Hooked | one woman at sea, trolling for truth

Time 2022-07-26 10:43:05

Web Name: Hooked | one woman at sea, trolling for truth

WebSite: http://www.teleaadsen.com

ID:260871

Keywords:

woman,at,Hooked,one

Description:

Navigation

Hel­lo, friend -My name is Tele (pro­nounced Tell-ah.) Born in Alas­ka, Ispent aland­locked ear­ly child­hood at my par­ents’ vet­eri­nary clin­ic, also our home. Sled dogs were fre­quent vis­i­tors, as were spindly-legged moose calves. But my par­ents had avision of adven­ture beyond the...

0123

Halcyon

Posted by Tele

Women in Fishing

July 12, 2021

32 comments

The ocean got Hal­cy­on on Open­ing Day.

July 1, we had our gear in the water by 3:30. Five miles off­shore, it was windy that morn­ing. Chop­py seas, wet air, vis­i­bil­i­ty less than amile, every­thing steely gray. When the first fish of the sea­son hit the deck, Hal was ready. He pranced across the deck, tail straight up hap­py, &sat under the fish table in expec­ta­tion. Itossed him some head cut nub­bins; he yummed them right up. He looked so pleased with him­self, jump­ing back into his bas­ket on top of the deck freez­er.

It was 5:20 when we put the first fish down. Iclimbed downinto the hold, giv­ing Hal areas­sur­ing smile. See­ing his mon­keys dis­ap­pear intothe freez­er always freaked him out. Joel hand­ed the fish down to me. He wentback into the cab­in. Iglanced around the hold, decid­ed it was too cold to doany­thing else down there. Icame back up &hosed off the fish table. Thesim­plest series of events that took less than aminute, before Iglancedfor­ward &real­ized Hal wasn’t in his bas­ket any­more.

This wasn’t the first time we’d had to look for Hal. Ispent his pre­vi­ous two sea­sons con­stant­ly mon­i­tor­ing his where­abouts, leap­ing up from every cof­fee break to clar­i­fy where the cat was. He was always there, some­where. So we start­ed by check­ing all his usu­al spots on deck. The bow &roof where he’s not sup­posed to be. The cab­in, the foc’s’le, under our bunk. He wasn’t any­where.

We didn’t see him go over. We didn’t hear any­thing. By thetime we real­ized he was gone &got turned around, how long had our boyalready been in 54 degree water?

Too long.

Joel drove us back down our tack. Istood on the bow withbinoc­u­lars &scanned the chop. How do you find asmall cat in abig, unrulyocean? It seemed so impos­si­bly unlike­ly… But we kept look­ing. And look­ing.Until, off the star­board, Icaught the briefest glimpse of some­thing oth­er thangray between the swells.

Joel cranked the wheel hard over. Igrabbed the dip net&ran to the mid-ship rail, just in time to see that life­less orange bodyin blue adven­ture coat float past, 20 feet beyond my reach.

We turned around to make anoth­er pass. We didn’t find himagain.

We pulled our gear afew hours lat­er, use­less with dis­be­lief&grief. We spent the rest of Open­ing Day run­ning – not to any hot bite,just away, away from the scene of loss &the dread­ful fear of see­ing hisbody drift past in the waves.

This opening’s kings will be salty. We sobbed through the fol­low­ingdays, going through the motions of our work, tears falling into salmon bel­lies.

“It’s just acat.” Some folks aren’t pet peo­ple, Iget that. And Iknow some of you, fish­er-friends, are haunt­ed by the crew­mates who slipped through your fin­gers. But this cat was our boy, &there’s no grief with­out guilt. Why didn’t Ishoo him into the cab­in as we hand­ed the fish down? How did we not see him go over? Why didn’t we turn around soon­er? How could we leave him out there? Ihate think­ing of our fleet­mates encoun­ter­ing his body, as if he’d been care­less­ly dis­card­ed, unloved.

Every spring, stock­ing the Ner­ka for the com­ing sea­son, Icon­sid­er my attach­ments. Don’t take any­thing to sea that you’re not will­ing to lose. Pic­tur­ing the wave that toss­es the dish rack across the cab­in, Ileave afavorite cof­fee cup on land. Then we untie the lines, head­ing out with our most dear­ly beloveds. What am Iwill­ing to lose?

One of Hal’s friends, avet­eri­nar­i­an who is also afish­er­man, offered this grace: “I tru­ly believe he had amore incred­i­ble kit­ty life with you guys, doing his adven­tures, than the aver­age cat.” True fact: Hal was relent­less in his quest for adven­tures. With time, Ican most­ly accept our friend’s offer­ing. Ijust can’t get past how brief his life was, or how fuck­ing ter­ri­ble of adeath. It was our job to keep him safe.

