Let's Go Fishin'

Nick Caught a Crab

My nephew is out fishing in Prince William Sound off Cordoba, Alaska. More photos here.

King Crab

My niece with king crab

From Wikipedia:

King crabs or stone crabs . . . are found chiefly in deep waters and are adapted to cold environments. They are composed of two subfamilies: Lithodinae, which tend to inhabit deep waters, are globally distributed, and comprise the majority of the family's species diversity; and Hapalogastrinae, which are endemic to the North Pacific and inhabit exclusively shallow waters. 

King crabs superficially resemble true crabs but are generally understood to be closest to the pagurid hermit crabs. This placement of king crabs among the hermit crabs is supported by several anatomical peculiarities which are present only in king crabs and hermit crabs, making them a prominent example of carcinisation among decapods. Several species of king crabs, especially in Alaskan and southern South American waters, are targeted by commercial fisheries and have been subject to overfishing.

I liked this explanation of carcinisation:

Carcinisation is a form of convergent evolution in which non-crab crustaceans evolve a crab-like body plan. The term was introduced into evolutionary biology by Lancelot Alexander Borradaile, who described it in 1916 as "the many attempts of Nature to evolve a crab"

Overfishing can be a problem. From Google:

Alaska's commercial king crab harvest for the 2025/2026 season has a Total Allowable Catch (TAC) of 2.68 million pounds for Bristol Bay red king crab. For the Aleutian Islands golden king crab, the total quota is set at 4.19 million pounds.

First Catch of the Season

Nephew Nick delivering his first catch to Cordova, Alaska

Real Life

Whittier to Cordova, Alaska

My nephew bought a 30 foot fishing boat in Whittier and sailed it 100 miles across Prince William Sound to the happy summer fishing grounds around Cordova. Meanwhile, I went to Costco.

Alaska Landslides

Aerial view of the August 2025 landslide and tsunami near South Sawyer Glacier in Alaska

Tam tells us that Second tallest megatsunami ever recorded happened in Alaska last year.

I posted something about a potential landslide in Alaska five years ago:

Nick informs me that Prince William Sound is under a kind of tsunami watch (pdf). They (the guys who watch these things) have latched onto Barry Arm as a potential disaster in the making. I am not quite sure what Barry Arm is, whether it is an arm of a glacier or a piece of land, but there is a glacier involved. The prediction is that sometime in the next 20 years, Barry Arm is going to collapse into Prince William Sound and that is going to trigger a tsunami 1600 feet high which will be like the biggest wave ever! It would cool to surf it, hey? 1600 feet. I can't even imagine. Of course it will dissipate very quickly, it's not like a major underwater fault shift. Still, it will probably be felt all over Prince William Sound, and since all the fishermen up there know about it, it is liable to influence the choice of fishing grounds.

Tam's link is talking about Tracy Arm. Is that in the same place as Barry Arm? No. They are 500 miles apart.

Alaska, Red placemarks: Barry Arm (left) & Tracy Arm (right)
South Sawyer Glacier is practically on top of Tracy Arm

Yeah, Alaska, land of treacherous rocks, ice & snow.

Glacier Pilot Notes

Six years ago I was reading Glacier Pilot by Beth Day, a story about Bob Reeve, one of the pioneers of aviation in Alaska. Now I'm trying to clean out some old drafts, so here are some items that caught my eye.

Alaska
p. 25 Nunatak - A nunatak is the summit or ridge of a mountain that protrudes from an ice field or glacier that otherwise covers most of the mountain or ridge.
p. 26 Williwaw - a sudden violent squall blowing offshore from a mountainous coast.

Aviation pioneers, page 28:

• Lindbergh
• Doolittle
• Twining
• Curt Le May

Before Bob went to Alaska, he spent some time in South America. Pan American Grace airlines, aka PANAGRA, used several different airplanes when they started email service to Santiago Chile (page 38).

