The idea of me being a fisherman did not cross my mind until a month ago. I had found out that a few of my friends were going to Ugashik to work for a cannery. It has never really crossed my mind that I wanted to work for a cannery but knowing they were going made it easy to decide to join them there.
Initially, I was just going to process the fish. This was fine by me as I wanted to do something completely different than I’m used to but a sudden change of events has put me on the boat. This was just the adventure I have been looking for with a bonus of it being in Alaska.
The trip here took roughly 24 hours, all of which was daylight. I went from Atlanta to Denver to Seattle to Anchorage. I slept at the Anchorage airport among many other people. Almost all benches and seats were taken up by people sleeping. From there I took a small plane King Salmon. At King Salmon, I took an even smaller plane to Pilot Point and Ugashik. This plane fit me, the pilot, and another passenger plus our bags. Because there are so few flights to Pilot Point and Ugashik, the plane carried each town’s mail. The flights from Seattle to Ugashik were gorgeous. It’s not like anything I’ve seen before. The mountains, volcanoes, rivers/streams, bays, and wetlands.
Finally, after six flights, I arrive in Ugashik. This place is tiny. The whole town is one mile long. The population per the census 2010 was 12. I said my hellos and was put in rain gear. I jumped in the boat and helped put our nets out. After we finished, I could finally settle into my new surroundings. We had to wait for the nets to do its job. After dinner, we went to collect the fish from the nets. It is still a little early in the season so the catch was not large.
So here I am now. Relaxing at 10pm. Still bright outside and ready to pass out but, we still got to go pull the nets in.
By the way, I’ll fill in the posts with pictures when I have a chance, the internetz is limited here. I can only post pictures between 1230 am and 530 am. I don’t think I’ll be able to stay awake that late tonight.
Less Thinking, More Doing 