Joe's Stories:

That Summer of 1965

Ah.. the magic, the excitement of GOING NORTH! For that first Alaska fishing job!! The feeling around the docks at Seattle's Fishermen's Terminal that May of 1965 was totally electric. Dozens of young men like myself were 'pounding the docks,' querying every busy skipper and fishing boat crew that they could find for a tip that might lead to that great Alaska fishing job. The rumors and the tips flew: "Skipper on the Dream Maid might need a guy," "The new guy on the Decorah might not work out.. check back tomorrow." So it went; each tip had to be checked out, usually meaning picking a moment when a harried skipper might be able to talk to you...

But.. oh.. the frustration - each evening there would be boats with trucks and cars pulled up on the dock beside them, loading last minute items, and toasting the season ahead. I knew that the crew were no more capable than I and were headed 'Up North' for a season of adventure and a big paycheck at the end.

Sometimes I'd hang out in the big Seattle Ship Supply store, where Alaska skippers and crews, big red-faced men in wool checked shirts, would buy their supplies for the season ahead. I'd pretend to read the labels on paint cans, try to overhear their conversations. Finally one of the store clerks gave me that tip that I had been hoping for: "Hey, kid, the skipper on the Sidney might need an engineer... didn't you say that you used to be an engineer....?"

I ran over to where a big cigar smoking man was standing on the upper deck of the freshly painted Sidney running the winch controls to swing heavy pallets of freight off a truck into the big hold amidships. When finally the truck pulled away, I stepped aboard and climbed up the ladder, and introduced myself.

"You look pretty young (I was 19) to have much experience as an engineer, you know freon refrigeration?" the man asked.

"Ahhh, " I replied, with more confidence that I felt, "Naw, I was working on big tuna boats, down in Chile, big ammonia systems, but the basics are all the same.."

The skipper took acouple of puffs on his big cigar and looked me up and down, as if trying to make up his mind, finally speaking, "OK, you got any references, someone I could call..?" I gave him a name, and said I'd check in again in the morning...

And all night long, as I lay in the bunk of a friend's fish boat where I was living, listening to the engines of boats going by, all obviously headed for Alaska, I hoped and prayed that finally, finally, I was going to get that break that I was hoping and dreaming for.

The next morning I found the skipper in the same spot, running the winches to load the contents of another big flatbed truck into the fish hold. He waved me aboard as soon as he saw me. "OK, kid," he said, "I called. It checked out. You're on.. a grand a month and maybe a bonus at the end sound OK?" He shook my hand even as I was nodding my reply, turned to climb down the ladder and then turned back to me for a moment. He waved at the winch controls and the truck all at the same time, "You can finish unloading..." He disappeared down the ladder to the deck, but stopped at the bottom and waved at the maze of booms and rigging over my head, "And don't two-block it..." With that he jumped into a big Caddy and sped off down the dock.

"Yo, kid.." the guy on the truck yelled up to me, "let's go... I don't have all day..." I looked down at the array of levers below me, six of them, each controlling a different function on one of the many winches on the mast's twin booms. "Me....?" I thought, terrified, "Run these?... and what the hell is 'two blocking?'" Just then, a stocky older man with graying hair, climbed up out of the fish hold, and then up the ladder to where I stood, shaking his head in disgust. "Ain't that just Lloyd, not telling you anything.. Here, " he said, gently placing each of my hands on a winch handle, "those are for vanging... swinging back and forth, and the big one is for up and down.. just take your time.." And turned for the ladder.

"But, but"... I stammered, "what is 'two blocking'....?" The older man, who'd introduced himself as 'Mick,' waved up at the rigging, "that's when you pull it too tight, and it jams.. don't worry. Just take your time, and you'll be fine..." And disappeared down into the hold.

 And three days later we threw off the lines and headed out onto the shining waters of Puget Sound, the first part of the legendary 1000 mile Inside Passage to Alaska, and I became one of the many headed up to Alaska for money and adventure for the first time and as I was as excited as a young man could be.

     At four thirty the next morning, I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaking me awake,

     “Hey, Kid, wake it, it’s Seymour, you gotta' see this..”

