Happy FIshing Season

The harbor mid day June 7, first day of the fishing season



Tender just outside the harbor

June 7—first day of salmon season!

They tell me that the small boats started fishing at 0600 today, but the reason you still see a bunch of boats in the harbor is because the big purse seiners are standing down for awhile voluntarily to keep from catching a bunch of “dog salmon”.

Apparently the dogs are running strong out in the deeper open waters where the seiners fish, and so they’re waiting to let them get through before going out to try to catch the sockeye that are also supposed to be running now. The smaller boats, which are gill netters—both set nets and I forget what the other type is—fish closer to shore, so they aren’t as likely to catch the dog salmon. The dog salmon are actually chum salmon, but they are at the bottom of the barrel for Alaskans, so they traditionally are dried and fed to the sled dogs—thus the somewhat pejorative term “dog salmon”. Most of the women working in the clinic have husbands, sons, brothers, uncles, grandparents involved in fishing, most for quite a few generations, so I’m getting fishing lessons.

The gill nets have larger openings than the seiner nets, so the fishermen spread them out in the water, either anchoring one end to the beach or to an anchor buoy, and then pull the net out as far as it goes. Then every so often they pull up the net and “pick” the fish out of the net by hand because they get caught by the gills when they try to swim through (the fish, not the men). That’s why they call it gill netting! But the purse seiners spread out an enormous small-opening net in a circle, then draw it up at the bottom like a purse and raise up the whole thing with a giant crane, and swing it onto the boat.

Then when the boats get full, they go over to one of the REALLY giant tenders that cruise around and unload onto the tender, which then unloads at the cannery when it gets full. My picture really doesn’t do justice to just how big the tenders are! That’s a medium size fishing boat unloading or doing something alongside the tender.

I guess this part of the season will only be open for 3 ½ days, then close for 36 hours. Then it will open again, but apparently how long it stays open each time depends on how many fish are reaching their spawning streams and going up (I think). It’s really fascinating, and I so wish I could go out on a boat and watch, but I would be in the way, and when they go out and the fish are there, they work until they have to stop because time runs out or something breaks and they have to come in to fix it.

Laura had arranged for us to go out this last weekend on the boat of the husband of one of the women that works at the clinic, but apparently when she boarded the boat for the first time in a few months, it was (in her opinion, anyway) FILTHY! So there was no way that she was letting anyone see it like that, and we didn’t go. Let that be a lesson to all you crappy housekeepers as to just how far a dirty place can affect people downstream, so to speak.

When I was in Alaska on fire duty, the long, long hours of daylight didn’t seem to bother me, and I slept just fine. But I have to admit that I haven’t slept well since I’ve been here. I think it’s only partly the light; it’s also the unfamiliar noises of the young men next door who get off shift about 2 AM, the apartment building itself that makes odd noises, and the adrenalin rush of having ambulance calls in the middle of the night to have to come home from and try to go back to sleep. So I moved into a different bedroom farther from the cops next door, covered the window with aluminum foil, and started using my earplugs with the faith that the ambulance tones on the radio would wake me up when we had a call. So far on the two nights that we haven’t had any calls I have slept much better, but the hot flashes are still waking me up about every 1 ½ to 2 hours. But at least I’m falling asleep much easier and going back to sleep after any variety of wake up call more easily too.

We have two new mid-levels here now, both PAs, and I miss Thai dreadfully! Not that I don’t like the two new ones, but Thai is really someone special—very patient, very dedicated to teaching, very quietly calm and good natured, and just a great person to have around. It doesn’t hurt that he’s almost preternaturally good looking in a unique and very striking way. I wish I had a daughter so I could have Thai as a son-in-law!

I hesitate to say this, because I know Laura reads my blog and I don’t want her to think I’m kissing ass, but she is the best preceptor I’ve had! She really knows her stuff, is very well-respected by the community and her co-workers, and a wonderful, patient teacher. She is great with all ages of patient—direct when the situation calls for it, tactful and calm when that’s what’s needed, and the little kids love her! I have learned so much from her.

I would like to be able to see more patients—our goal at the end of our Nurse Practitioner program is to be seeing 16 patients a day including charting and paperwork—but that just isn’t the way things work here. This is a very different environment from a private clinic or a community clinic in a city. Not only is the population smaller, but with each provider having to do most, if not all, of their own lab work, x-rays, pulling medication, doing referrals, staffing the ER—you just can’t schedule very many patients a day. Add to that all the bureaucracy inherent in any governmental organization (and the Eastern Aleutian Tribes is a governmental agency), and the pace and rhythm and even the overall goals of the clinic are different from most of what we have in the lower 48, especially when it comes to making money. Staying afloat is important, but making money is not even on the radar screen—it’s not the purpose of the clinic at all. EAT’s vision is that “the Eastern Aleutian Tribe’s people are the healthiest in the nation.” That overarching goal is a noble one that really contrasts with for-profit health care in so many ways. I don’t think anyone could begin to be prepared for what they will encounter practicing in most places in Alaska without getting the experience I’m getting right now, and I am so glad that I’m able to do this! It has strengthened my desire to work in Alaska when I get finished with my degree.

Speaking of which, I will probably go another semester and not finish until May of 2011, for several reasons. One, I don’t know if I can get my master’s project finished by the deadline in December, especially because I really need to work more hours and make a little more money. Two, I can see now that I REALLY need some ER experience, and I don’t think I can get enough just with a one credit internship next fall. And it will be easier to deal with moving, etc., next summer than it would be next winter. I have been picking everyone’s brain about different tribal organizations and places in Alaska, and have gotten a couple of new people to contact about places on the south central mainland and in the interior. I think I could live here in Sand Point, and would love the opportunity to continue to learn from Laura. But just in terms of weather and geography I think I’d prefer to be in the interior. Most important though is being able to be somewhere, at least for the first year, where I can work with another mid-level that is willing to mentor me and help me get up to speed before I get put in a situation where I’m the lone ranger somewhere. So we will see where I end up, but I definitely plan for that to be in Alaska.

Bob Elliott, this is for you: so far no one I’ve talked to on the island has ever heard of the hot springs across the bay from Port Moller. But I talked to a fisherman from Nelson Lagoon, which is kind of NW of there, who knows exactly what I was talking about. He says that he’s never actually been there, though. He made it sound like there is a working resort around there now. He also said it was a 38 hour boat trip from Nelson Lagoon to Sand Point, so I don’t think I’ll be going there by boat anytime soon!

I still don’t know exactly where in Alaska my baby boy, I mean my manly hot shot son, is except that he’s somewhere in the very wide vicinity of Fairbanks, reportedly manning a heliport or helitack base or something. I hope he has as many good tales to tell as I did when I was there—I sure do miss the fire world! Maybe in Alaska I can figure out how to do both health care and fire…

This week I’ll be sitting in on a little bit of EMT training, the parts where they put on the C-collars (C for cervical) and the compression pants, since I don’t have any experience with that. I’m still keeping up, more or less, with my homework, but it doesn’t leave me much time to do much else. I haven’t even been playing my dulcimer, which I so carefully hand carried up here. Hopefully I’ll get a chance on my three-day ferry trip. OK, off to bed—it’s rainy here, so I can’t actually see that the sun is still close to the noon position at almost 8 PM.