July 18, 2008
Packing Up
I have been unable to get online for days, and now that I have once again found the elusive signal, I have learned that this will be my last chance to post from the beach at Coffee Point as the folks who generously let me steal their signal are packing up shop tomorrow noontime.
I am happy to report that the fishing is done for the year. We are in the process of pulling the ropes and washing the pulleys, putting the trucks on blocks, storing all the food inside the bearproof metal shipping container, readying the skiff to survive the winter storms, boarding up the windows, washing all the rain gear, and making long lists of supplies to ship up on the barge for next year.
We've been doing our best to steer clear of grizzlies, actual ones, which have been prowling the premises with increasing frequency of late. Poor Bob came out of the outhouse the other day only to surprise a bear coming out of the alders about 20 feet away. Neither Bob nor the bear were particularly interested in spending much time in the company of the other, and neither lingered long contemplating the situation, Bob scurrying quickly back to our cabin and the bear hurrying back into the thick of the alders, where bears are more welcome.
Still, fresh tracks lace our driveway every morning. As we come and go throughout the compound we shout or sing to remind the bears that we are coming.
And speaking of bears, Marcy of the rottweiler/grizzly controversy, has returned to Chestertown and has emailed me the following photo as evidence to support her case. The footprints in question are, indeed, those of a grizzly bear. Marcy contends that they are the prints of the beast that startled her and Alden while walking that fateful day. I turn the matter once again to the court of public opinion.
I will post more stories and photos when we return, and may even post a movie of the extraordinary explosions we witnessed the other night when veteran fisherman and demolitions expert Pyro Dave detonated 8 cardboard boxes full of dynamite and 10 buckets filled with gasoline. It was loud. And bright. And riveting. Not much happens up here, so things that blow up are prime time entertainment.
For now, I leave you with a photo of my child, posed, per her grandmother's request, to imitate the pose of the Sumo Soap Seiko got for her birthday. I think the likeness is uncanny. Perhaps we have discovered the child's calling.
Check in again on Friday night when I will post from the airport at Anchorage. We have an 18 hour layover to endure.
Posted by ribbu at 08:27 PM
July 13, 2008
Beauty Sleep
I tell you, this fishing has really been interfering with my blogging of late. Salmon are such an inconsiderate breed. We have been fishing so frequently that sleep has only been happening in short, intense bursts. Alden and I have enjoyed some satisfying power naps together.
She has been spending more and more time with other members of the family, learning essential skills. Such as:
How to put one's entire fist inside one's mouth.
How to read.
How to lounge in the hammock chair.
And how not to hold a baby.
It takes a village...
Posted by bogenamp at 09:45 PM
July 10, 2008
The Baby is Disappointing
We have been fishing hard of late, every tide, in fact, when the pattern so far has been to fish every other.
So life has been reduced to a cycle of fishing, sleeping, eating, fishing, eating, sleeping, fishing, eating. I love two out of three of these things, so I suppose it could be worse. But there has not been time for merry chronicling of our lives among the bears and rottweilers.
So I'll take a moment to do a bit of Idiots'Books promotion. For those of you who have not already received your copy in the mail, Volume 15 was sent out just before we left for Alaska. The book is titled The Baby is Disappointing. It focuses on how awful babies are. How they produce noise and consume money. How they impinge upon freedoms while offering no useful services in return. How utterly foolish it is to have a child when one could simply go to the movies instead.
See how awful and spiteful they are?
Here's a page from the book.
It's the perfect gift for someone who has recently had a baby. Or better yet, for someone who is thinking of having one and who might still be persuaded not to.
Posted by bogenamp at 02:58 PM
July 08, 2008
The King and I
There are various types of salmon. The one we're after, commercially speaking, is the red, or sockeye salmon.
Our nets are gauged to fit neatly around the gills of your average sockeye, which weighs in around 6 pounds.
Occasionally, however, other kinds of fish find their way into our nets. Most frequently we snag unwanted flounder, in all likelihood the ugliest fish known to man.
Other times, we catch a kind of trout called the Dolly Varden.
The worst is when we snag the horrible, terrifying Irish Lord. I have had nightmares about the little bastards and their ugly, spiny faces.
When I see one in the net, I leave him there and pretend that the net is clean. This way, when Robbi next goes out to check the net, removing the Irish Lord will be her responsibility. She is the veteran, after all.
Our favorite accidental catch by far is the King Salmon, large, lumbering, and full of delicious fatty meat. He is large but sluggish. Moving his massive body up the river system has so tired him that he hits our nets and collapses with exhaustion, sometimes snagged only by a tooth. Such a beast found its way into our nets today. Here he is, for your enjoyment.
Before taking the king to the butcher's block, I decided to introduce him to Alden, mostly to give her a better idea of what a badass her papa is.