Loening Amphibian

Fairchild FC-2 flying over the Andes mountains

Ford Trimotor refueling in Guatemala 1933

Sikorsky S-38

The Sikorsky S-38 made an appearance in the movie The Aviator:


The Aviator (2004) - Howard and Kath Flying Scene (Spanish Subtitles)

New-to-me terms:
p. 38 sin publicadad - Spanish for 'without advertising'.
p. 41 Hegira - the journey the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers took from Mecca to Medina.
p. 43 gambling - "Ship, Captain, and Crew" is a dice game where players bet tokens (like "gold booty") and try to roll a 6 (Ship), 5 (Captain), and 4 (Crew) in that order, within three rolls, setting them aside to collect the score from the remaining two dice (Cargo) for the highest score to win the pot. It's a push-your-luck game that can be played for ante to a pot, with the winner taking all the tokens. 

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry makes an appearance on page 41.

Flying between Santiago Chile and Buenos Aires Argentina means flying over the Andes mountains, and since aircraft weren't pressurized, you needed to find a pass. Uspallata Pass with statue of Christ was one.

1911 Uspallata Pass

Wikipedia article. Google 3D map.

Christ the Redeemer of the Andes

The statue of Christ the Redeemer is the hiding place for the red suitcase in Kleo.

The Last Elephant Cage

The Last Elephant Cage
National Security Agency

Previous posts about these antennas:

• Luneburg Lens
• The Honourable Schoolboy by John LeCarre

Wikipedia has a page about these things.

Aleutian Islands

Aleutian Islands

Bayou Renaissance Man posts about Adak Island. I've posted several times about various Aleutian Islands, so I thought I'd take a look. Right away I found that the Live Walrus Cam was broken, so I fixed it there and here it is: Round Island, Dillingham, Alaska

Adak Island is right in the middle of the Aleutians. It is near the bottom of the loop in the map above. You can see it if you follow the link to Google Earth.

Aleutian Island posts, West to East:

• Attu Island - PBY Catalina Night Attack
• Shemya Island - What Island is this? -and- Yes, we have no bananas.
• Akatun & Akun - Richard H. Geoghegan
• Dutch Harbor - Nick Comes to Lunch
• Amaknak Island (Dutch Harbor in the town of Unalaska) - F/V Kari Marie
• Cold Bay - Shanghai to Chicago

Other Alaskan Islands, West to East:

• Round Island - Walrus Cam
• St. Paul and St. George - St. Paul Alaska
• Kodiak - White Alice
• Baranof Island (town of Sitka) - Fishing Report

Russian Oil

The Russian tanker Renda

Coast Guard Cutter Healy webpage reports:

The Russian tanker Renda transits toward Nome Jan. 13, 2012. The Coast Guard Cutter Healy has been breaking ice for the tanker to ensure a safe delivery of fuel to Nome residents. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Charly Hengen.

Fishing Boat

Fishing Boat

Nephew is looking at shallow draft commercial fishing boat, presumably for fishing in rivers. $180,000 comes complete with a permit.

How do you get to Bristol Bay, Alaska?

Example Piper Tri-Pacer

Marc sold his Pacer to Jeremy, a guy from Alaska. Jeremy joined us for lunch Tuesday and I asked him how long it would take to fly home. He lives in an unpronounceable hamlet on Bristol Bay in western Alaska. As the crow flies, it's 1,700 miles, but the Pacer only has a range of 500 miles. Overland, it's 2,000 miles, so two or three days of flying. If he flys. Seems there are a number of bureaucratic obstacles, i.e. he would have to land in Canada so he'd have the mounties threatening to arrest him and impound his plane because he didn't have right cover page on his TPS report.

