skiff fishing when I saw this pink salmon jumping across the water right at us. He kept coming and jumped right over the side of the boat and landed on my seat. I always sat sideways on the seat for running the outboard and that is how I was then, With one leg in front and the other behind the seat. The fish slid on that seat and hit me right in the you know whats. Then he fell in the back of the boat and splashed water all over me. I reached down and grabbed him just ahead of the tail and said, “I’m not ready for you yet!” as I threw him back in the water. Christy really laughed and over the years since we have looked at each other with a knowing look anytime someone says, “They were so thick they were jumping in the boat!” We really had that happen!
That sail boat we lived on had a ferro-cement hull. That is very solid stuff up to a point. The boat weighed 35 tons. The girls had their own stateroom amidships. Our stateroom was in the stern. We could talk back and fourth if we spoke up. But towards the middle of the run when there were lots of fish milling around we could actually hear fish swimming into, and hitting the boat hull. It took a while before we realized what it was that we were hearing. When we would hear one or two someone would say, “There goes another flat nosed fish!” I don’t remember who came up with that we all sure laughed. Sometimes we would hear a whole school hit the boat. We could even feel the boat move when a bunch of them hit and spooked and turned all at once. They would actually make that 35 ton boat rock a little. Then someone would say, “There is a whole school of flatnoses!”
The hatchery manager’s son, Jason, was a year older than Christy so he spent a lot of time on the float too. He and Christy caught lots of sand sharks. They are about 2 to 3 feet long and had a really sharp set of teeth. The kids had been warned about them and never had an accident with them but they sure caught and killed a lot of them. Christy would haul one in and Jason would take it off the hook and he liked to stab them.
Anyway, this one Sunday afternoon the girls want out of the boat and on the float. They always had to put on their lifejackets anytime they got out of the inside of the boat. Christy climbed off the boat first and Kay was following. She didn’t turn around to go down the stairs backwards that time. Instead she went down facing out and slipped. She fell down between the boat and the ramp and landed in the water. We heard a splash and a scream so we both piled up and out of the boat. When Kay went down the edge of that ramp caught her right under the nose. She was in the water when I got there. I pulled her out and couldn’t believe what she looked like. It was absolutely heart breaking to see this beautiful little girl with her nose pushed half way to her left eye. Her whole nose was a half inch off center and ¼ to ½ inch higher than it was supposed to. Thank God she had her lifejacket on.
Sue brought up a towel and we got Kay dried off and we went up to the hatchery bunkhouse. We were going to call Ketchikan for a charter plane to come get us for a doctor, but Tod’s oldest son and his fiancé were there. When someone heard our story they told us that Tod’s son’s fiancé was a doctor. We called her and she examined Kay and with her fingers she pushed the nose around and decided that it wasn’t broken. Her upper lip was swollen way up with all black inside. And after that gal manipulated her nose a bit it was much straighter. She didn’t think that the doctor in town would be able to do anything more for Kay so we didn’t go. I remember saying that Kay didn’t even look like herself. Kay must have heard that said more than once. After about three days I remember her coming to me with tears asking, “Dad, when am I going to look like me again?” It was absolutely amazing to see how fast she healed up. Within 10 days you couldn’t tell that anything had happened.
We had lots of Chum and Pink salmon swimming around in the bay. That hatchery produced 40 million eggs of each type. The returning adults mill around the mouth of the creek for several days before starting up. During that time for about an acre of salt water around the mouth of the creek it just gets black with fish. It was fun to take a fish pole and catch some. Christy liked to go with dad and one day the two of us were in my little 12’ skiff fishing when I saw this pink salmon jumping across the water right at us. He kept coming and jumped right over the side of the boat and landed on my seat. I always sat sideways on the seat for running the outboard and that is how I was then, With one leg in front and the other behind the seat. The fish slid on that seat and hit me right in the you know whats. Then he fell in the back of the boat and splashed water all over me. I reached down and grabbed him just ahead of the tail and said, “I’m not ready for you yet!” as I threw him back in the water. Christy really laughed and over the years since we have looked at each other with a knowing look anytime someone says, “They were so thick they were jumping in the boat!” We really had that happen!
That sail boat we lived on had a ferro-cement hull. That is very solid stuff up to a point. The boat weighed 35 tons. The girls had their own stateroom amidships. Our stateroom was in the stern. We could talk back and fourth if we spoke up. But towards the middle of the run when there were lots of fish milling around we could actually hear fish swimming into, and hitting the boat hull. It took a while before we realized what it was that we were hearing. When we would hear one or two someone would say, “There goes another flat nosed fish!” I don’t remember who came up with that we all sure laughed. Sometimes we would hear a whole school hit the boat. We could even feel the boat move when a bunch of them hit and spooked and turned all at once. They would actually make that 35 ton boat rock a little. Then someone would say, “There is a whole school of flatnoses!”
Burnett Inlet Hatchery
I have been trying to decide if I should keep some organization to what stories I tell and it probably would make more sense if I did but I am not going to. It makes me give a little more background each time but I would still rather just talk about something when I am thinking about it.
Today I am going to talk about when I was working at Burnett Inlet Hatchery. I was on our sailboat project in California and I called Tod Jones, the boss at the hatchery. I called him hoping to get a job for Andy. He told me that he didn’t have anything for him right then but would in the summer if Andy was still interested. But he did have something for me. They had two big aluminum projects coming up and wanted to hire me as an independent contractor to come out and build two big raceways and a 260 foot fish ladder. I had been Mister Mom for 3 years and was definitely ready to get back to work. Not that I hadn’t been working. That sailboat project and two little kids were lots more work than most men do, and I wanted to get back to something easier.
