The water was warm last sum­mer. Dixon Entrance to Sit­ka, South­east Alas­ka felt eeri­ly bar­ren – no bait, no birds. All July & August, the coho were skit­tish, unwill­ing to school up or set­tle into tra­di­tion­al­ly favored spots. With no hot bites to run to, some boats tied up mid-sea­son, unable to jus­ti­fy the cost of fuel for the fish they weren’t catch­ing. New­er fleet­mates looked stunned, con­fess­ing they hadn’t even bro­ken 300 yet. They’d come in on the good years, think­ing those days were nor­mal. As for Joel & me, Team Ner­ka final­ly had to prac­tice patience. Noto­ri­ous run­ners, always search­ing for some­thing bet­ter – one of our elders once said about Joel, “That boy’s jumpi­er than a fart in a skil­let” – instead we stuck & stayed & tried to make it pay, grind­ing out days for mea­ger two-dig­it scores we would’ve aban­doned by mid-morn­ing on pre­vi­ous years. When friends asked us how the sea­son was going, we told them the word for the sum­mer was “under­whelm­ing.”

         Under­whelm­ing. Spo­ken in true fish­er­man fash­ion: under­stat­ed, min­i­miz­ing real­i­ty. Like shrug­ging “We did all right,” when you come back to town with the hold plugged & the water­line sunk. Like green water wash­ing over the win­dows, cof­fee cup swan-div­ing to shards on the floor, your part­ner in the anchor­age ask­ing for a weath­er report: “It’s nau­ti­cal.” Like the calm obser­va­tion, the water was warm, instead of scream­ing WTF, what’s hap­pen­ing, how did we get here?

How did I get here? 

Anchor­age, 1985. A fad­ed 3x5 cap­tures the moment. A 43’ foot tri­maran hov­ers in the cen­ter of the shot, sus­pend­ed by a crane. My par­ents, vet­eri­nar­i­ans in the Mat-Su Val­ley, have spent the past sev­en years build­ing the Askari in our land­locked back­yard. Sev­en years toil­ing in the vet clin­ic every day, labor­ing deep into every night to cre­ate this moment, the long-await­ed launch. My dad strains at the bow, grip­ping a guide­line. My mom dash­es to steady the stern. I am a child super­vi­sor, hands stuffed in pock­ets, stand­ing on a precipice with the Askari, life cleav­ing into hemi­spheres of before & after, sus­pend­ed between land & sea. 

         That was 35 years ago. I’m 42 now, the same age my mom was when she trad­ed her vet­eri­nary license for a troll per­mit. Imag­ine – the courage to turn away from your edu­ca­tion, the busi­ness you’d built, your home, from land itself; sell it all, go all in. Craft­ing an alter­nate real­i­ty out of fiber­glass, resin, dreams. 

         Imag­ine… believ­ing in a dream envi­sioned, believ­ing in it so pro­found­ly, as to sac­ri­fice every­thing with­out any guar­an­tees. To sac­ri­fice, suf­fer even, for the sheer pos­si­bil­i­ty of change. 

         In Decem­ber 2019, the news broke that the Gulf of Alaska’s cod fish­ery would be closed for the 2020 sea­son. It was the first fish­ery to be closed not because of over­fish­ing, but as a con­se­quence of warm­ing waters. 

         A few weeks lat­er, Alas­ka Fish & Game released their pro­jec­tion for Sitka’s sac roe her­ring fish­ery, a har­vest tar­get of 25,000 tons, up from last year’s 13,000. They didn’t catch the quo­ta last year, or the year before that. Just final­ly gave up, charg­ing west to try oth­er regions, oth­er fish­eries, leav­ing dis­gust­ed sighs of exhaust in their wake. 

         I think about her­ring – a key­stone species, their well­be­ing essen­tial to the sur­vival of every­one above them on the food chain, includ­ing king salmon – & I think about mon­ey, & how fish­er­folks are in the VIP seats, front & cen­ter as change wash­es over us, & you know those boats charg­ing west in search of oth­er regions, oth­er fish­eries, their engines sound an awful lot like the band on the Titan­ic play­ing on, play­ing on, & in my mind they’re play­ing with Tra­cy Chap­man & she’s singing If you knew that you would die today – would you change?