Hard as his death is, it’s just as painful recall­ing the final months of Hal’s life. We spent too much time com­plain­ing that he wasn’t acud­dler, fail­ing to appre­ci­ate who he was, exact­ly as he was.

This is who Hal­cy­on was:

Born in Taco­ma on August 18, 2018, Hal joined Team Ner­ka when he was 10 weeks old. 2018 was arough time. Gaz­ing at that blaz­ing ball of orange fluff in Joel’s palms, we saw our hal­cy­on, the myth­i­cal crea­ture bring­ing hope to mariners. For too short of atime, he did just that.

Sum­mit­ing our legs &exten­sion lad­ders, Hal was aclimber, always want­i­ng to go high­er, see more. It was impos­si­ble to keep him off the coun­ters; we gave up try­ing. He was indif­fer­ent to humans (“Not real into peo­ple, is he?” avet observed last win­ter) but had admir­ers every­where he went. And he did go every­where: packed into the car for road trips near &far, Hal loved car rides, being in motion. He went to Fish­er­Po­ets &on ski trips. We couldn’t take him on enough walks. (Why didn’t we take him on more walks?) Hear­ing the mag­ic words – Hang on, got­ta put your adven­ture coat on – he’d stand patient­ly to get buck­led into his har­ness, leash snapped on. Then we’d go explor­ing. His tail was nev­er high­er than when he got to lead the way. He’d march through snow until he shiv­ered &we inter­vened, That’s enough, time to go back inside. He had anear-shock­ing­ly poor sense of self-preser­va­tion. He was alook­er, the most pho­to­genic of all of us. Such apret­ty boy, yet smart enough to unscrew the treat jar &under­stand how doors worked. (He tried des­per­ate­ly to let him­self out, hang­ing from the han­dles. If they weren’t inward open­ing, he could’ve got­ten there.) He hat­ed shuf­fled foot­steps. He loved play­ing with dogs, play­ing hide &seek, &would chase alaser beam until his sides heaved. He had abizarre fetish for apar­tic­u­lar bam­boo kitchen spoon. He loved the boat: unfazed by weath­er, curi­ous about every­thing, afiend for salmon blood pud­dle. Nev­er alap cat, he always want­ed to be near us, flop­ping in aper­fect tri­an­gle to keep both of his mon­keys in sight. He tol­er­at­ed our kiss­es, &more often than not, gave some back, rough licks of our fore­heads &noses. If we caught him at just the right time, at his sleepi­est, he’d let us cra­dle him, nuz­zled into our necks.

Hal was our lit­tle goof­ball, our Din­gus Khan. He was an adven­ture cat, my con­stant road com­pan­ion. He was Hal­cy­on the Destroy­er, our sweet boy, part of the love pack, &he deserved so much more.

Read More

Change

Posted by Tele

Women in Fishing

August 10, 2020

12 comments

The water was warm last sum­mer. Dixon Entrance to Sit­ka, South­east Alas­ka felt eeri­ly bar­ren – no bait, no birds. All July &August, the coho were skit­tish, unwill­ing to school up or set­tle into tra­di­tion­al­ly favored spots. With no hot bites to run to, some boats tied up mid-sea­son, unable to jus­ti­fy the cost of fuel for the fish they weren’t catch­ing. New­er fleet­mates looked stunned, con­fess­ing they hadn’t even bro­ken 300 yet. They’d come in on the good years, think­ing those days were nor­mal. As for Joel &me, Team Ner­ka final­ly had to prac­tice patience. Noto­ri­ous run­ners, always search­ing for some­thing bet­ter – one of our elders once said about Joel, “That boy’s jumpi­er than afart in askil­let” – instead we stuck &stayed &tried to make it pay, grind­ing out days for mea­ger two-dig­it scores we would’ve aban­doned by mid-morn­ing on pre­vi­ous years. When friends asked us how the sea­son was going, we told them the word for the sum­mer was “under­whelm­ing.”

Under­whelm­ing. Spo­ken in true fish­er­man fash­ion: under­stat­ed, min­i­miz­ing real­i­ty. Like shrug­ging “We did all right,” when you come back to town with the hold plugged &the water­line sunk. Like green water wash­ing over the win­dows, cof­fee cup swan-div­ing to shards on the floor, your part­ner in the anchor­age ask­ing for aweath­er report: “It’s nau­ti­cal.” Like the calm obser­va­tion, the water was warm, instead of scream­ing WTF, what’s hap­pen­ing, how did we get here?