I see that I have gotten a bit more technical than some of you might like. If so skip down to the last few paragraphs for the fish story.
Tod sent me the blueprints of the two raceways they wanted me to build. I was to decide how to make them and order the materials. As I was looking at the prints I thought that there was not nearly enough support for the sides of these tanks. I mentioned it to Todd and he felt the same thing and wanted me to talk to the engineers that had drawn the plans. I did and he told me that he had another engineering firm go over his stuff and told me that according to their figures the sides of those tanks should not bow out more than 1/8 of an inch when filled with water.
OK, they are the engineers. These raceways were tanks, open at the top, 12’ wide, 5’ deep and 48’ long they were made out of ¼” aluminum plate. I built them as specified and I bowed the sides in that 1/8th inch so they would be strait when full of water. Then I went about putting together the fish ladder. That consisted of both using used aluminum sections that they had on site and new material. It was an 8’wide, 4’ deep trough, 260’ long with several bends. There were baffles about every 6’ so that when this ladder was in operation it was full of water running down the hill in a series of 6’ by 8’ pools of water so that the fish could swim up.
We had about 60 feet of elevation we need the fish to swim up. It started down at the low water mark and then came up the hill and across and over to the hatchery building. It went back under the building, among the pilings that held the building up, and then up along side the raceways. This all had to be completed before the water was put in the raceways. For some reason I was not at the hatchery when they first filled it with water. But I sure heard about it!
When they had a foot of water in the raceways the sides were bowed out about 3 inches. They kept filling and by the time they had two and a half feet of water they were propping sides with boards and they were out about a foot and a half. They finally stopped filling because it was obvious that if they kept filling and their boards slipped the sides would go all the way to the deck. Why they didn’t quit at the first foot is beyond me.
I had two tracks that had to be perfectly strait and put down the sides of each raceway. This was for a crowder to travel back and fourth. The crowder was what they used to get all the salmon crowded up against the harvesting area. Anyway, I ordered enough big heavy aluminum channel to run down both sides of the raceway. When I got them, about 2 weeks later, I laid these 12” by 8” by 25’ long channels end to end and welded them together. Then I welded a ¼’ plate of aluminum the full length to make a box out of the channel. Then I pulled the stretched sides of the raceways into the inside and jacked up the boxes I had build and forcing the sides to the channel, welded it all together. That gave significantly more support than what the engineers had specified. I wanted to go back to the engineers but the boss didn’t.
Anyway, when we filled it this time the sides still bowed out about 3 inches but at least we could fill it. Then, with it full of water, I could weld the tracks on the sides for the crowders and they would be straight. We had lost 2 weeks waiting for the heavy channel and by this time we had fish coming up the ladder. I was welding on the top edge of the raceways for a day and a half with hundreds of fish just inches away. I thought we would have a bunch of blind fish but as far as I could tell it didn’t affect them. However, several times a fish would jump and knock my welding hood in the water.
I thought my job was about done but the boss said, “Oh, by the way, we want you to weld up some incubators for us. This was the first I had heard about this. When they told me what it was it sounded fine. They wanted tanks made that were 2’ by 2’ by 3’ that were constructed out of 3/16th aluminum with some plumbing parts and a removable screen on one side and a baffle. They had two already made that I could copy and they had already ordered the aluminum plate sheared to size. Great! Lets get to work. And then they told me how many they wanted made.
They wanted 250 of them and the fish were already there! I asked how long it took them to make the two first ones and it took them 2 days each to make them and I was suppose to make 250 in the next few weeks. Well, I worked up a system and working 10 hours a day I got between 6 and 8 per day. I did get that job done but they had about half of them filled with millions of fish eggs while I was still making more.
One Saturday we had a really nice sunny day and everyone at the hatchery went out fishing. They all stopped by to tell me where they were going and when they planned to be back because I was working. At about 10 o-clock I decided that I wanted a fish too. I normally took a coffee break about then so this day I went down to the boat (Sue and the girls and I were living on the sailboat then) and got a fish pole. I jigged up a scrap fish from under the float and filleted it and put a fillet on a hook that was attached to a string that was long enough to reach the bottom out in the middle of the channel in front of the hatchery. I had a short piece of chain for a sinker and a one gallon milk jug on the other end of the string. I took my skiff and put this out right in front of the hatchery. Then I went back to work.
Every few minutes I would just look up from my welding to see if my milk jug was still there. Pretty soon it disappeared. I put down my welding and got in my skiff. I chased down the milk jug and pulled in the string. Attached to the other end was a 200 pound halibut! I cleaned it and put it on the dock with the white side up and left it until the other fisherman came back. As it turned out I was the only one that caught a halibut that day and I worked a 10 hour day!
One of the girls that worked there laid down beside that fish so that she could have her picture taken with it. It was more than a foot longer than she was. I filleted the fish and we all shared it. I usually don’t like to keep fish that big because I don’t think they are as good as the smaller ones and only the females get that big. But we hadn’t had much fish and we all like it and I was really pretty busy. So that was fun.
Today I am going to talk about when I was working at Burnett Inlet Hatchery. I was on our sailboat project in California and I called Tod Jones, the boss at the hatchery. I called him hoping to get a job for Andy. He told me that he didn’t have anything for him right then but would in the summer if Andy was still interested. But he did have something for me. They had two big aluminum projects coming up and wanted to hire me as an independent contractor to come out and build two big raceways and a 260 foot fish ladder. I had been Mister Mom for 3 years and was definitely ready to get back to work. Not that I hadn’t been working. That sailboat project and two little kids were lots more work than most men do, and I wanted to get back to something easier.
