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| Another hard day in the office |
A cool wind blows through the trees, coming off the murky water of the glacier fed Matanuska River. There is a chill in the air, and the sun hides behind clouds that threaten rain. Sitting on the porch of the Nova River Runners cabin, I hear people murmuring inside about which dry suit will fit and how to avoid the biggest rocks when paddling. I smile at the vast difference of water experiences I’ve had in the last three months.
I had been working in Anchorage, trying to get some hunk of junk Chrysler to start when I first heard from Robby Williams. My hands covered in grease, oil and blood (some probably not even my own, this car had been abandoned in Anchorage for a month), I answered my phone with a grunt, still half wondering which one of the dumpsters hid the dude that was going to knife me and steal the 35$ I had in my wallet. The friendly voice on the other end introduced himself, and I forced myself to concentrate. A quick two minutes on the phone, and I was happy to realize I had just landed what sounded like a great job working on the ocean as a fisherman. The fun part was that I had 2 days to get to Kenai, with whatever I needed for 6 weeks of work. My outfit of camping gear and clothes were 2 1/2 hours north in Glacier View, where my girlfriend worked as a photographer for a rafting & hiking company. My new job, promising a shack of my own on the beach and three warm meals a day, was 3 hours south. I looked down at the dented, leaking vehicle and smiled. Where there’s a will, there’s a way! An hour later I pulled the car into the owners driveway, with a new battery, fuses and zip-tied license plate installed, and about half full of fluids- the other half led a meandering trail back to the apartment complex where I had found this beast. I pocketed a few hundred dollars from the last few days of handyman work I had been doing for the friendly native family, hopped on my trusty, albeit dirty and loud, KLR, and headed north to pack up my gear. Stuffing my panniers and bags full for a job I knew very little about, I set out the next evening for the Kenai Peninsula. One moose accident, two sketchy gas station fill ups and 5 hours of hand numbing riding later, I pulled onto a small dirt driveway surrounded by stacks of nets, bright buoys and old trucks in hip tall grass.
I walked down the hand-cut stairs to find a small, cozy shack with warm light spilling out onto the grass, the sound of crashing waves on the beach in the distance. A humming woman was taking biscuits out of a small oven, the smell overwhelming my dull senses. I walked up to the door, and the clunk of my boots made her turn. She smiled, a genuine smile going up to her eyes - “You must be Travis! Come in, come in. You must be freezing.” I opened the door, and the warmth of the electric heater combined with the tantalizing aromas of bacon, french toast and biscuits almost brought tears of joy to my face. This was the wife of my new boss, Kris, and she was a fantastic, caring woman who made the best camp food this side of the Mississippi. I swear it.
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| The famous cook shack, home of many great meals |
Kris and I talked about my trip in, and the general way of living on the beach at fish camp, while I waited for Robby and the others to come in from the water. We were still among small trees and bushes in the cook shack, so I couldn’t see the water or any of living shacks. After about 15 minutes the troops came in, and I got to meet my family for the next 6 weeks. Robby was tall, thin man with hair graying at the corners and a smile always ready to pop up his face. His glasses and classic derby hat made him look like the classic fisherman, and he did indeed love to fish. When we would begin to pull in heavy loads of fish, he would get excited and let out a whoop like a kid on Christmas morning, opening the present he’d been wanting the most.
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| Robby in his element- on the water among fishermen |
His son in law, Kyle, was gym teacher turned athletic director, and had the look of a gym body and full smile that probably made all the highschool girls giggle. It was his 7th year working with Robby, having married his daughter 2 years ago. Mike was the perfect picture of a hard working fisherman, with a bushy beard and happy-go-lucky attitude. Mike and I would wind up making an especially great friendship, and were the only two who stayed on the beach during fishing season. Wes was a 16 year old who was also fishing salmon for the first time; he was a little strange and had mood swings equivalent to a 14 year old girl. He was fun to work around for the most part tho, and usually made you laugh with his strangeness. A few weeks after I started working, two other kids came to work at fish camp. Tanner was Robby’s nephew, and he brought along his girlfriend Taylor. Besides that, occasionally friends would stop by to visit, and overall really made the camp a friendly place.
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| Fish camp in the natural |
It took me a few days to get the entire way of set netting down, but it was really pretty simple work, and I came to enjoy it. I’d only ever been on the ocean twice before, and never with such involvement. I’ve always appreciated hard work, and set netting offered that, while also allowing plenty of downtime. There was always a positive, fun setting both on the beach and on the water, which was what made fish camp such a great memory and awesome experience. The craziest part of it all was the complete disintegration of the concept of time. We lived, ate, worked, and slept by the tide. Working by headlamps in screaming winds and 6 foot seas was a great part of the adventure of fish camp.