How did Iget here?

Anchor­age,1985. Afad­ed 3x5 cap­tures the moment. A43’ foot tri­maran hov­ers in the cen­terof the shot, sus­pend­ed by acrane. My par­ents, vet­eri­nar­i­ans in the Mat-SuVal­ley, have spent the past sev­en years build­ing the Askari in our land­lockedback­yard. Sev­en years toil­ing in the vet clin­ic every day, labor­ing deep intoevery night to cre­ate this moment, the long-await­ed launch. My dad strains atthe bow, grip­ping aguide­line. My mom dash­es to steady the stern. Iam achildsuper­vi­sor, hands stuffed in pock­ets, stand­ing on aprecipice with the Askari,life cleav­ing into hemi­spheres of before &after, sus­pend­ed between land&sea.

That was 35 years ago. I’m 42 now, the same age my mom was when she trad­ed her vet­eri­nary license for atroll per­mit. Imag­ine – the courage to turn away from your edu­ca­tion, the busi­ness you’d built, your home, from land itself; sell it all, go all in. Craft­ing an alter­nate real­i­ty out of fiber­glass, resin, dreams.

Imag­ine… believ­ing in adream envi­sioned, believ­ing in it so pro­found­ly, as to sac­ri­fice every­thing with­out any guar­an­tees. To sac­ri­fice, suf­fer even, for the sheer pos­si­bil­i­ty of change.

In Decem­ber 2019, the news broke that the Gulf of Alaska’s cod fish­ery would be closed for the 2020 sea­son. It was the first fish­ery to be closed not because of over­fish­ing, but as acon­se­quence of warm­ing waters.

Afew weeks lat­er, Alas­ka Fish &Game released their pro­jec­tion for Sitka’s sac roe her­ring fish­ery, ahar­vest tar­get of 25,000 tons, up from last year’s 13,000. They didn’t catch the quo­ta last year, or the year before that. Just final­ly gave up, charg­ing west to try oth­er regions, oth­er fish­eries, leav­ing dis­gust­ed sighs of exhaust in their wake.

Ithink about her­ring – akey­stone species, their well­be­ing essen­tial to the sur­vival of every­one above them on the food chain, includ­ing king salmon – &I think about mon­ey, &how fish­er­folks are in the VIP seats, front &cen­ter as change wash­es over us, &you know those boats charg­ing west in search of oth­er regions, oth­er fish­eries, their engines sound an awful lot like the band on the Titan­ic play­ing on, play­ing on, &in my mind they’re play­ing with Tra­cy Chap­man &she’s singing If you knew that you would die today – would you change?

After the fish­ing sea­son, Ispend win­ters sell­ing the Nerka’s catch. For many of my fleet­mates, this is the goal: get your boot in the door with an ice boat, work up to afreez­er boat, cut out the mid­dle­men &sell your catch your­self. Ianswer their ques­tions, watch them ascend the indus­try esca­la­tor, watch their deter­mi­na­tion to make it as they sac­ri­fice, suf­fer even, for their dream of mak­ing agood life catch­ing few­er fish at agreater val­ue.

Mean­while, over the past five years of sling­ing salmon to chefs in the sur­round­ing coun­ties, I’ve dri­ven the equiv­a­lent of cross­ing the coun­try ten times, often to asound­track of NPR, lis­ten­ing to the lat­est on amelt­ing Arc­tic &a blaz­ing Aus­tralia, think­ing about change – cli­mate change, social change, spare change, this show sucks change the chan­nel, burn it all down &start over sys­temic change. The ways we’re social­ized to believe we’re sup­posed to change – mov­ing on up, up, &away, striv­ing for faster, bet­ter, more.

Me, Iwant to sloooooooow down. The more Iwant is small­er, sim­pler. More qui­et, more peace, acare-filled, pur­pose­ful present, more acts of kind­ness &com­pas­sion for you and for me, too. This plan­et is spin­ning too, too fast &I want off, but how do you stop when your foot is one of bil­lions stuck on the gas ped­al? Glob­al change? Imight as well be weld­ed to this Chevy Astro, I’m such apart of the machine.

Last Sep­tem­ber, toward the end of the fish­ing sea­son, Isat withafleet­mate. His birth­day falls in August, smack-dab in what’s his­tor­i­cal­ly oursec­ond king open­ing. This year, for the first time, he tied the boat up &skipped the open­ing – aking open­ing! – to wel­come his 72nd raft­ingthe Alsek Riv­er with loved ones instead.