         After the fish­ing sea­son, I spend win­ters sell­ing the Nerka’s catch. For many of my fleet­mates, this is the goal: get your boot in the door with an ice boat, work up to a freez­er boat, cut out the mid­dle­men & sell your catch your­self. I answer their ques­tions, watch them ascend the indus­try esca­la­tor, watch their deter­mi­na­tion to make it as they sac­ri­fice, suf­fer even, for their dream of mak­ing a good life catch­ing few­er fish at a greater value.

         Mean­while, over the past five years of sling­ing salmon to chefs in the sur­round­ing coun­ties, I’ve dri­ven the equiv­a­lent of cross­ing the coun­try ten times, often to a sound­track of NPR, lis­ten­ing to the lat­est on a melt­ing Arc­tic & a blaz­ing Aus­tralia, think­ing about change – cli­mate change, social change, spare change, this show sucks change the chan­nel, burn it all down & start over sys­temic change. The ways we’re social­ized to believe we’re sup­posed to change – mov­ing on up, up, & away, striv­ing for faster, bet­ter, more. 

         Me, I want to sloooooooow down. The more I want is small­er, sim­pler. More qui­et, more peace, a care-filled, pur­pose­ful present, more acts of kind­ness & com­pas­sion for you and for me, too. This plan­et is spin­ning too, too fast & I want off, but how do you stop when your foot is one of bil­lions stuck on the gas ped­al? Glob­al change? I might as well be weld­ed to this Chevy Astro, I’m such a part of the machine.

         Last Sep­tem­ber, toward the end of the fish­ing sea­son, I sat with a fleet­mate. His birth­day falls in August, smack-dab in what’s his­tor­i­cal­ly our sec­ond king open­ing. This year, for the first time, he tied the boat up & skipped the open­ing – a king open­ing! – to wel­come his 72^nd raft­ing the Alsek Riv­er with loved ones instead. 

         “I nev­er could’ve imag­ined doing that,” he said. His voice was equal parts awe & grat­i­tude for his deci­sion, & I won­dered what it would be like if we all had the secu­ri­ty & free­dom to make such auda­cious, life-giv­ing choic­es, to mea­sure the val­ue of pounds to dol­lars to your time’s worth, your life’s worth. Who among us can afford to do this?

Who can afford not to?

         The water was warm last sum­mer. No one denies that. Instead we argue dif­fer­ing take­aways. Some mock a teenage girl’s urgent call to action – so direct & fierce, sac­ri­lege to fishing’s code of under­state­ment. Oth­ers trav­el to DC to lob­by to pro­tect the Ton­gass, the world’s largest remain­ing tem­per­ate rain­for­est. Search­ing for the mag­ic words to urge peo­ple to care, to act, we resort to the lan­guage of mon­ey. What’s it to you? 

         I do it, too. For every salmon I thank as I slice their gills – thank you, thank you – life runs out the scup­pers & by the end of the sea­son I’m run­ning num­bers same as any­one else: how many fish at how many pounds at how many dol­lars to fill how many orders. This is all part of a sea-to-plate sto­ry, & I’ve been liv­ing ver­sions of it since I was that lit­tle girl land­ing in Sit­ka, jig­ging off the dock in Old Thom­sen Har­bor with fel­low boat kids, fill­ing five-gal­lon buck­ets with baby black cod. At the end of the day we sold them to my friends’ dad for hal­ibut bait. He paid us in ice cream cones from the Dip-n-Sip. 

         Thir­ty-five years liv­ing this life with crit­i­cal yet mar­row-deep devo­tion. Devo­tion like being lashed to the mast of a ship cradling you & me & all liv­ing things, thrashed by a per­fect storm of cap­i­tal­ism, com­plic­i­ty, hypocrisy. As the wind catch­es its breath, we soothe each oth­er with sto­ries. Sto­ries like when I crewed for my broth­er for a king open­ing & watched him pull a thir­ty-pounder boat-side. Thick-bel­lied, not a shim­mer­ing scale miss­ing, per­fect & per­fect­ly hooked through the tip of her snub nose. He slipped his gaff gen­tly through & popped the hook free, telling her, “Go find a river.” 

         That’s what keeps me on this ship, you know – faith that there might be some mean­ing in these moments when we do the unex­pect­ed, do the hard thing, when we go off-script & show what we tru­ly val­ue. When the storm con­tin­ues but we’re not pas­sive. When we reach for the tools before us – sci­ence, his­to­ry, cul­ture, art, com­mu­ni­ty, love – and we make a change.