Salmon Fishing

A joyous moment!

Alaska, the last frontier, they say. The promised land some say. I have heard about this place of mythical proportions my whole life and I’ve been infatuated with the idea of going. Last summer I got my chance. I bought a plane ticket with the determined intention of salmon fishing in Bristol Bay. I had heard that this was the real deal, “off-the-road system”, removed from the rest of the country by ridges of glacier capped mountains, only accessible by plane or boat. On my flight in we passed almost directly over a smoking volcano and on my descent I saw a herd of caribou.

I was on an adventure. The journey pushed me beyond anything I have ever experienced. Sleepless days, nights never dark, but picturesque with rainbow skies. Fish, fish and more fish. Endless fish, I swore at them, prayed for them, and ate more of them than I ever had in my life. My world became a 29-foot-long and 11-foot-wide boat named Sea Breeze. However, there was nothing breezy about the experience. We launched into 30 knot winds and 8 foot seas. The first 48 hours were hell incarnate, I was soaked, shivering, puking and pulling fish in. The puking stopped, we fixed our leaky windows, and the fish kept coming.

Five weeks out in the ocean. Five weeks without feeling the land underfoot but learning to relax and rock with the boat. Whether sitting, cooking, hauling in fish or sleeping. The rock and sway became comforting. I had nightmares for two weeks, imagining all the terrible things that could befall us. But one by one we checked them off the list and I became more confident that we could survive anything. Engine fire, check. Grounding on a sandbar with the net out, check. Wrapping another boat in our net, check. The never ending near catastrophes became commonplace.

A hose clamp fractured on our coolant hose. Emptying our antifreeze, seizing up our engine, and breaking down our hydraulic reel. The net out and our boat adrift cruising towards the 1000-foot-long “trampers,” hitting one would mean obliteration. 900 feet of net loaded with fish, and they were still coming in. “Round-hauling,” pulling the net in by hand, is like running a marathon with your fingertips. Grab the mesh, lean back, pull as hard as you can, repeat. The conclusion of this act is a deck filled with net and fish, hip deep in it. The next step is to remove the fish one by one. Yanking, pulling and picking through the mess of net and fish.

There was beauty and joy amidst the overwhelming hardship. Watching the mountain ranges change to indigo under rainbow skies. The sublime calm of night, ripples dancing, reflecting the moon above. Fish, rooted to the cycles, 4-6 years swimming all over the Pacific Ocean only to return to their natal stream. Multicolored and powerful, unyielding in their determination to return home. Salmon Fishing, a rite of passage that taught me that I’m capable of anything.