I don't quite know how to read her reaction.
Surprised, disgusted, fearful, indifferent? At 27 pounds, the fish outweighed her by more than 2:1, so I could understand if she decided that holding her tongue was the best way to go.
Maiko went to work on the king with the carving knife while I returned to the nets to continue my picking. Fishing has been a bit of a grind the past few days. The Department of Fish and Game put us back on the night tides, so our last two openings have been at 1:30am and 2:30am respectively. Tomorrow morning: 3:30. Time to get back to the cabin for a few hours of sleep.
Posted by bogenamp at 01:39 AM
July 06, 2008
This is My Life
This month, I am a fisherman.
This is my beach.
This is my net.
This is my ride.
This is my other ride.
This is my dog.
This is my woman.
This is my woman and my quarry.
This is my heroic posture.
This is my reward (mac cheese, capers, and gravlox).
This is my baby.
This is my baby doing scratch-offs (she did not win).
This is my slumber.
And this is Binx, the Rottweiler that might have been mistaken for a bear.
And here is an actual grizzly bear.
You can see how Marcy might have been confused.
Posted by bogenamp at 03:59 PM
July 04, 2008
Alden and the Bear
Our friends and fellow Chestertonians Marcy and John Ramsey have come along to Alaska
this year. John makes high-ed lighting fixtures and Marcy is an artist and illustrator.
They are both enthusiastic about salmon and, after hearing tales of Bob and Seiko's
adventures for years, decided to come along to see the escapades first hand.
Marcy has been spending time with Alden while the rest of us fish. They have been doing
fun things like making lunch, singing songs, and reading back issues of Maxim, of which
we are in no short supply. Today they decided to go for a walk, and headed out toward our
neighbor Vern's house to have a look around.
Vern's compound is a snapshot of 40 years of life in a place where you can't really throw
anything away. The land around his house is strewn with discarded four-wheelers,
tractors, trucks, snowmobiles, scrap metal, tools, etc., all in varying stages of
decline. According to Marcy, she and Alden were taking it all in when, out of the corner
of her eye, Marcy spotted a grizzly bear grazing through one of Vern's trash heaps.
Marcy reports that the bear looked up at her just then, something that brought on a
mixture of terror and level-headedness. Marcy knew that the best tack was to make no
sudden movements, to back away, and to present no signs of aggression. Holding Alden
close against her body, she backed away until the bear was out of sight then ran like
hell back to our compound.
When I returned from fishing a few hours later, Marcy relayed the story. I offered
sympathy and expressed gratitude that she had taken the necessary steps to keep my child
from being eaten.
When Robbi and the rest of her family returned from fishing, the story was shared again.
They were surprised to hear of the bear. Apparently, was unusual for a bear to appear in
broad daylight at this time of year and for a bear to be foraging in trash when salmon is
currently so abundant. And then there was the question of why Vern's dog hadn't been
barking at the bear. It's one of the main reasons Vern has a dog, in fact. To have a
built-in bear alarm. They asked Marcy if Vern's dog, a Rottweiler named Binx, had made an
appearance in the course of the incident. Marcy allowed that he had not.
I will leave it to you to Google a Rottweiler and a brown (grizzly) bear. Can you see how,
from a distance, with the weight of sudden terror upon you, one might confuse the two?
Though Marcy remains firmly convinced that she saw a grizzly bear, the prevailing opinion
is that she and Alden merely caught old Binx looking for some extra snacks while Vern and
his family were out fishing.
The story of Marcy and the bear was a good one. This story, I think, is even better.
Posted by bogenamp at 11:44 PM
July 02, 2008
Water
We don't have public plumbing up here, which is why we have an outhouse.
It is a nice place to read a bit while gazing out at the tundra.
But we have contrived clever ways to deal with this lack. For drinking water, we harvest rainwater. It rolls down the roof and gathers in PVC gutters. It travels down this tube.
And into these buckets. We filter the rainwater with a Britta and drink it. So far, none of us has suffered as a result.
We used to have a water tower fed by a pump that drew water from the spring. The water tower used to feed various pipes, faucets, and spigots around the compoutnd. But the pump is broken and we do not have the wherewithal to fix it. For the time being, we fill these large Tupperware totes with water from the spring, drive them back to our house, and set them on the ground outside the kitchen.
Using this car battery to run a small pump, we pump water into the house for the kitchen sink and shower.
Yes, we have a shower, with water heated by propane. We get to shower once about every five days. Those are good days, those shower days.
And for the grandparents and those of you motivated only by baby pictures, here are my girls, gazing out into the world while the wind whips across the bluff.
The wind continues today. Our catch this morning was once again an improvement on yesterday. Tomorrow we fish at 10:30am. A very agreeable time to fish.
Posted by bogenamp at 09:20 PM