I see that I have gotten a bit more technical than some of you might like. If so skip down to the last few paragraphs for the fish story.
Tod sent me the blueprints of the two raceways they wanted me to build. I was to decide how to make them and order the materials. As I was looking at the prints I thought that there was not nearly enough support for the sides of these tanks. I mentioned it to Todd and he felt the same thing and wanted me to talk to the engineers that had drawn the plans. I did and he told me that he had another engineering firm go over his stuff and told me that according to their figures the sides of those tanks should not bow out more than 1/8 of an inch when filled with water.
OK, they are the engineers. These raceways were tanks, open at the top, 12’ wide, 5’ deep and 48’ long they were made out of ¼” aluminum plate. I built them as specified and I bowed the sides in that 1/8th inch so they would be strait when full of water. Then I went about putting together the fish ladder. That consisted of both using used aluminum sections that they had on site and new material. It was an 8’wide, 4’ deep trough, 260’ long with several bends. There were baffles about every 6’ so that when this ladder was in operation it was full of water running down the hill in a series of 6’ by 8’ pools of water so that the fish could swim up.
We had about 60 feet of elevation we need the fish to swim up. It started down at the low water mark and then came up the hill and across and over to the hatchery building. It went back under the building, among the pilings that held the building up, and then up along side the raceways. This all had to be completed before the water was put in the raceways. For some reason I was not at the hatchery when they first filled it with water. But I sure heard about it!
When they had a foot of water in the raceways the sides were bowed out about 3 inches. They kept filling and by the time they had two and a half feet of water they were propping sides with boards and they were out about a foot and a half. They finally stopped filling because it was obvious that if they kept filling and their boards slipped the sides would go all the way to the deck. Why they didn’t quit at the first foot is beyond me.
I had two tracks that had to be perfectly strait and put down the sides of each raceway. This was for a crowder to travel back and fourth. The crowder was what they used to get all the salmon crowded up against the harvesting area. Anyway, I ordered enough big heavy aluminum channel to run down both sides of the raceway. When I got them, about 2 weeks later, I laid these 12” by 8” by 25’ long channels end to end and welded them together. Then I welded a ¼’ plate of aluminum the full length to make a box out of the channel. Then I pulled the stretched sides of the raceways into the inside and jacked up the boxes I had build and forcing the sides to the channel, welded it all together. That gave significantly more support than what the engineers had specified. I wanted to go back to the engineers but the boss didn’t.
Anyway, when we filled it this time the sides still bowed out about 3 inches but at least we could fill it. Then, with it full of water, I could weld the tracks on the sides for the crowders and they would be straight. We had lost 2 weeks waiting for the heavy channel and by this time we had fish coming up the ladder. I was welding on the top edge of the raceways for a day and a half with hundreds of fish just inches away. I thought we would have a bunch of blind fish but as far as I could tell it didn’t affect them. However, several times a fish would jump and knock my welding hood in the water.
I thought my job was about done but the boss said, “Oh, by the way, we want you to weld up some incubators for us. This was the first I had heard about this. When they told me what it was it sounded fine. They wanted tanks made that were 2’ by 2’ by 3’ that were constructed out of 3/16th aluminum with some plumbing parts and a removable screen on one side and a baffle. They had two already made that I could copy and they had already ordered the aluminum plate sheared to size. Great! Lets get to work. And then they told me how many they wanted made.
They wanted 250 of them and the fish were already there! I asked how long it took them to make the two first ones and it took them 2 days each to make them and I was suppose to make 250 in the next few weeks. Well, I worked up a system and working 10 hours a day I got between 6 and 8 per day. I did get that job done but they had about half of them filled with millions of fish eggs while I was still making more.
One Saturday we had a really nice sunny day and everyone at the hatchery went out fishing. They all stopped by to tell me where they were going and when they planned to be back because I was working. At about 10 o-clock I decided that I wanted a fish too. I normally took a coffee break about then so this day I went down to the boat (Sue and the girls and I were living on the sailboat then) and got a fish pole. I jigged up a scrap fish from under the float and filleted it and put a fillet on a hook that was attached to a string that was long enough to reach the bottom out in the middle of the channel in front of the hatchery. I had a short piece of chain for a sinker and a one gallon milk jug on the other end of the string. I took my skiff and put this out right in front of the hatchery. Then I went back to work.
Every few minutes I would just look up from my welding to see if my milk jug was still there. Pretty soon it disappeared. I put down my welding and got in my skiff. I chased down the milk jug and pulled in the string. Attached to the other end was a 200 pound halibut! I cleaned it and put it on the dock with the white side up and left it until the other fisherman came back. As it turned out I was the only one that caught a halibut that day and I worked a 10 hour day!
One of the girls that worked there laid down beside that fish so that she could have her picture taken with it. It was more than a foot longer than she was. I filleted the fish and we all shared it. I usually don’t like to keep fish that big because I don’t think they are as good as the smaller ones and only the females get that big. But we hadn’t had much fish and we all like it and I was really pretty busy. So that was fun.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Oyster Farm and big Trees
Sue and I started an oyster farm on the west side of Etolin Island. It was a little closer to Wrangell than Ketchikan. We spent a couple years getting all the permits in place and oysters up and growing and ready to sell. That was an interesting time in out lives. It was completely remote. There are no roads even close to us. It was only boats or airplanes to get around.
The method we were using to grow our oysters was floating rafts. I made rafts using 3” X 10” X 23’ cedar timbers. I put two of them parallel with two more just 4’ long across the ends and covered it with a plastic mesh. Then turned the raft over so that the mesh was on the bottom and we filled the inside with oysters. I was also building buildings on the permitted land. This all took lots of lumber.