     Seymour!!!! - I’d heard about Seymour from the other guys on the dock when we were all looking for jobs. It was supposed to be this place where there were whirlpools big enough to suck down even good sized fishing boats. It was a legendary place along the Northwest waterfront. I pulled on my clothes and stumbled up the ladder to the big pilothouse. And gaped at the sight ahead out the windows. 

    We were in this half-mile wide channel with thickly wooded steep hills on both sides. Just behind us to port, the left side of the boat, was what appeared to be a sawmill, a long low building with steam or smoke coming out of many chimneys and surrounded by stacks of freshly cut lumber. 

    But it was what was ahead that was most dramatic. I could feel the push of a great current, urging us forward to where the channel narrowed even further. In the dark water around us, you could see current swirls and eddies. Then a log twice as big around as a phone pole erupted from the water just to our starboard, or right, and as quickly disappeared. The boat lurched as the skipper spun the wheel hard to port, spitting a dark stream of tobacco juice into a can as he did,

     “That’s the kind of crap you don’t want to hit, Kid...” He said.

     The channel narrowed and swung sharply to the left. Ahead I could see ahead another great turn to the right, where the walls grew even steeper and closer together. There was something noticeably threatening and unfriendly about the place. When I had first come up, there had been at least the lights of a few homes here and there on the shores on either side, but now there were just the thickly forested dark canyon walls, and now for the first time, I could see the beginnings of whirlpools in the water. Our boat lurched again as the current gripped us and ahead the channel swung right again, revealing a misty canyon so narrow that powerlines swooped across it. 

     “This is it, Kid,” our skipper waved at the passage ahead, the narrowest part of the passage. “Mighty Seymour.” 

    And as if to mark his words, a few boatlengths ahead I could see this enormous whirlpool, easily a hundred yards in diameter, and probably six or eight feet lower in the middle than the edges, defined by a clear circle of logs and driftwood along its outer edge. Our boat leaned to one side as Lloyd spun the wheel to starboard to avoid the big whirl. Whatever Seymour was, it had this overwhelming gloomy and threatening aspect to it. 

     Then we were through the worst of it, under the power lines and into the slightly narrowing channel ahead and Lloyd spoke again.

     “That’s nothing... when I was a kid your age, working on salmon boats, there was a rock there, right in the narrowest spot, just under the surface.. it made whirlpools large enough to suck down a boat the size of the Sidney or even bigger... And each year some boat, sometimes even a big steamer, would smack that rock.. there’s so much current there..”

      And ten minutes later, waved at the chart on the big chart table, and then to the steering wheel. “OK, kid, you’re on for three hours.... and don’t hit anything...!” And with that, disappeared into his stateroom and closed the door.

     “Me..?” I thought, terrified, “steer this big boat to Alaska?” I had substantially overstated my boating experience to get the job... I barely knew how to read a chart. Then fifty yards ahead, I could see a big log poking out of the water, directly ahead of us. The big steering wheel rotated back and forth as the automatic pilot did its job, but I couldn’t even remember if the skipper had told me how to use it. 

     Then, as if he could read my mind, Old Mick put his hand on my shoulder, “ Here, kid,” he said in a kindly voice, showing me how to disengage the automatic pilot with his foot, “Here’s how we do it...” 

     And so began my education as an Alaskan fisherman. How to read a chart, how to tie the knots that wouldn’t jam or come untied, how to tell the differences between the five species of salmon. But more than that - Old Mick was full of the history and the lore of the north that he shared with me. As Seymour receded behind us he told me of the amazing challenge of blasting ‘Old Rip.’ Of first trying to drill and blast from a barge anchored with a thousand tons of concrete anchors. But the current was too strong, and then a work crew died when their skiff capsized in a whirlpool. So they decided to do it from shore! Essentially creating a little mine - tunneling down 500 feet , then another 600 out horizontally, under the middle of the channel and up almost 500 feet again up into the middle of the underwater peak, to excavate side tunnels. It had to have elevators and a little train running on tracks to take the rock out and then the three million pounds of dynamite back in. And all this without breaking out into the rushing water above and drowning everyone inside!