The alternative would be to take the wings off and load the disassembled plane onto a pickup truck. Seems kind of sketchy, but airplane guys are resourceful so I imagine it could be done. The wings are 13 feet long, so they could be laid in the bed of the truck with only about three feet hanging over the back edge of the tailgate. The fuselage would be perched on top facing backwards so the tail would be hanging out over the hood. You would want to take the tail feathers off and store them on top of the wings. As much confidence as Marc expressed in this option I expected that it might be a common technique, but Google turned up no pictures. Several photos of disassembled planes loaded on larger trucks and trailers, but no pickup truck only setups.

Alaska Road Map

One minor problem with this scheme is that there are apparently no roads in western Alaska. There is a highway north from Anchorage to Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay, but nothing west of that. So while you could drive to Anchorage, you'd have to stop and assemble the airplane there and then fly the rest of the way.

Seems like flying would be a better solution, driving 2,500 miles over questionable roads, the airplane is going to take a beating.

Skagway

Skagway, Alaska

Picked up a copy of Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard yesterday afternoon at Powell's City of Books in downtown Portland. I was expecting a hard-boiled murder mystery, but it turns out to be about the Spanish-American War.

It starts with a couple of Americans looking for a way to make some money. They've got some horses so maybe they can sell them to someone who wants them. Skagway comes up as a possibility, there's a gold rush going on up there, and boy does that ring a bell. I haven't heard anyone mention Skagway in a long time.

I can't remember why, but it seems like there was a time when everyone was talking about Skagway. Could it have been a TV show? There was a TV show called Klondike which aired back 1960-61, which would have been the right time frame. I looked at a couple of clips on YouTube, but none of it seemed familiar.

Anyway, I looked up Skagway in Wikipedia and thought this picture was very cool. Now you might be wondering, like I was, just where it is.

Skagway, Alaska

Google Maps has slipped a cog. I expected Google Maps to stick one of their place markers on Skagway once I had zoomed out far enough, but not this time. Anyway, Skagway is about two thirds of the way up the Alaskan panhandle, about halfway between Juneau and Whitehorse. 

Nick Comes to Lunch

Dutch Harbor, Alaska

My nephew Nick came to lunch Tuesday. He's been up in Dutch Harbor for the last month on board the Fishing Vessel Nordic Fury. The Fury was operating as a tender, carrying fish from fishing vessels back to one of the three fish processing plants in Dutch Harbor. Something went wrong however, and there were three tenders and only one fishing boat, so Nordic wasn't seeing much action and eventually they sent the crew home.

F/V Nordic Fury

The Nordic Fury is 127 feet long and has three holds / fish tanks that can each hold 70 tons of fish. They fill the tanks with sea water which is about 40 degrees Fahrenheit and then chill it down to around 32 degrees. 

Fish Pump Diagram

The fish are transferred from the fishing vessel to the tender using a vacuum system with a ten inch diameter pipe. When they get back to port, the fish are transferred from the tender to the processing plant using a similar system that uses a 14 inch diameter pipe. The system at the fish plant can empty a hold in 30 minutes. Here's some photos of a fish pump installed on a fishing boat:

F/V Perfect C's with Fish Pump

Close up of fish pump

Fish Pump in Action

Near as I can tell, fish pumps work by alternately apply vacuum and pressure. They apply vacuum and atmospheric pressure pushes the fish and the water up the hose, past the check valve and into the tank. When the tank is full, they close off the vacuum and apply some pressure and the fish and the water flows out through another check valve and the exit pipe.

Nordic Fury Haulback
mel defaoite

Nick's crew were fishing for Pollock, most of which is turned into surimi, a seafood protean paste, and sent to Japan. Some of it is used to make artificial crab meat. 

Commercial Crab Species Spreadsheet

There are other boats up there that are crabbing (fishing for crab). A typical rig for a crabber will have a three inch diameter cable a couple of thousand feet long with a hundred crab pots attached to it. The pots are like seven feet in diameter and weigh a hundred pounds. They will lay the line along the top of an undersea ridge and the pots will lay on either side of the ridge. They were catching golden brown spider crabs, giant spindly things.