In Alaska residents are allowed 10,000 board feet of timber from the US Forest Service each year. I went into the Wrangell Forest Service office to apply for a permit and was told that I could not use the timber for any commercial purposes. Well, that is what I wanted to do so what could I do? The forest Ranger told me that they had a program on the books for years and they were going to do away with it soon but it was just for this purpose. So he wrote me out a small timber sale. I bought 5 spruce trees and 25 cedar trees for $78. He gave me an area about 8 miles from our farm that was about a mile and a half along the water's edge and I was to stay within 200 feet of the beach. It was right up a pretty well protected beach so I could get back and fourth pretty easily.
I cut all five spruce. I dropped them in the water and limbed them when the tide was out. Then as the tide came in it floated the log, all but the butt. Those butts were all between 3 1/2’ and 5’ in diameter and after I topped them at about 18” in diameter the logs were still mostly about 90’ long. So they were big trees and sometimes took some coaxing to get them off the beach so that I could get them to our beach and cut them into lumber at home. Usually when I tied a rope to the small end and pulled it back and fourth a few times with the boat it would come loose.
I had cut 10 of the cedar trees, all about the same size. They were usually a bit larger on the butt but not as tall as the spruce. I cut one that I could not get into the water. I finally cut a 25 foot log off the bottom. My 42" bar would not go clear through where I cut it off. I had to finish the cut from the other side. So that 25 foot log was over 4 feet in diameter at the small end. I still got a good 65 foot log to take back and planned to come back later to cut the big log into boards where it was.
Those big trees are really something to fall. And I was getting to feel pretty confident. I had a book to tell me what to watch for and how to do things to make the tree go where you want it. I had been raining for a couple weeks so I had stayed home and cut lumber and made rafts then but one day the sun came out and looked like a good day to go back to cut another tree or two.
I took my skiff out to the area I was to take my trees and I went to a big cedar that I had been looking at for some time. It was only about 3 ½ feet but went up straight with no limbs for about 50 feet. It looked more like a spruce. But it was up a very steep hillside and about 100 back from the water. I had read that if you cut your notch right and then put a smaller piece of a limb in the notch in just such a way then you cut the tree loose from the back side the notch would close up pinching the limb and making it roll and the butt would jump in the same direction as the rest of the tree.
This hillside was steep enough that I thought if I tried this I could probably get the bottom almost to the waters edge. So I cleared out around the bottom of the tree and got myself an escape route so I could get away and started cutting. Everything went just as it was suppose to until the butt hit the hillside about half way down the hill. When the butt hit it dug in instead of sliding to the bottom as I had hoped. It hit with a tremendous thump that shook the entire hillside. Then the top fell down and hit the water but the bottom was still about 50 feet up the hill and the tree broke in the middle and when those pieces came down there was another big thump.
I heard something behind me and turned around to look up the hill and the trees were all waiving like the wind was blowing hard, but there was no wind. About that time a big long log, what had been a standing dead tree, came shooting down the hill about 15 feet from where I was standing. It had started quite a ways up and was really traveling when it went past me. It hit little ledge I was on which launched this 80’ long snag up and it hit another big cedar tree next to the water about 40 feet up. It hit that tree hard enough to break it in half and then all hell broke loose.
There must have been 50 big trees and all the little stuff and undergrowth that came sliding down off that hillside. When it started I jumped up on the stump of the tree I had cut and faced uphill. I figured I had only one jump because there was nowhere to run. The trees came down both sides of me and when it all stopped I was still standing on the stump looking up and shaking. There was a small outcropping of rock just above me that split the direction of all those trees coming down. God was looking after me that day. It sure wasn't my planning that saved me.
To get to that tree I had tied my skiff quite a ways off to the side and then worked my way under brush and undergrowth to get to the tree. Now all the undergrowth was gone! In fact to get back to my skiff I walked on top of the downed trees half way back. It was a completely different looking hillside. If I had tied my skiff 10 feet closer it would have been pushed under water by all the trees coming down.
I didn’t get any lumber out of that either. The tree I wanted broke and splintered and the others were all so tangled up with the tops in the water on that steep hill that I was afraid to work on them. I also never went on any hillside to cut trees after a good soaking rain again.
The method we were using to grow our oysters was floating rafts. I made rafts using 3” X 10” X 23’ cedar timbers. I put two of them parallel with two more just 4’ long across the ends and covered it with a plastic mesh. Then turned the raft over so that the mesh was on the bottom and we filled the inside with oysters. I was also building buildings on the permitted land. This all took lots of lumber.
In Alaska residents are allowed 10,000 board feet of timber from the US Forest Service each year. I went into the Wrangell Forest Service office to apply for a permit and was told that I could not use the timber for any commercial purposes. Well, that is what I wanted to do so what could I do? The forest Ranger told me that they had a program on the books for years and they were going to do away with it soon but it was just for this purpose. So he wrote me out a small timber sale. I bought 5 spruce trees and 25 cedar trees for $78. He gave me an area about 8 miles from our farm that was about a mile and a half along the water's edge and I was to stay within 200 feet of the beach. It was right up a pretty well protected beach so I could get back and fourth pretty easily.
I cut all five spruce. I dropped them in the water and limbed them when the tide was out. Then as the tide came in it floated the log, all but the butt. Those butts were all between 3 1/2’ and 5’ in diameter and after I topped them at about 18” in diameter the logs were still mostly about 90’ long. So they were big trees and sometimes took some coaxing to get them off the beach so that I could get them to our beach and cut them into lumber at home. Usually when I tied a rope to the small end and pulled it back and fourth a few times with the boat it would come loose.