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| Always serious at fish camp |
A quick overrun of how set netting works, in lamens terms. We operated out of two small boats. We would load up both boats with nets, consisting of “corks” or small buoys, and leads. Various larger buoys, ropes (lines from a fisherman, don’t ever make the mistake of calling them ropes in front of one) and an extra gas tank finished it up. Bring the boats, individually, to the waters edge and pull them out to deeper water by hand via a “line” attached from shore to a large buoy out to sea. Once deep enough, crank the motor till she catches and head out to the first of 12 sites.Three people working to a boat, or four with the big boss on board, would tie two ends of a net to a buoy, after pulling in 40 yards of soaking wet, slimy line. The other boat would do the same to another buoy, a hundred feet away. At the hand signal, both boats would haul ass directly at each other. As this happened, both boats would have a man letting out line by hand as they went. Soon, the first boat would pitch what they had left and veer out of the way just in time for the second boat to grab the line pitched from the first and haul it into the boat. Immediately, everyone on board would work as quickly as possible to tie the two lines together, before all slack came out of the line and it was pulled out of the boat from the powerful strength of the unseen underwater current. If the crew wasn’t successful, the third crew member would tie in an emergency line when he saw it was getting close. If that failed as well, both boats would gather in the lines and nets, and try again. This was done 12 times, once for each fishing site, which each costed a small fortune to originally purchase.
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| A boat full of nets ready to be set |
After all nets were set, the boats split up to search for “lead overs”, which were when the net was somehow tangled and needed to be fixed to properly catch fish. Then the boats would wait on the water for an amount of time varying from 5 minutes to 2 hours before turning the nets. At different times of the day, the tide would change direction, and to speed up the process of the nets turning to match, they would be tied to the boats and slowly dragged to face the proper way. After 12 turns, one for each net, one boat would moor at a buoy and its crew would hop into the second boat, which would then beach, like the troops of Normandy minus the gunfire. Everyone would walk up the ramshackle buildings that made up fish camp, strip off their fish gear and tromp on up to the cook shack for a delicious breakfast. Now I should note that this meal would be breakfast, regardless of what time we got in- 8 in the morning or 2 in the afternoon, the first meal was breakfast. Fantastic! Then depending on the tide schedule, there might be time for a cat nap or a movie, before heading out and picking nets in the two boats. Individual boats would motor up to the nets, pull one end of them in, and effectively pull down the net, stripping salmon, flounders, halibut, jellyfish, small sharks, sticks and the occasional octopus from it. Heading back in laden with salmon- the rest got thrown back to the water- the fish would be tossed into large crates with some ice to be taken to the buying station several miles down the road in the back of a truck. By then it was usually time for lunch, consisting of more amazing food made by Kris.
Another small break if we were lucky, then back out on the boats, this time to pick fish, then pull nets. Stacking nets in a boat full of fish in giant, freezing waves was always interesting. Eventually the boats would make their way to shore, and for the next few hours everyone would be un-stacking and re-stacking nets, chucking fish, washing boats and refilling gas tanks. Off to the buying station your daily catch would go, as you limped your way up to the cook shack to eat more promisingly delicious food. Eventually you would take off your boots, shin full of fish blood and sea water, crawl into bed and lick your most recent wounds. All the while smiling at what you had done that day.
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| Everyone with some prized Salmon |
There was plenty more to be done at fish camp, more then I feel I could even write about. But its strange, because the work was only half the story. The great people I worked with, the beauty of living on the beach (effectively by myself) for almost 2 months, the great road trips I would take on my time off. One day when i had a free space of 36 hours, I rode to Seward, Alaska. On the way back I took a goat trail leading up to a very old mine, with a challenging climb and breath taking sights. Another time I drove to Homer and took a nap on the Spit (a famous beach area) watching wind windsurfers. Tho the “nap” turned into a 6 hour doze, I still managed to wake up in time to go have dinner with a friend. Other days, on time off I would spend it siting with Robby and his family. Watching news on the TV was a strange eye opener- you never hear about whats happening in the world when you live on a motorcycle! They were truly great people, welcoming me into their home without hesitation. With warm showers, wi-fi, and a refrigerator waiting to be plundered, the Williams were some of the most friendly and open people I had met on my travels yet. I even stripped my bike down in their garage and painted it (black, of course).
Over the course of my time at fish camp, I made some great friends. I had a great time learning all sorts of things relating to fishing, and the ocean. Witnessing the setting sun over the ocean, covered in fish blood and bits of jellyfish was for some reason very peaceful, like the peace you can only get when seeing something beautiful after working hard all day. There was always a good smile on my face every day, and I was thankful for what life had presented me. It was without a doubt one of the best summers I have ever had, and really added a lot to my adventure in Alaska. I was surprised to find myself so content for such an extended amount of time without a real batch of riding. The time on the beach was so unlike a job that it was easy to think of it as simply helping out friends or family. I‘ll always remember the time I spent as an Alaskan set-netter as a truly awesome time. On the final day, I packed up my sleeping bag and closed the door to my shack, glancing out over the beach and whispering under my breath “So long my friend”.
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| The beach was always displaying more beauty every chance it had |
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