Spring has temporarily sprung here in Uganik, at least at sea level. The mountain tops still are snow covered and inaccessible except for winter bears out for a prowl and hardy mountain goats. This sunny calm spell comes after a real doozy of a storm, the kind where in town, it ripped siding off of the senior living apartments and blew a small boat off its blocks in a boat yard. For us, we live with the hatches always battened down so to speak; we never know when gusts will come up to spirit light things away. The storm did keep us inside for 3 days as the low spun off from the Aleutians and across the Gulf of Alaska, coastline that stretches thousands of miles including active volcanos and turbulent seas teeming with life.

Bairdi Tanner crab, aka Collosal Snow Crab or Queen Crab (Adelia’s favorite name)

Always a part of our consciousness, this watery swath of the world was a big player in our winter activites, especially for Tollef. The cold clean waters off Kodiak and a slight downward regime shift in the cod populations allowed the Kodiak Tanner crab (Bairdi crab, now being sold as Queen Crab in some markets) to grow to old fashioned proportions on the east and south sides of our island. The town was abuzz over the coming season so Tollef signed up again with his skipper and boat for another round of “fun” (Adelia had wisely decided to ‘retire’ after last season).

Before the crashing around on the winter seas could begin, though, the processors offered an extremely low price of $2.75 a pound, down from last year’s record price of $7.30. This led to fishermen going from more than grumbly to pissed off, and through the Kodiak Crab Association, they went on strike. Some characterized the task as akin to herding cats, all strong independent fishermen following one goal, to get more money for the catch. After 10 plus days and national news coverage, with many boats losing crew who had to return to their main occupations, and fishermen being generally high energy and not prone to sitting around, the permit-holders voted to go fishing for $3.25 with vague assurances from the processors of retros and profit sharing.

During the strike bad weather had helped keep the smaller boat skippers’ mindsets tied up to the dock and less antsy, but with new news everyone broke for their “secret spots” and tried for glory. Our 68-foot boat headed to the southend where it would be less crowded since it was harder for the small boat fleet to make the 17 hour run one way with two loads of gear onboard, and mainland fishermen, not knowing the terrain, would stick to the east side. All in all, the season lasted about 6 days until we were full. However, then we were left with a dilemma - where to deliver the crab to. The season had gone so well that the processors in town were completely beyond capacity and many boats sat on anchor for over a week waiting to deliver, keeping their crab alive with circulating sea water.

The best option was actually to take the catch 420+ miles farther west, to the tiny town of King Cove at the far end of the Alaska Peninsula where processors were eager for crab and paying a better price. This entailed 36 hours of nonstop driving, plowing through the seas while rotating wheel watches every 2-3 hrs at night. Once there, offloading was smooth and efficient but then the waiting really began, as we sat at the dock for days, trying not to spend too much on the crazy expensive groceries (8 bucks for a single head of cabbage and $22 for a small block of cheese) and waiting as patiently as we could for the weather to warm up and winds to die down so we could make the crossing back to Kodiak without risk of running into potentially deadly icing conditions. So we sat, and sat… ending up watching the Super Bowl in a bar in King Cove, just for the cultural experience. Who knew that was going to be part of the season! The trip back to Kodiak started off glassy racing a storm, but got into a SE 40+ knots in the middle of the Shelikof, where we spent the night crashing around in what felt like a washing machine, once again taking turns at the wheel and then trying to wedge ourselves into our bunks so we wouldn’t fall out as we rolled our way through the high seas of the North Pacific.

Meanwhile Adelia was off on her own adventures in a different part of the state. While Tollef was underway aboard the Miss Linda, she boarded two 737’s for a trip to the state capitol, Juneau, to attend the Alaska Mariculture Conference and learn about all things kelp, even doing a short presentation on our harvest techniques (and getting some fun snowboarding in on the side). We determined that at one point, while still in the same state, we were at least 1,079 miles as the crow flies apart but still in the same time zone (Alaska only having one). It makes us want to explore more of our vast home, and also made us appreciate all the more deeply our return back to our quiet and cozy homestead.

Going The Distance