Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

When the alarm goes off at 5:00, night still owns South­east Alas­ka. Joel pulls the anchor and, by the green guid­ance of the radar, weaves our way between the oth­er boats. The secure anchor­age is calm, but deep, steep seas greet us at the mouth of the bay, abrupt­ly fling­ing the Nerka’s bow up and down. Bear leaps off the bunk on wob­bly legs and hud­dles beneath the table, star­ing at us with wide eyes. A sin­gle howl of dis­sent pierces the cabin.

NAAAO-OHHHH!”

Oh, sweet­ie…” Feel­ing like a ter­ri­ble par­ent, I pat her spot on the bunk. “It’s okay, Bear-cat, c’mon back up here.”

She times her return jump with the waves and lies down, pressed tight against the cab­in wall, dilat­ed eyes fixed at noth­ing. We coo over her, stroking her stiff body, and Joel shakes his head. “Even Bear’s burned out. It’s like she knows it’s Sep­tem­ber now. I think that was the ‘Why are we still doing this, I want to go home now!’ howl.”

*****

That was a few weeks ago. Since then, Joel, Bear, and I have each issued our own burn-out howls. It’s been a long time since our spring home­com­ing –six months, almost to the day – and this unusu­al­ly long sea­son has tak­en its toll. The Nerka’s cab­in mor­phed from warm and cozy to cramped and mildewed. Cap’n J’s black hair sports sev­er­al new strands of white. And after half a year sealed in dou­ble-lay­ered wool socks and rub­ber boots, my feet are a hor­ror show. Our bod­ies are weary, our minds ready for a new chal­lenge beyond seduc­ing salmon to bite our lures.

Friends from Down South (any­where, that is, below Alas­ka) send increas­ing­ly insis­tent texts. “Where are you? When are you com­ing back?” All of the oth­er Wash­ing­ton-based trollers already pulled the plug on this sea­son – some as ear­ly as August, opt­ing to chase tuna off the West Coast instead.  Mar­lin, our last part­ner stand­ing, called it quits yesterday.

It’s tough to stay moti­vat­ed when, every­where you look, boats are being put to bed. But there’s a deep chasm between want­i­ng to do some­thing dif­fer­ent and feel­ing able to, and the cal­cu­la­tor hiss­es that we’re not done yet – that we shouldn’t be done yet. Though South­east Alaska’s coho troll fish­ery typ­i­cal­ly clos­es on Sep­tem­ber 20, it fig­ures that the Alas­ka Depart­ment of Fish & Game would issue a 10-day exten­sion this year. Giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to fish right up to Sep­tem­ber 30 (weath­er per­mit­ting, a weighty caveat this time of year), isn’t that what a per­son should do?

(This is where Marlin’s voice pops into my head to scold, “Don’t should on your­self!” Tough not to, sometimes.)

Beyond the phys­i­cal­ly monot­o­nous tasks of com­mer­cial fish­ing, there’s an equal­ly rep­e­ti­tious men­tal nar­ra­tive. Just like last year – just like every year – I’m haunt­ed by ques­tions of bal­ance. Where do you sep­a­rate the val­ues of mon­ey and time? Between finan­cial secu­ri­ty and self-care? As a sea­son­al work­er, how do you dri­ve your­self hard enough to know you’ll be “okay” through the win­ter, yet still demon­strate a pri­or­i­ty for rela­tion­ships, allow­ing for a beach par­ty here and an extra few hours in town there? And how do you get beyond being “okay” until the next fish­ing sea­son, to actu­al­ly begin­ning to weave a safe­ty net of savings?

If I knew the answers, this wouldn’t even be a post. If any of you can relate to these strug­gles, I’d love to hear your reflec­tions on what you’ve learned, what’s worked for you.

All of this is to say, friends, that I don’t know when we’ll next be in touch or where I’ll be writ­ing from. We splurged on a day at the dock today, most­ly to say our good­byes. (Also to have Thanks­giv­ing din­ner with the good ship Sadaqa, of course. The fourth Thurs­day of Novem­ber’s got noth­in’ on mid-Sep­tem­ber, when we gath­er to give thanks for a safe sea­son, beau­ti­ful wild salmon, and the beloved friends we share this life with.)

The alarm clock is set for 4:00; we’ll untie the lines and run to Cape Edge­cumbe, about four hours out. We’ll be fish­ing for our­selves tomor­row, set­ting aside a per­son­al stash of coho to keep us fed this win­ter. After that, it’s tough to say what will hap­pen. Fish­er­men make art of indecision.

Until that next land­fall, friends — wher­ev­er it may be — be safe and be well. We’ll be in touch.