Fish processing plants in Dutch Harbor in the summer

Dutch Harbor is full of bald eagles, seals and eels. There are literally hundreds of bald eagles in the area. Walking on shore, heading into a strong wind, head down, he looks up and sees a bald eagle heading right for him. The seals swim in packs around the harbor hunting small fish. The water in the harbor freeze over and the seals would poke air holes in the thin ice. Nick caught a 30 pound fish while they were at anchor in the harbor by simply dropping a baited hook on a line into the water. He lowered the hook a hundred feet of so into the water and hooked a fish.

Iron Dog Alaska Snow Machine Race

"The Frozen Race" - Iron Dog Alaska
Groove Life

The Iron Dog is an annual, 2,500 mile, snow machine race across Alaska. This year's race will he held in a couple of weeks. Another motor sport event I had never heard of before.

Iron Dog Race Map

My nephew Nick came to lunch on Tuesday. He's been up in Dutch Harbor for the last month, but their fishing season got cut short. IAman wanted to hear a snow machine story so Nick obliged us with a tale from a year ago. There is a snow mobile race called the Iron Dog that covers like 800 miles of tundra. The ground is dead flat and the guys run their hopped up snow machines a hundred miles an hour over the frozen tundra. He was hanging out with some friends who had some of these hopped up snow machines (Ferrari's he calls them). They are out riding around and one of the machines develops a problem with the throttle. Intermittently the throttle would stick wide open. The driver got it under control and brought it back. The day goes on, some girls come over and they all start drinking and everyone forgets about the problem with the throttle. Well, nothing is more fun than hopping onto a hot rod snow mobile after you've had a couple of beers, and that's just what a couple of the girls did. Unfortunately, they got on the one with the throttle problem. The took off and Nick took off in hot pursuit because you never go out in the wilderness alone. You can go ten miles in a heartbeat and if something goes wrong you might never be found. Nick has the good sense to go after them and sees their lights head across a frozen lake. They're going lickety split and then the sound suddenly goes up, the snow machine rockets ahead and into the trees on the far side of the lake and then suddenly goes vertical. Nick follows up and when he gets there he finds the snow machine upside down, ten feet up in a tree, engine still running with the throttle wide open, screaming like a banshee. He shuts off the motor but when he does that, the lights go out. So now he's looking around in the dark for bits and pieces of the girls (arms? legs? heads?) but he's not finding anything. The girls show up laughing and giggling a couple of minutes later. They jumped off the machine when they realized the throttle was stuck while it was still out on the lake.

Here's a couple of videos that might give you some idea of what the Iron Dog race is like. This one is a little long and repetitive, but notice that the snow machines are keeping pace with an airplane.

Iron Dog Team 8 Aklestad/Johnson 2019
Tyson Johnson

This one gives you a different perspective on cross country traveling.


Iron Dog 2021 Poorman Fuel Haul (Remote Checkpoint)
Josh Norum

St. Paul Alaska

T-Routes

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) is adding GPS guided flight paths in Alaska, whatever that means. I'm looking at the above map and I say 'wait a minute', what's with the paths that go out to the middle of the Bering Sea? Then I look at Google Maps and if you zoom in you will find the islands of St. Paul and St. George.


Southwest Alaska

Neither island is very big, but there are people living out there. They are both have airstrips. St. Paul also has fish processing plant.

Post about Cold Bay.

Post about Akutan.

Fishing Report

Coming into Sitka Alaska

Nephew Nick's boat came into port for fuel and water.  Picked up a half load of fuel for $68,000.

This season may be extended.  Nick's ship contracts with Alaskan General Seafood. The Alaskan DNR fisheries-manager will notify the companies fleet manager whether there are a plentiful amount of fish to catch.  That manager tells Nicks captain where to go.  If not enough fish, Nick's boat goes to Seattle for maintenance and Nick gets a extended break.