I had cut 10 of the cedar trees, all about the same size. They were usually a bit larger on the butt but not as tall as the spruce. I cut one that I could not get into the water. I finally cut a 25 foot log off the bottom. My 42" bar would not go clear through where I cut it off. I had to finish the cut from the other side. So that 25 foot log was over 4 feet in diameter at the small end. I still got a good 65 foot log to take back and planned to come back later to cut the big log into boards where it was.
Those big trees are really something to fall. And I was getting to feel pretty confident. I had a book to tell me what to watch for and how to do things to make the tree go where you want it. I had been raining for a couple weeks so I had stayed home and cut lumber and made rafts then but one day the sun came out and looked like a good day to go back to cut another tree or two.
I took my skiff out to the area I was to take my trees and I went to a big cedar that I had been looking at for some time. It was only about 3 ½ feet but went up straight with no limbs for about 50 feet. It looked more like a spruce. But it was up a very steep hillside and about 100 back from the water. I had read that if you cut your notch right and then put a smaller piece of a limb in the notch in just such a way then you cut the tree loose from the back side the notch would close up pinching the limb and making it roll and the butt would jump in the same direction as the rest of the tree.
This hillside was steep enough that I thought if I tried this I could probably get the bottom almost to the waters edge. So I cleared out around the bottom of the tree and got myself an escape route so I could get away and started cutting. Everything went just as it was suppose to until the butt hit the hillside about half way down the hill. When the butt hit it dug in instead of sliding to the bottom as I had hoped. It hit with a tremendous thump that shook the entire hillside. Then the top fell down and hit the water but the bottom was still about 50 feet up the hill and the tree broke in the middle and when those pieces came down there was another big thump.
I heard something behind me and turned around to look up the hill and the trees were all waiving like the wind was blowing hard, but there was no wind. About that time a big long log, what had been a standing dead tree, came shooting down the hill about 15 feet from where I was standing. It had started quite a ways up and was really traveling when it went past me. It hit little ledge I was on which launched this 80’ long snag up and it hit another big cedar tree next to the water about 40 feet up. It hit that tree hard enough to break it in half and then all hell broke loose.
There must have been 50 big trees and all the little stuff and undergrowth that came sliding down off that hillside. When it started I jumped up on the stump of the tree I had cut and faced uphill. I figured I had only one jump because there was nowhere to run. The trees came down both sides of me and when it all stopped I was still standing on the stump looking up and shaking. There was a small outcropping of rock just above me that split the direction of all those trees coming down. God was looking after me that day. It sure wasn't my planning that saved me.
To get to that tree I had tied my skiff quite a ways off to the side and then worked my way under brush and undergrowth to get to the tree. Now all the undergrowth was gone! In fact to get back to my skiff I walked on top of the downed trees half way back. It was a completely different looking hillside. If I had tied my skiff 10 feet closer it would have been pushed under water by all the trees coming down.
I didn’t get any lumber out of that either. The tree I wanted broke and splintered and the others were all so tangled up with the tops in the water on that steep hill that I was afraid to work on them. I also never went on any hillside to cut trees after a good soaking rain again.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Kalinin Bay Part 2
Let’s see, where was I? Oh Yeah, we were in that pickle. My boat had just flipped over.
I started gathering floating stuff up to take to the beach. I couldn’t find the 50 Cal ammo can that I had my emergency stuff in. It had my hand held VHF radio, flares, a nice Colt Python .357 mag, and fire starting stuff. I would have thought it would float but I couldn’t see it so I dove under water looking. Without a mask you can’t see very far and after searching for several minutes I gave up. I was tired so I was floating on my back heading to the beach paddling with my swim fins when another wave broke just wrong right at my feet. It broke unexpectedly in just such a way that it sprained my right ankle. I had sprained that ankle before and usually could make out but this time it was pretty bad. I couldn’t step on it.
Skip gathered up the stuff on the beach and we started to set up a camp just behind the beach. I opened up my dry suit to get my lighter out of my pocket but it wasn’t there! In those days I smoked a pipe and always carried a lighter with me. I filled it with lighter fluid just before leaving but I over filled it so I set it on the cup holder right beside the stairs going into the fo’c’s’le where the wood stove was heating the front half of the boat. I didn’t want it leaking lighter fluid on my leg inside that dry suit. Well it didn’t leak on my leg, but I did forget it.
So by now we had some wood gathered up, thanks Skip, and about 8 gallons of gas but nothing to light it with. I used an oar as a crutch so I could get around a bit. There was snow on the ground and I knew that shortly after we stopped moving around we were going to get cold in those dry suits. They were much better than most clothing but still were only ¼ inch think. The days are pretty short that time of year there and I could see that we only had about another hour of daylight left.
I knew that it was only about a 2 mile hike over the mountain to Kalinin Bay. I had hiked it a couple times before and wasn’t too bad so I decided that we should go as far as we could to get back to the boat. One thing that kept us both going was that I had taken 2 moose steaks out of the freezer for dinner.
We started out and Skip left the net on the ground. I said that net was worth more than the boat we had just lost and 10% of it was his. So he went back and got it. Those dry suits only had thin rubber feet on them to go inside swim fins and we could feel every rock and stick. At least the snow was soft and there was pretty good insulation against the cold.
We hadn’t gotten very far into the timber when it started getting pretty dark. As it was getting darker we were getting into thinner timber and more snow so we could see a bit. There was a bright moon out and the moon lit up the snow enough so we could keep going. I never had any trouble know where Skip was because about every other step he took that wad of net would hang up on something and he came up with all sorts of different exclamations some of them were pretty unique.