     It seemed that everywhere we went, Old Mick had a story. We’d pass some bay, and it would be, “We went in there in ‘28 in the old Patty A. Thick of snow, there wasn’t no radar then so we’d toot the horn and listen for the echo off the rocks...” We’d pass an old cannery and he’d explain how big square rigged sailing ships used to come up from San Francisco, loaded with lumber to build the cannery, sailboats and nets to catch the fish, cans to put them in, and men to do it all. They’d anchor where there was a promising run of salmon, build a cannery, launch the boats, catch and can the fish, and send everyone home in the fall except for a caretaker.

     We worked for a cannery in a native town where there were totem poles in the streets and eagles in the trees. Rather than actually catch fish, our job was as a tender or fish packer, sort of a mother ship to the smaller 58 foot boats that caught the salmon with a seine, or encircling net. They always fished in these remote areas far from the cannery, so we’d go there and anchor, and at the end of the day, the boats would come over to us to unload, and we’d sell them groceries and fuel as well. 

    Part of my job was also to try to keep the engines on the fishing boats running - mostly these big Chrysler straight 8s - my knowledge was basically limited to changing spark plugs and filing the points in those simple engines, but that was usually enough. The engine room was right behind the foc’sle, or sleeping area in those boats, and as I worked I could hear the natives talking in their own language, heady stuff for a green kid of 19.

    In August, we bought fish in Icy Straits, just south of Glacier Bay, and sometimes as we lay in a cove in the Inian Islands, small icebergs would drift by. I remember once feeling a bump in the middle of the night, getting up to see what it was and finding this iceberg, glowing in the light of the moon, slowly sliding along our hull in the tidal current. I reached out and touched it; I could see gravel frozen inside, scraped off some mountainside probably a hundred years before I was born and it was magic. 

    Some of the engine room procedures were new to me, and I had this habit of sticking my tongue out a little when I was anxious. Once I was getting ready to shut down the refrigeration system which required me to pull this clutch lever when the pressure on this gauge reached a certain point. It was a bit of a tricky operation and in the middle of it I got too close to a very cold pipe in the system and the tip of my tongue froze to the pipe! I put both hands around the pipe to try and warm it enough to release my tongue without any luck, when I saw that the pressure had reached the point where I had to pull the clutch lever, now just out of reach with my tongue stuck to the pipe.. I pinched my tongue and pulled, but a tiny spot of flesh stayed on the pipe, and I could actually see the frozen taste buds, as I sucked the bleeding tip in my mouth! Plus, it was  steak night - the best meal of the whole week and I could barely taste a thing!

    My favorite part of the summer were those evenings in Icy Strait, at the end of the three or four day fishing period. We’d finish up buying, and I’d run the anchor winch, and as we got underway, I’d clean the back deck and then have at least an hour of engine room work - wiping everything down, putting tools and such away after being anchored in the same spot for days and making sure the refrigeration was running right. Then by the time I got dinner it would be dark and my 10 pm to 2 am steering watch. We would have made our turn into Chatham Strait by then, the autopilot would be steering and my job was to study the radar and keep us going straight down the middle of the channel. That was before the sophisticated GPS plotters most Alaska boats have today that show your position as a boat shaped icon on a moving map that any fool could figure out. So it was navigation the old fashioned way - there was a big chart table along the back of the pilothouse, and our chart had the course line on it, and I’d be using the radar and the checking the characteristics of the occasional navigation lights to verify our position. I’d get the radio tuned in to some music station - usually country and western and gospel music from some 50,000 watt boomer in the south, and just sit up there in that big seat, looking at that vast dark canyon of a channel ahead of us, and thinking that life was pretty grand just then.

    Our skipper showed me a lot of the tricks of the trade that summer, but he saved one of his best for last. We got down to Seattle at the end of August, and I had just enough time to fly home to the east coast, get in a visit with my parents, and get up to college, and was hoping I could leave as soon as we hit Seattle. 

    Our skipper’s wife was waiting for him at the dock in a big Caddy. When I asked for my money, he gave me a couple of hundred bucks cash, told me to get the boat unloaded - our hold was totally full of cases of canned salmon and then I’d get paid... 