“I nev­er could’ve imag­ined doing that,” he said. His voice wasequal parts awe &grat­i­tude for his deci­sion, &I won­dered what itwould be like if we all had the secu­ri­ty &free­dom to make such auda­cious,life-giv­ing choic­es, to mea­sure the val­ue of pounds to dol­lars to your time’sworth, your life’s worth. Who among us can afford to do this?

Who canafford not to?

The water was warm last sum­mer. No one denies that. Instead we argue dif­fer­ing take­aways. Some mock ateenage girl’s urgent call to action – so direct &fierce, sac­ri­lege to fishing’s code of under­state­ment. Oth­ers trav­el to DC to lob­by to pro­tect the Ton­gass, the world’s largest remain­ing tem­per­ate rain­for­est. Search­ing for the mag­ic words to urge peo­ple to care, to act, we resort to the lan­guage of mon­ey. What’s it to you?

Ido it, too. For every salmon Ithank as Islice theirgills – thank you, thank you – life runsout the scup­pers &by the end of the sea­son I’m run­ning num­bers same asany­one else: how many fish at how many pounds at how many dol­lars to fill howmany orders. This is all part of asea-to-plate sto­ry, &I’ve been liv­ingver­sions of it since Iwas that lit­tle girl land­ing in Sit­ka, jig­ging off thedock in Old Thom­sen Har­bor with fel­low boat kids, fill­ing five-gal­lon buck­etswith baby black cod. At the end of the day we sold them to my friends’ dad forhal­ibut bait. He paid us in ice cream cones from the Dip-n-Sip.

Thir­ty-five years liv­ing this life with crit­i­cal yet mar­row-deep devo­tion. Devo­tion like being lashed to the mast of aship cradling you &me &all liv­ing things, thrashed by aper­fect storm of cap­i­tal­ism, com­plic­i­ty, hypocrisy. As the wind catch­es its breath, we soothe each oth­er with sto­ries. Sto­ries like when Icrewed for my broth­er for aking open­ing &watched him pull athir­ty-pounder boat-side. Thick-bel­lied, not ashim­mer­ing scale miss­ing, per­fect &per­fect­ly hooked through the tip of her snub nose. He slipped his gaff gen­tly through &popped the hook free, telling her, “Go find ariv­er.”

That’s what keeps me on this ship, you know – faith that there might be some mean­ing in these moments when we do the unex­pect­ed, do the hard thing, when we go off-script &show what we tru­ly val­ue. When the storm con­tin­ues but we’re not pas­sive. When we reach for the tools before us – sci­ence, his­to­ry, cul­ture, art, com­mu­ni­ty, love – and we make achange.

Read More

Of Salmon, Orcas, &Fisher-families

Posted by Tele

Alaska, Commercial Fishing, Environment, Hooked Favorites, Salmon Trolling

May 16, 2020

15 comments

For South­east Alaska’s salmon trollers, thelongest day of the year falls on July 1: open­ing day of Chi­nook salmon sea­son.

Every July 1finds us – two humans andour boat, the 43-foot Ner­ka – fortymiles off­shore in the Gulf of Alas­ka. We’ll be in our boots ‘til sun­down:check­ing our hooks, pro­cess­ing the catch, han­dling every salmon with metic­u­louscare. We’ll talk about our part­ners, Pacif­ic North­west chefs and gro­cers, who willbuild their own work around our har­vest. Through­out the day we’ll exclaim atbreach­ing hump­backs, aLayson alba­tross soar­ing by, aschool of her­ringflip­ping on the sur­face. Every­thing is an inter­con­nect­ed won­der.

One hook, one fish. Fol­low­ing ten thou­sand years of First Nations’ sea­son­al har­vests and envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship, this ethos has guid­ed South­east Alaska’s com­mer­cial troll fleet for almost 150 years. As sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion fish­er­men proud of the con­ser­va­tion val­ues reg­u­lat­ing our work, it’s sur­re­al to find our fish­ery in the Wild Fish Conservancy’s crosshairs.

On April 17, the Duvall-based orga­ni­za­tion filed an injunc­tion in fed­er­al court to block king salmon trolling in Alas­ka this sea­son, effec­tive July 1. The injunc­tion comes just amonth after the WFC’s law­suit against the Nation­al Ocean­ic &Atmos­pher­ic Admin­is­tra­tion (NOAA) for autho­riz­ing Alaska’s Chi­nook troll fish­ery, alleg­ing troll inter­cep­tion as the cause of the South­ern Res­i­dent orca’s nutri­tion­al defi­cien­cies. This law­suit address­es none of the very real threats to the South­ern Res­i­dent orcas and salmon – Puget Sound’s habi­tat loss, pol­lu­tion, dams, cli­mate change – but instead seeks to shut down some of the hard­est work­ing advo­cates for salmon: com­mu­ni­ty-based fish­er-folks in asus­tain­able fish­ery over athou­sand miles away.