We got back to Kalinin Bay at about 11 PM and walked about a half mile along the side the bay to about where the Taku, my fishing boat, was anchored. But about then we had a bit of cloud cover and I couldn’t see the gray boat. We had to wait about 20 minutes before enough moonlight came through to see it. When I knew where it was for sure we swam out to it. Boy those steaks were good that night!
That was a Friday and that government office, I still can’t remember their name, would not be open until Monday so we went fishing the next day. I went across Salisbury Sound and in behind Klokachef Island. Sometimes there are fish in there and it is pretty calm water. As we were trolling through I noticed another big wad of net on the beach on the back side of the island. We pulled the fishing gear and I anchored in front of the net.
Skip didn’t like the idea of swimming ashore to get it. He was afraid on not being able to get back to the boat with the net. I had a 100 fathom hank of 5/8” polly rope on board and he tied one end around his waist and I fed out rope as he went. He gathered up the net and tied it on the rope as well as himself and I pulled him back. Now we had about 40 pounds of net and it was only Saturday. That gave us all day Sunday to think up how we could get more of it. I have a pilot’s license and decided that I could go buy a Champ or something with the money we got from the net we already had. Then I could fly those beaches and find lots of it and then go get it. There are several thousand miles of outside shoreline and the airplane would be perfect.
Sunday afternoon we headed to town with our 2 or 3 fish and 40# of net. Monday morning I still felt uncomfortable about just hauling all that net into that government office so I went armed with the ATA bulletin. When I got there I got some mighty funny looks and when I showed them the bulletin the guy read it a couple times and then took it in the back room. Pretty soon he came back out and said that these were just proposals and were not in effect. We were sure disappointed but not terribly surprised. I promised Skip that if it did ever become effective I would send him his share. I hauled that stuff around on the roof of my boat for a couple years before finally putting it in a dumpster.
Skip wasn’t making enough money for his obligations so he quit then. Can you imagine anyone quitting such an adventurous job??? As I remember he flew south from Sitka. Maybe I took him back to Wrangell because I remember that I had my 17 foot Boston Whaler and I am pretty sure I wasn’t towing them both. Because after Skip left I went back out to Kalinin Bay and with the 17 footer and that long hank of 5/8 polly rope. The 13 footer that had flipped was now way up the sand beach still upside down.
I anchored the 17 well outside the breakers (I may be a slow learner but I am not stupid and I was alone now) and swam in with the end of that rope. I thought I could just pick up the side of the boat and tip it back over but that little 13 footer is still HEAVY. I couldn’t even start it up. I found a log about 4” in diameter and 15 or 20 feet long and some other smaller drift stuff that I could use as a fulcrum. With that and some of those new words I learned from Skip I was able to get it turned over. Now I tied the end of that 5/8 rope to the towing eye and swam back out to the 17 footer.
The 13 was about 50 yards up the sand from the water and when I pulled on it with the 90 HP on the 17 footer it didn’t move. So I backed up and got a run at it. That didn’t do it so I backed up some more and really hit it. This time it broke free and by the time it hit the water’s edge it was going fast enough to be planning. I kept on going and was back to Kalinin Bay in no time.
I started gathering floating stuff up to take to the beach. I couldn’t find the 50 Cal ammo can that I had my emergency stuff in. It had my hand held VHF radio, flares, a nice Colt Python .357 mag, and fire starting stuff. I would have thought it would float but I couldn’t see it so I dove under water looking. Without a mask you can’t see very far and after searching for several minutes I gave up. I was tired so I was floating on my back heading to the beach paddling with my swim fins when another wave broke just wrong right at my feet. It broke unexpectedly in just such a way that it sprained my right ankle. I had sprained that ankle before and usually could make out but this time it was pretty bad. I couldn’t step on it.
Skip gathered up the stuff on the beach and we started to set up a camp just behind the beach. I opened up my dry suit to get my lighter out of my pocket but it wasn’t there! In those days I smoked a pipe and always carried a lighter with me. I filled it with lighter fluid just before leaving but I over filled it so I set it on the cup holder right beside the stairs going into the fo’c’s’le where the wood stove was heating the front half of the boat. I didn’t want it leaking lighter fluid on my leg inside that dry suit. Well it didn’t leak on my leg, but I did forget it.
So by now we had some wood gathered up, thanks Skip, and about 8 gallons of gas but nothing to light it with. I used an oar as a crutch so I could get around a bit. There was snow on the ground and I knew that shortly after we stopped moving around we were going to get cold in those dry suits. They were much better than most clothing but still were only ¼ inch think. The days are pretty short that time of year there and I could see that we only had about another hour of daylight left.
I knew that it was only about a 2 mile hike over the mountain to Kalinin Bay. I had hiked it a couple times before and wasn’t too bad so I decided that we should go as far as we could to get back to the boat. One thing that kept us both going was that I had taken 2 moose steaks out of the freezer for dinner.
We started out and Skip left the net on the ground. I said that net was worth more than the boat we had just lost and 10% of it was his. So he went back and got it. Those dry suits only had thin rubber feet on them to go inside swim fins and we could feel every rock and stick. At least the snow was soft and there was pretty good insulation against the cold.
We hadn’t gotten very far into the timber when it started getting pretty dark. As it was getting darker we were getting into thinner timber and more snow so we could see a bit. There was a bright moon out and the moon lit up the snow enough so we could keep going. I never had any trouble know where Skip was because about every other step he took that wad of net would hang up on something and he came up with all sorts of different exclamations some of them were pretty unique.
We got back to Kalinin Bay at about 11 PM and walked about a half mile along the side the bay to about where the Taku, my fishing boat, was anchored. But about then we had a bit of cloud cover and I couldn’t see the gray boat. We had to wait about 20 minutes before enough moonlight came through to see it. When I knew where it was for sure we swam out to it. Boy those steaks were good that night!
