Alaska Days 3 - 6

    After a day at sea we docked in Ketchikan which is a coastal town located in the Tongass National Forest. We walked along Creek St which tells the history of gold seekers and lunberjacks during the days of prohibition. Bootleggers and the men looking for companionship, should we say, simply waited for high tide and then rowed their boats under the houses and entered via trap doors.

   Then our tour for the day was called, “A day in the lives of Alaskan Fisherman.”  It was on the ship called the Aleutian Ballad which was used on the Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch. They had video when a rough wave, 60ft high, knocked her on her side knocking out all power. The only thing that saved the ship was the fact that the hull was loaded with king crab so she righted herself.

  We learned about how they fish with lines and how dangerous it can be just throwing out the line. They had one line already placed and pulled up halibut, other small fish and a wolf eel. One of the fishermen wanted no part of it as it is extremely dangerous. They had a tank full of tanner crabs. You know them as snow crab. When I asked about it, they told us that the name snow crab just sounds so much better so it is how that crab is marketed. The crab Tom is holding is a tanner crab.

   All of a sudden eagles come out of the trees. There were probably fifty or more flying around the boat. It is illegal to feed eagles, but by chance the Native Americans, the Tlingits own the particular island next to where we were. However, they also, unlike any of us, also own the water. They say yes to feeding eagles in return for giving them king crab caught by our boat. An amazing trade off in my opinion. When we came to Alaska before, we saw eagles but nothing like this. The eagles could catch the fish sometimes in mid air.

  Next they pulled up a crab trap filled with king crab. They only keep the male crabs. It is a $1,000 fine if you are caught with a female crab. They keep the crabs in tanks on the boat for a week or two. This is because they can filter food from the water. When the crabs get ‘tired’ as they told us they put a wire wrap around one leg and those will be given to the Tlingit people. As you can see in the photo the fresh crabs wanted no part of being in the tank.

  More to Follow, Tom and Holly