Hav­ing this unfold amidst pan­dem­ic days, when everyone’s cir­cum­stances are already pre­car­i­ous and any sense of nor­mal­cy wild­ly off-kil­ter, has been bru­tal. Salmon trollers are lit­er­al mom-and-pop oper­a­tions, strug­gling to stay afloat with lit­tle-to-no mar­gins. The vast major­i­ty of the fleet — 85% — is com­prised of Alas­ka res­i­dents. South­east Alaska’s coastal com­mu­ni­ties have spent decades sac­ri­fic­ing to com­pen­sate for the Low­er 48’s fresh­wa­ter habi­tat destruc­tion, illus­trat­ed by the cuts to our Chi­nook quo­ta in Pacif­ic Salmon Treaty (PST) nego­ti­a­tions: 35% in 1999, 15% in 2009, and at least anoth­er 7.5% in 2019. When it comes to sav­ing Chi­nook salmon and the orcas that depend on them, no one has more at stake than com­mer­cial fish­ing fam­i­lies. Our liveli­hoods depend on healthy stocks and fish­eries man­aged for the long-term. Con­sci­en­tious con­sumers know this; it’s why Alas­ka has con­sis­tent­ly been laud­ed for its “best prac­tice” fish­eries, world-renowned as amod­el of sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Last sum­mer, Alaska’s trollers fished atotal of sev­en days for kings. Elim­i­nat­ing the low­est impact fish­ery on the water will not reduce the tox­i­c­i­ty of Puget Sound or the PCB lev­els respon­si­ble for “peanut-head” off­spring, nor will it address the impact of the Low­er Snake Riv­er dams and the ram­pant habi­tat loss caused by America’s fastest-grow­ing metrop­o­lis. Notably, Washington’s South­ern Res­i­dent Orca Task Force, expert stake­hold­ers, isn’t back­ing the WFC’s law­suit. Instead of help­ing orcas, this will dev­as­tate South­east Alaska’s coastal com­mu­ni­ties and our part­ners across the coun­try.

Fisherman/environmentalist: we’re oldenough to remem­ber when folks had to choose one or the oth­er. That’s atired tropeper­formed by both sides, and we reject it. We are acom­mer­cial fish­er-fam­i­ly.We are envi­ron­men­tal­ists. The WFC speaks for nei­ther.

As har­vesters, we are respon­si­ble for telling the sto­ry of our salmon. Few of our land-friends will ever watch aking salmon breach the water’s sur­face as dawn breaks over the Fair­weath­er Range, but if we do our work prop­er­ly, they’ll feel rev­er­ence for the fish on their plate. Only through alliances between com­mer­cial fish­er-folks, con­ser­va­tion­ists, ser­vice indus­try pro­fes­sion­als, trib­al mem­bers, sports fish­ing groups, sci­en­tists, &con­sumers – can we hope to turn the tide for the long-term sur­vival of the South­ern Res­i­dent orcas. The WFC’s law­suit is not the path that will get us there.

As of May 12, we still don’t know how our 2020 salmon sea­son will unfold, wait­ing for afed­er­al judge in Wash­ing­ton to rule on the WFC’s injunc­tion. Please vis­it the Alas­ka Trollers Asso­ci­a­tion to donate to ATA’s Legal Fund.

Read More « Older Entries

Follow Tele &Hooked!

Hooked?

Some Favorites...

Of Salmon, Orcas, &Fisher-familiesHearing VoicesComing HomeBear the Boat Cat: 8.2.06 — 9.4.18If There is Only TodayHow We Will Weather ThisMaking ChangeThe “Me” Within “We”: Soliciting StoriesFear, Art, and Love in the Canadian RockiesBeing Female: An Unwelcome ReminderFishing Green: Last Season Aboard the NerkaHooked’s Big NewsLife in the Gray: After Sandy HookFishermen’s ThanksgivingLosing People, Compass in HandLost at Sea: The Man in the Fish ToteScenes of King Salmon Trolling“I Just Really Want to Go Fishing!” Introducing AmandaWoman at Sea in aMan’s World (With aRogue Wave from the Past)Enduring Burning: Alaska Walks for Life

TAGS:woman at Hooked one

<<< Thank you for your visit >>>

Hot Websites