Niece Liza's company has asked employees to come back into office Sept 1.  Expecting pushback,  they are putting in coffee shop and snacks. Her boss is pushing for  a raise for her since Seattle rent is so high, the apartment she was eyeing went from 1750 to 2250 last week.

Sitka Alaska

Once you get into Canada, the world quickly starts getting more distorted.The borders between Alaska and the Yukon and between British Columbia and Alberta run straight north and south and you can see here that they are at quite an angle. It's roughly 900 miles from Seattle to Sitka and another 600 to Anchorage.

Keep Breathing - Netflix Series

Keep Breathing | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix
Short, half-hour episodes. A young woman hitches a ride with a couple of guys in a small plane in Alaska. On the way to Inuvik the airplane's engine fails and they crash land into a small lake so what was supposed to be quick jaunt turns into a real battle to survive. The two guys quickly bite the dust so our girl is on her own, miles from nowhere with no food, water or even matches. She recovers a couple of bags from the wreck that is sitting in maybe 20 feet of water at the bottom of the lake, but do those bags have anything useful? Well, one bag is full of cash and the other is full of oxy, so not a lot of help.

The show basically cuts back and forth between flashbacks of her life back in the big city and her trials in the wilderness. It doesn't do a great job of depicting her efforts to provide for herself, but it's not really horrible either. I think the first thing would have been to build a giant frigging bonfire and then catch some fish. She gets by with a cute little campfire and a couple quarts of wild berries. So she's taking care of business and she's getting by. We shall see how she manages to get out of the pickle she's in.

Update May 2026 replaced missing video.

If It ain't the Russians, it's Mother Nature

AT-802F Fire Bosses at Ladd Army Airfield in Fairbanks, Alaska, July 4, 2022 - Scott Raymond/U.S. Forest Service

It's forest fire season in Alaska and it's shaping up to be a bad one. The smoke is so bad in Fairbanks (see orange sun in above photo) that aircraft are often grounded.

F/V Kari Marie

F/V Kari Marie

My nephew is back to fishing in Alaska. This time he's onboard F/V Kari Marie, a tender as opposed to an actual fishing boat. As I understand it, the fishing boats catch the fish and then unload their catch onto the tender which carries the loads from several fishing boats back to the processing plant. This means the fishing boats don't have to spend time traveling back and forth, they can get right back to fishing.

Marine Traffic around Dutch Harbor Alaska

They are operating out of Dutch Harbor which is literally a stone's throw from Unalaska which is where the Alyeska Seafood processing plant is. Unalaska is in the middle of the above map, though it might be a little hard to make out. The map shows an area approximately 1800 miles across. As you can see, there are a bunch of fishing boats in the area, but given the scale they are dozens of miles apart.

The ship traffic we see here is only a fraction of the vessels operating in the north Pacific. There is a big stream of ships coming from Japan and other points in the Far East.

Dutch Harbor / Unalaska is only 35 miles southwest of the Trident Seafood processing plant on Akutan island.

Grumman Gosling on Lake Hood

Grumman G-44 Widgeon on Lake Hood

WW2 era Grumman G-44 Widgeon, otherwise know as the Gosling, baby brother to the Grumman Goose. The Gosling could carry five people, the Goose could carry ten. Only about 300 were made of each, not like the tens of thousands of fighter aircraft that were produced during the war.

But where's Lake Hood? Seems like I ought to know, we've got Hood River (river and town) and Mt. Hood an hour east of Portland, but no Lake Hood. Seattle maybe? Nope - Anchorage Alaska. It's a tiny little lake right in the middle of town and totally taken up with seaplanes.


Welcome to Lake Hood (LHD)
Federal Aviation Administration
They mention two IFR (Instrument Flight Rating) airports nearby, that would be Ted Stevens International, the commercial airport, and Elmendorf Air Force Base. Looking around I find there are also a whole bunch of smaller airstrips in Anchorage. Place might be the airport capital of the world.


Anchorage Airports