First buck of the season, big fish, broken macerator, and Bay Area

Dance like no one is watching, love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like no one is listening, take no prisoners, and all that jabber. Nevertheless there you are, a good twenty feet above the harbor, on the roof of the Adak. The camera’s rolling. Do you jump?

Not only do you jump. You jump with a skip.

It’s been that kind of summer. The job on the fishing boat, the flood, fire and getting blown up on the rocks with the Adak. And, of course, the novel. That sensation of being on the edge of something, and then, finally, la chute. The leap. The fall.

Alex and Jeff, two of my oldest friends from high school, came out to Alaska for a visit. Nice to get a break from fishing – as Karl, my skipper says, work hard and play hard. It was time for play.

The weather, thankfully, cooperated. What a pleasure to be able to introduce this  life to folks I’ve known all my life! Alex first visited Sitka fifteen years ago – how old we’ve gotten, and how quickly … The visit kicked off with Rainiers on the roof and, continuing the theme of the summer, leaps into the harbor. We took a hike along the Gavan Harbor saddle, with the rifle in case anything popped out. Colorado took his customary spa treatment, waiting patiently in the sun as the mud caked dry in his fur. And then to the shooting range, in preparation for the floatplane trip to Cold Storage, where we would stay a night and hunt Sitka blacktail in the alpine.

Cold Storage is a small mountain lake on Baranof Island, known for being difficult to land in; a wrecked floatplane in the trees decorates the approach. We were supposed to leave early Thursday morning, but fog blanketed the area. So we flew out on Friday, and had a hard landing on the water on one pontoon. “Would have preferred to come down a bit easier,” said John, our talented, taciturn pilot – same guy who flew us through the passes to Tenakee Springs. And he powered up and lifted off and – silence. Just trees and lakes and alpine and huckleberries and silence. And bear prints. 

We trudged through muskeg, then scrambled up into the alpine, and found a knoll for our tent. Set up camp, and climbed higher, free-climbing up rock in the fog. Reaching the summit and sitting – there was no way we were going to get anything with the three of us on the move. And there, out of the fog, almost imaginary, the outline of a deer. I thought it was a doe at first, but followed it around an embankment. And watched it through the scope for a good fifteen minutes, unsure if I was dreaming those buttons on its head. For a moment the fog cleared and I saw the clear beginnings of antlers. And shot. Down he flopped, covering the deerheart grass with blood. The three of us bounded down the hill.

We spent the next half-hour boning out the deer, bringing him back to camp, cleaning the meat, hanging it, then making a fire and cooking the heart and backstrap on a cast-iron skillet. That evening the boys slept in the tent. I slept by the fire, and woke up freezing to a clear sky , meteors from the Leonid meteor shower going off in the sky like tracers. Fell back into a light sleep, and woke as it began to get light, a faint prickle moving down my scalp. Knowing with great certainty I was being watched. I corkscrewed in the bag to see a deer about two hundred yards up the alpine, frozen. I set up the rifle on the knoll, amplifying the scope. But I couldn’t, in the dim light, see spikes. I blew the call for the heck of it, and the deer, disturbed, snuffed a few times and bounded away.

As the sun rose hiked back into the alpine – here’s a pic with our campsite at the lower right, the small dot in the patch of sunlight.

Saw a bachelor group of bucks from the alpine on the facing ridge, and scrambled down from the alpine, sliding on my butt, using the rifle to steer, to try and catch them. Slashed through the brush with Alex, trying to be quiet as we approached the pond where I had seen the deer. And, of course, nothing. They had scattered.

Made it down to the lake and waited in the sun, picking huckleberries, for the floatplane to arrive. It was a larger plane, a Beaver, which whipped around the lake a couple times to gather enough speed for the lift-off.

As usual the Adak was not content to be left alone, and expressed her displeasure by having the macerator pump on the holding tank – the one connected to the shower and toilet – die. A great treat to return to. Made the executive decision to butcher the deer first, before dealing with that can of worms.Cal got his customary treat, and vacuum-packed up the deer, and then began the struggle with the macerator. Just about the most disgusting job you can imagine – and I will leave it to your imagination, because I’d rather not talk about it. Removed the pump and took it apart. Found hair and floss and all sorts of fun things wrapped around the shaft. Cleared it all out, thinking that was the problem – but plugged it in, and still only a disturbed buzzing. Called Steve Warren, someone who actually knows what he’s doing, and he identified the pump as having a destroyed capacitator. My only experience with capacitators was Back to the Future, and I think that was actually the Flux Capacitor, not capacitators.

Anyways True Value had one, we got it back in there, re-inserted the macerator, and took ourselves out of danger of sinking due to a filled holding tank. Sigh of relief. That would have been a bad, dirty way to go.

That Saturday evening had folks over to the Adak, where we feasted on king salmon caviar courtesy of Dan’s genius. The boys fell asleep – we were all exhausted. They left – and I returned to work on the fishing boat.So many fish in the sea! Tibo, the 6’6″ Frenchman continued to work on the F/V Saturday – at one point we were pulling 200 chums for two hours. Fish after fish after fish, big and small. But we had fun out there, Karl such a fishy, able skipper, with a great ability to be friendly but also run a tight ship. A true leader. We discussed how to make a record of this magical summer – indeed it has been magical for all involved, with the number of fish, the coincidences, all the possible leaps, and all the people so eager to take them.

And now, it’s preparing the Adak for her winter, and searching for a soft place to land in the Bay Area. It’s strange – I feel my body preparing for the rain and darkness, stepping out of the showers on the Adak into the cold. Chopping wood and making fires. The long slumber, the semi-hibernation that is an Alaskan winter.

But my brain knows I’m going to California. What a surprise the body’s in for!

I will miss Alaska. But as my editor said, maybe being away from the state will make clear what I cherish about the Great Land. The other night, at the P-Bar, feeling like I was an extra in the Cantina scene in Star Wars, wacky fishermen doing wacky things, I had a moment where I wasn’t sure I’d be able to spend two years away from this life. The fish and the people and the boat and the good, hard work so good for clearing the mind.

There you are, a good twenty feet above the water. The water below, green and impartial. The camera’s rolling.