Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

When­ev­er I tell peo­ple that I’m a com­mer­cial fish­er­man, they’re full of questions.

That’s cool – are you the cook?”

(Some­times, when I have to be, and much more than just that.)

Aren’t you awful­ly small for that work?”

(This is code for ‘Aren’t you awful­ly female for that work?’ Like every oth­er woman   in com­mer­cial fish­ing, my com­pe­tence and work eth­ic speak much loud­er than any response I can offer.)

And the Num­ber One point of ref­er­ence response for the past five years: “Oh, you mean like on ‘Dead­liest Catch’?”

(No.)

Time and time again, peo­ple respond with a crav­ing to under­stand. Per­haps it’s the cul­tur­al shift to be more con­nect­ed to our food, this eager­ness to meet a har­vester and learn the process of sea to plate. Maybe it’s the con­sis­tent flood of pop cul­ture imagery ensur­ing that Alas­ka remains an icon of wild­ness, an Ever­est-sized lure for every gen­er­a­tion. Pos­si­bly it’s the deep-heart­ed dreams so many peo­ple have con­fessed to me – to cut the urban teth­ers, turn off the devices promis­ing “con­nect­ed­ness,” to lose them­selves in some­thing grand and untouched.  Lose them­selves… Or find themselves.

As a life­long lis­ten­er who fears monop­o­liz­ing con­ver­sa­tion­al air­time, I often fail to ful­ly hon­or this curios­i­ty.  It’s tak­en me an embar­rass­ing num­ber of years to under­stand that the priv­i­lege of these expe­ri­ences comes with a respon­si­bil­i­ty – that is, to share them.

Hooked is intend­ed to share the sto­ry of what it is to be a South­east Alaskan fish­er­man, a troller/longliner who combs the sea to har­vest and share the high­est-qual­i­ty wild salmon, black cod, and hal­ibut.  But fish­er­men are a diverse bunch, and no one’s per­spec­tive is quite the same. My voice as a tree hug­ging, yoga pos­ing, pub­lic radio lis­ten­ing, pierced/tattooed bleed­ing heart lib­er­al veg­e­tar­i­an, a lapsed social work­er turned pro­fes­sion­al deck­hand, is – per­haps – a tad unique.

Some things most every­one in the fleet can agree on.  No mat­ter how many times you see the sun yawn­ing over Mount Fair­weath­er, a pod of hump­back whales whoosh­ing their odor­ous exha­la­tions along­side the boat, or a lake-calm ocean sparkling so blind­ing­ly bright on an August after­noon that it makes your heart ache with grat­i­tude… Some things nev­er get old.  There’s no match for the opti­mistic antic­i­pat­ing of unleash­ing from the dock and head­ing out on a new trip, when your dreams are at the helm, nor for the weary sat­is­fac­tion of return­ing to town with  fish hold burst­ing with per­fect­ly-processed salmon, the boat’s Clydes­dale-like plod so dif­fer­ent from the frisky colt who can­tered away from the har­bor, bold and adven­tur­ous. Get­ting paid to do this?  Almost all of us agree: A shit­ty day on the water is still bet­ter than any day on land.

In a Carhartt- and Grun­dens-swathed migra­tion, I head north every spring for an eager­ly-await­ed home­com­ing to Sit­ka.  I’m not alone in this adven­ture. The F/V Ner­ka con­sists of myself, Cap’n J, and Bear the Boat Cat.  Spend­ing weeks at sea on a 43’ boat, in stress­ful, sleep-deprived sit­u­a­tions, is def­i­nite­ly a make-it-or-break-it rela­tion­ship tri­al. As we approach our fifth sea­son togeth­er, I’m proud that we’ve craft­ed a suc­cess­ful part­ner­ship. Hav­ing the most breath­tak­ing office would be enough, but shar­ing this expe­ri­ence with my best bud­dy makes it a spe­cial privilege.

So please, come on aboard. Get a cup of cof­fee and set­tle in for some sea sto­ries – share some of your own, let me know what you’d like to hear more about, and, always, thanks for stop­ping by.