That was a Friday and that government office, I still can’t remember their name, would not be open until Monday so we went fishing the next day. I went across Salisbury Sound and in behind Klokachef Island. Sometimes there are fish in there and it is pretty calm water. As we were trolling through I noticed another big wad of net on the beach on the back side of the island. We pulled the fishing gear and I anchored in front of the net.
Skip didn’t like the idea of swimming ashore to get it. He was afraid on not being able to get back to the boat with the net. I had a 100 fathom hank of 5/8” polly rope on board and he tied one end around his waist and I fed out rope as he went. He gathered up the net and tied it on the rope as well as himself and I pulled him back. Now we had about 40 pounds of net and it was only Saturday. That gave us all day Sunday to think up how we could get more of it. I have a pilot’s license and decided that I could go buy a Champ or something with the money we got from the net we already had. Then I could fly those beaches and find lots of it and then go get it. There are several thousand miles of outside shoreline and the airplane would be perfect.
Sunday afternoon we headed to town with our 2 or 3 fish and 40# of net. Monday morning I still felt uncomfortable about just hauling all that net into that government office so I went armed with the ATA bulletin. When I got there I got some mighty funny looks and when I showed them the bulletin the guy read it a couple times and then took it in the back room. Pretty soon he came back out and said that these were just proposals and were not in effect. We were sure disappointed but not terribly surprised. I promised Skip that if it did ever become effective I would send him his share. I hauled that stuff around on the roof of my boat for a couple years before finally putting it in a dumpster.
Skip wasn’t making enough money for his obligations so he quit then. Can you imagine anyone quitting such an adventurous job??? As I remember he flew south from Sitka. Maybe I took him back to Wrangell because I remember that I had my 17 foot Boston Whaler and I am pretty sure I wasn’t towing them both. Because after Skip left I went back out to Kalinin Bay and with the 17 footer and that long hank of 5/8 polly rope. The 13 footer that had flipped was now way up the sand beach still upside down.
I anchored the 17 well outside the breakers (I may be a slow learner but I am not stupid and I was alone now) and swam in with the end of that rope. I thought I could just pick up the side of the boat and tip it back over but that little 13 footer is still HEAVY. I couldn’t even start it up. I found a log about 4” in diameter and 15 or 20 feet long and some other smaller drift stuff that I could use as a fulcrum. With that and some of those new words I learned from Skip I was able to get it turned over. Now I tied the end of that 5/8 rope to the towing eye and swam back out to the 17 footer.
The 13 was about 50 yards up the sand from the water and when I pulled on it with the 90 HP on the 17 footer it didn’t move. So I backed up and got a run at it. That didn’t do it so I backed up some more and really hit it. This time it broke free and by the time it hit the water’s edge it was going fast enough to be planning. I kept on going and was back to Kalinin Bay in no time.
Kalinin Bay
I received some very sad news last night. My long time friend, Don Schirmer, has been struggling with cancer for several years. As he put it, and this sounds so much like him, he asks for prayers for comfort, not healing. He feels his expiration date is coming up and is ready to make the ultimate journey.
I have never been much for public prayers but God does say he wants them so please bear with me. If you know Jesus please pray with me.
Lord, You know Don Schirmer better than any man and I know Don better than most men. I have know him to be a man that has loved You for the 35 years that I have know him and I am sure much longer than that. You know that he is a good man, not perfect as none of us are, but with Your grace and the sacrifice Jesus made for us all Don is made perfect. He is ready to make the transition from the life we have known to being with you. I ask you to make him comfortable during this transition and let him know that many of us love him and are sorry to see him go. Harriet is going to have a huge empty place when Don goes. I ask you to somehow fill that emptiness in her with joy. Thank you Jesus.
Wow, I didn’t even short out the keyboard. As those of you that know me know my eyes get running much easier than I would like. But hay, that is just how God made me.
Well, Harriet mentioned the time with Skip. That was a good tale on me and should lighten up this post.
This story also took place in the BS days. (Before Sue days more than 25 years ago) Dean, my second wife, had left and left an emptiness in me. I was not willing to sit around all winter so I hired Skip, the son of a friend of mine, to go out winter king salmon fishing. He wasn’t busy so it sounded good to him. As I remember he was to get 10% of the gross of our catch. We headed to the Sitka area because I had heard that they sometimes have very good winter fishing. There are no buying scows on the fishing grounds in the winter so it is necessary to ice our fish. Then we go in about once a week to sell in town.
We had been fishing out of Salisbury Sound which is just northwest of Sitka. Kalinin Bay has been a favorite anchorage of mine for some time and that is where we had been anchoring at night. Our first two trips did little more than pay for the diesel fuel we used. When checking the mail in Sitka there was a bulletin from Alaska Troller’s Association. There had been lots of griping about the huge sections of gillnet from offshore fisherman getting away and drifting up on our shores. As long as those nets are floating in the water they continue to catch fish and birds. This bulletin was telling us that the government agency, the name slips me at the moment, was charging the foreign and domestic fisherman that fished the high seas a huge sum for all lost gillnet. They were paying anyone who found the net drifting or on our beaches $500 a pound for the clean net when it was brought in.
I read and re-read that several times and then handed it to Skip to read. He read it and said, “So.” Just a couple days before we had been fishing in front of Sealion Cove beach and I saw a huge wad of this netting on the beach. I said that if there were 20 pounds of that stuff that was $10,000! We both re-read that bulletin a couple times more and headed out after that netting.
