Looking for Kodiak bears, Uganik River, September 2020

Somehow it’s already November and we haven’t written our summer summary yet….just one more symptom of the less than normal times we are living in! All is well here in our little neck of the woods in Uganik Bay – we have nothing to complain about at all and are so lucky to be right where we are – in the middle of wilderness. But since we aren’t traveling South this fall and winter for salmon sales in Minneapolis we have lost our sense of a deadline. However, before we get way too far from summer days, we wanted to share some of the memorable points of this summer.

First, we think of our crew – Chase with Tollef and Celia and Shelby with Adelia. From May 29th to September 15th, they were our world – our family, our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers! We are so grateful to all of them for being so flexible and willing to come fish this summer with the prospect of low, covid-affected prices and a less than stellar salmon forecast for us. Once again we were so lucky to have returning crew members, seasoned and most importantly people we really enjoyed being around 24/7! From dealing with the down-time of slow fishing in the beginning of the season to working their hearts out in the midst of the peak of the run, they were what made it all flow. We thank them for all the big and little ways they contributed, for all the gardening and firewood help, for great meals (and of course brownies!), good company, and the mental and physical toughness they shared with us.

Celia and Shelby in one of the most memorable events not just of this summer but of all summers….Celia tied a ring to the net (for Shelby to later find during fishing) and proposed to Shelby! We are so happy for them!!!

Chase getting it done - cleaning slime and kelp from a net with the pressure washer at the end of the season.

Fishing itself was very much a mixed bag for us. As we wrote in our previous post, the beginning of the summer was very slow, but from late July on, the pink salmon arrived quite strongly – in fact one Kodiak district had the 2nd largest harvest in 50 years! Though we don’t sell our pink salmon through Soul Mate Salmon since they come in such heavy volume that we don’t have time to have them custom processed – instead we simply sell them to our cannery whole – we mention them here because they are such a large part of our summer’s reality. As we say, they are our bread and butter. With all the Southwesterly winds we had this summer, Adelia’s side of the bay got hit pretty hard (both with nautical waves as well as pink salmon) sometimes, but it was all manageable due to the great crew and strong work ethics. And Tollef and Chase had their fair share of challenging days to make it feel like it was all worth it. Though the sockeye run in general was mostly a disappointment for 2020, the total salmon poundage for the summer was decent. Our summer’s marathon was tellingly almost at its finish line when fall coho salmon came in beautifully, always a joy to watch as they turn iridescent, firm and plentiful. And then by mid-September the season had ended and it was time to pack it all up for another year.

One way to remember 2020 is for major stress about two things that didn’t end up happening to us. Of course, the obvious one is Covid concerns. The fishing industry took all the statewide mandates quite seriously as a whole. We quarantined with our crew when they arrived for 2 weeks and didn’t engage in our normal way of socializing with friends and neighbors around the bay until much time had passed and we were all not in contact with anyone from outside the bubble of our bay. Our processor instituted the whole range of testing, social distancing and sanitizing protocols, and even with all the out of state crew arriving, everyone stayed well and the fishing fleet was able to bring in the harvest. For this we are quite grateful!

Tollef has fun in a socially distanced (and slightly cold) way.

The second event that also didn’t happen was one we had much less time to stress out about, but which could have been much more devastating. On July 21, sometime after 10 pm, Tollef was just getting back to his cabin after climbing the 127 stairs after the last pick of the day and settling in when everything started shaking. It wasn’t a super long earthquake, but sharp enough to make him want to jump online and look it up. Across the bay, Adelia and crew were out on the water, just finishing up their evening pick– a little later than usual because the pink salmon were coming in strong - when all of a sudden, the VHF radio sprang to life with neighbors calling back and forth urgently. Tollef reported that there had been a magnitude 7.8 earthquake out west on the Alaska Peninsula not far (in Alaska-scale geography) from Kodiak. A tsunami warning had been issued for much of Alaska’s coastline, including Kodiak.

Adelia immediately raced to shore, thinking of her three nieces and sister who were visiting from town (after 3 negative covid tests and quarantining). This is where the reality of living on the Pacific Ring of Fire is hammered into everyone; tsunami warnings are practiced like tornados are in the Midwest - the training kicks people in high gear! The shoreside family members had already heard the news and were packing up their backpacks, getting ready to head up the mountain which shoots up almost vertically behind the cabins, Adelia’s sister with the almost-three-year-old on her back, the 9- and 5-year-olds carrying their own things. Shelby and Celia packed up sleeping bags, food and water while Adelia gathered the extra handheld VHF radios, aerial flares, first aid kit and safety supplies. News reports were spotty, but indications were no wave was appearing in communities closer to the epicenter of the quake. However, with the kids, puppy and crew already up the mountainside, Adelia followed after them, keeping tabs on the updates from Tollef with her handheld VHF.

Thankfully, Tollef’s site is high up on a cliff, and he was able to check the internet and broadcast to the listening community in the bay, many camped on mountainsides, the news that the tsunami warning had been cancelled by about 12:20 am. Tromping down in the dusk of an Alaskan high summer, we used our headlamps but could have navigated without them if need be - but why get hurt now? What a relief! It took a little while for us all to wind down, and when Adelia finally was about to fall asleep, she remembered that in the rush to get everyone taken care of with the tsunami warning, she hadn’t yet squared the beach away for a big high tide (not tsunami-related, just part of the normal tidal cycle) and onshore wind that was scheduled that night. So once again she got up with a headlamp and moved the dinghy, gas cans, and dog house far up to the top of the beach so she could finally get to sleep at almost 2 pm without worrying about anything drifting away overnight. All day long the next day, Tollef considered that we all could have woken up to a very different world in which major destruction and loss of lifetimes of effort carving out an existence in the rough natural world would be the reality. Without our skiffs especially, we’d be stranded in the woods with no “skiff dealership” to go shopping at, since each 23 foot skiff has its own lines and custom features, much like old wooden ships of the past.

Yay, we didn’t get washed away! Adelia taking everyone for a skiff ride and picnic.

On a lighter note, when looking back on our summer of 2020, we’ll also always remember that it was our puppy Vali’s first green season. Watching him learn all about the environment of our beaches and mountains and ocean and teaching him about our jobs and his – fishing and working on nets on shore, or rolling over on command for belly rubs, respectively – caused productivity to go way down, as the crew lovingly said. We like to think the boost in morale he provided for everyone more than made up for any time lost over petting and play.

Vali LOVES to monitor us mending nets. (Watching his herd)

Stay tuned for more of our fall updates - coming much sooner than later!

-Adelia & Tollef

Summer Highlights