    “But, but,” I protested, how the hell was I supposed to do that.. our cook, other deckhand, and Old Mick were all leaving... 

    He threw me a set of keys, waved to his pickup truck, “Go down to the Millionaires Club, hire some winos... see ya...” And with that he was gone...

    The Millionaires Club turned out to be a place where down on their luck folks could get a free meal and wait on the street for people needing day laborers. The two I hired were hung over, and barely able to lift a full case of 48 one pound talls. So I showed the sharpest one how to run the winches and spent two long hard days in the hold getting our load out when I would have much rather been home.

    But that summer was ALASKA in capital letters. That boisterous skipper and especially that kindly old man instilled in me a burning desire to get back ‘Up North,’ hopefully with my own boat. And just like that, so began my new life...

Somewhere on the Inside Passage, the cook on a big Alaska bound fishboat. Each summer hundreds of fishing boats of all sizes leave the Puget Sound ports for the almost endless islands and waterways of Alaska to catch salmon.

Lucky crews: three seiners all ready to head to Alaska, "Happy are we who fish on the sea" on the flying bridge of one.

Night fish buying - with skipper Lloyd Whaley with a 'tally board' - three counters on a board - one for each of the salmo n species that we were buying. It was like a game. "Give me your money fish," (Sockeye or red salmon, the most valuable species) Lloyd would yell, and of course the fishing boat crew, working in the semidarkness would try to throw in a less valuable chum or dog salmon in to pass as a sockeye.. And sharp- eyed Lloyd would yell and the offending fish would be plucked from the basket.. until the next time a few minutes later...

Passing Point Retreat Lighthouse in lower Lynn Canal, August 1965, aboard the Sidney. Our travels that summer took us all throughout Southeast Alaska.

^{Old Mick and I, somewhere in Southeast Alaska, that wonderful summer of 1965}

The Oosterdam in the great bend at Seymour.

Star Princess just making the great turn and about to pass under the power lines..

Deadhead as in, "That's the kind of crap you don't want to hit, Kid..." Deadheads like these, essentially waterlogged trees floating vertically can weigh several tons and are the main reason small craft are wary about traveling at night in these waters. In addition to deadheads which might only be showing a few inches above the surface, large logs floating horizonally are another hazard, often from log rafts that have broken up in bad weather or have floated off beaches in big tides.

Two tugs each with a big log raft, near Yuculta Rapds. Note the fishing pole with a line in the water - this was life in the slow lane. The three white lights on the mast are a signal that he is towing something long behind him. The log rafts, often with just a dim kerosene lamp at the end furthest from the tug, are almost invisible at night, so if you see the three vertical white lights be careful going behind. Even worse are big barges, also often lit with dim lights, but traveling much faster. Every few years we read of some careless mariner passing behind a tug and getting literally trampeled and drowned by the barge behind.

Salmon seiner with seine skiff. The net is probably hooked off a point, to allow traveling fish to collect. After a while, the ends of the net will be hooked together and the bottom pulled up, bringing all the fish up to the surface and close to the boat where they can be brought aboard.

Bringing the net aboard with the help of the hydraulic Powerblock (out of sight on the top of the photo.) Next step is to use the Powerblock to pull the fish aboard.

Busy days at an Alaskan cannery - when the fish are running, there might be dozens of boats at a time around the cannery, waiting to unload fish.

Sockeye salmon steaks - also known as reds, they are also called money fish, as they are the most valuable species caught in volume by seiners.

Glacier Bay was discharging way more ice back in those days than now, and occasionally they would make their way into Inian Cove and bump into us in the middle of the night. But the small ones, especially, can very hard to see on radar, so you had to be really careful traveling at night.

Inian Cove - a truly gorgeous spot off of Alaska's Icy Strait, where we spent much of our summer.

Inian Cove - another view - the fish buyer in the background has an 'A&P' logo as they had their own salmon fleet in those days.

Thanks, Mick, for welcoming me into the Alaska salmon fraternity. I'm still telling the stories.

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