We anchored in Kalinin Bay shortly before dark and first thing in the morning we put on the dry suits that I had from abalone diving and got in my 13’ Boston Whaler. We went out Salisbury Sound and around Cape Georgiana to Sealion Cove, a total of about 7 miles of which half is the outside ocean. The beach is about a mile wide and at the south end are some rocks that give a little protection from the ocean swell. We anchored outside where the waves were breaking and swam to the beach. The net was stuck on the rocks at the north end of the bay so we had to walk the full width of the beach. It was a beautiful day though and we were in no hurry. However, on out way back with the big wad of net I noticed that the waves were breaking much closer to the skiff. I gave the net to Skip and told him to take it out on the rocks and I would swim out to the skiff and then pick him and the net up from the rocks.
I ran down the last quarter mile of beach and swam out to the skiff. Just as I took hold of the transom a wave broke over the bow and washed everything out. The gas tank went right by me and I grabbed it and put it back in the boat. I was still in the water. I started to push the boat into deeper water when the next wave came over the bow. This time the gas tank went out the other side and when it came to the end of the hose it pulled off. I had pulled the plug out of the bottom to let the water out. Boston Whalers are unsinkable and when the plug is out the floor is higher than the water level so they drain. I needed that gas tank so I turned loose of the boat and swam after the tank. Just as I got to it I saw the boat, still walering in the water, turn sideways and the next wave flipped it upside down.
Now we are in a pickle! It was about the first of February and there was no one else around or knew where we were. That outboard was under water and would not run without much more help than we were going to be able to give it there.
Well, that is probably enough for today. You will just have to read again tomorrow to see if we lived or died!
I have never been much for public prayers but God does say he wants them so please bear with me. If you know Jesus please pray with me.
Lord, You know Don Schirmer better than any man and I know Don better than most men. I have know him to be a man that has loved You for the 35 years that I have know him and I am sure much longer than that. You know that he is a good man, not perfect as none of us are, but with Your grace and the sacrifice Jesus made for us all Don is made perfect. He is ready to make the transition from the life we have known to being with you. I ask you to make him comfortable during this transition and let him know that many of us love him and are sorry to see him go. Harriet is going to have a huge empty place when Don goes. I ask you to somehow fill that emptiness in her with joy. Thank you Jesus.
Wow, I didn’t even short out the keyboard. As those of you that know me know my eyes get running much easier than I would like. But hay, that is just how God made me.
Well, Harriet mentioned the time with Skip. That was a good tale on me and should lighten up this post.
This story also took place in the BS days. (Before Sue days more than 25 years ago) Dean, my second wife, had left and left an emptiness in me. I was not willing to sit around all winter so I hired Skip, the son of a friend of mine, to go out winter king salmon fishing. He wasn’t busy so it sounded good to him. As I remember he was to get 10% of the gross of our catch. We headed to the Sitka area because I had heard that they sometimes have very good winter fishing. There are no buying scows on the fishing grounds in the winter so it is necessary to ice our fish. Then we go in about once a week to sell in town.
We had been fishing out of Salisbury Sound which is just northwest of Sitka. Kalinin Bay has been a favorite anchorage of mine for some time and that is where we had been anchoring at night. Our first two trips did little more than pay for the diesel fuel we used. When checking the mail in Sitka there was a bulletin from Alaska Troller’s Association. There had been lots of griping about the huge sections of gillnet from offshore fisherman getting away and drifting up on our shores. As long as those nets are floating in the water they continue to catch fish and birds. This bulletin was telling us that the government agency, the name slips me at the moment, was charging the foreign and domestic fisherman that fished the high seas a huge sum for all lost gillnet. They were paying anyone who found the net drifting or on our beaches $500 a pound for the clean net when it was brought in.
I read and re-read that several times and then handed it to Skip to read. He read it and said, “So.” Just a couple days before we had been fishing in front of Sealion Cove beach and I saw a huge wad of this netting on the beach. I said that if there were 20 pounds of that stuff that was $10,000! We both re-read that bulletin a couple times more and headed out after that netting.
We anchored in Kalinin Bay shortly before dark and first thing in the morning we put on the dry suits that I had from abalone diving and got in my 13’ Boston Whaler. We went out Salisbury Sound and around Cape Georgiana to Sealion Cove, a total of about 7 miles of which half is the outside ocean. The beach is about a mile wide and at the south end are some rocks that give a little protection from the ocean swell. We anchored outside where the waves were breaking and swam to the beach. The net was stuck on the rocks at the north end of the bay so we had to walk the full width of the beach. It was a beautiful day though and we were in no hurry. However, on out way back with the big wad of net I noticed that the waves were breaking much closer to the skiff. I gave the net to Skip and told him to take it out on the rocks and I would swim out to the skiff and then pick him and the net up from the rocks.
I ran down the last quarter mile of beach and swam out to the skiff. Just as I took hold of the transom a wave broke over the bow and washed everything out. The gas tank went right by me and I grabbed it and put it back in the boat. I was still in the water. I started to push the boat into deeper water when the next wave came over the bow. This time the gas tank went out the other side and when it came to the end of the hose it pulled off. I had pulled the plug out of the bottom to let the water out. Boston Whalers are unsinkable and when the plug is out the floor is higher than the water level so they drain. I needed that gas tank so I turned loose of the boat and swam after the tank. Just as I got to it I saw the boat, still walering in the water, turn sideways and the next wave flipped it upside down.
Now we are in a pickle! It was about the first of February and there was no one else around or knew where we were. That outboard was under water and would not run without much more help than we were going to be able to give it there.
Well, that is probably enough for today. You will just have to read again tomorrow to see if we lived or died!
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