Lost and Found on the Bering Sea
On New Year’s Day around 20 years ago, in Dutch Harbor Alaska, I boarded the M/V Arctic Enterprise, a large fishing processor. I had flown up after signing a 2 month contract with the Arctic Alaska Corporation. My sister, Liz, was beside me. She was waiting to hear about law school. I was a writer looking to pay off my student loans and develop a writing life that didn’t include endless meetings in Los Angeles.
The Chief Engineer of the vessel saw us board the boat from the vantage of the wheelhouse. Snowflakes fell lazily down from a steel grey sky. Beyond us stretched the icy waters of the Bering Sea and some of the most profitable and dangerous fishing grounds in the world.
The other people boarding the vessel for their contract were from vastly different backgrounds. My sister and I were from private colleges and in my case, had a graduate degree. We were clean cut, enthusiastic and in the eyes of the Chief, who said, “Oh boy, those two think this is Outward Bound,” completely unprepared for life on a fishing boat.
The boat was older, well-used but perfectly safe thanks to one of the finest Chief Engineers ever to grace the ocean. We were to work 16 hours on, in the slime line, gutting and packing fish. In our 8 hours off, we would eat 2 meals, take a shower and somehow, on a rolling, turning, groaning boat, sleep.
Given that lots of people turn up in Dutch Harbor thinking they can easily make their fortune, the Chief’s estimation was dead on. Not only were we “Greenhorns,” we were women, a rare commodity in Dutch Harbor and on fishing boats. Some old timers even considered us bad luck.
My sister, whose previous work experience involved counseling those in crisis, worked her way into the part-time position (in addition to working in the factory) of “house mouse,” doing laundry, stamping roe bags for sale to the Japanese.
Everyone loved her. Not only was she a hard worker, she found ways to make the factory workers lives a little easier. She joked around with them constantly, taking special care with their laundry and made it her business to help people. When the cook had what I can only call a well deserved nervous breakdown half way through his contract, she suggested that I at least get a chance to cook one meal, as a tryout. If I worked out, the Skipper would save time and lots of money. We wouldn’t have to tie up at the dock, burning through cash, sitting out the season waiting for a replacement.
My tryout recipe was, stupidly enough, taken from the Silver Palate Cookbook. I used prime cuts of chicken that should have been saved for several meals, bottles of lemon juice I would kick myself later for dumping into a marinade. The shaking, chain-smoking, jabbering cook watched me prepare Lemon Chicken for a crew of men whose tastes ran to plain stew, biscuits and gravy and under-the-sea Jello salad, (a dish I’d never heard of and would try, later, with little success, to prepare.)
Amazingly, the Skipper, who had the same taste as his crew, promoted me to cook. I learned to listen to the crew, posting a sheet and pencil asking for favorite meals, most of which I’d never heard. I borrowed cook books from other boats cooks who took pity on me.
I’d been raised in a family of gourmet cooks, which was a liability with this crowd. I made stews without vegetables, thick white gravy with lumps of sausage, invented Chicken Cordon Bleu on a bun, which everyone loved. I was generally admired not for my ability to master down home cooking but my willingness to kill myself trying.
I was even hit, during a bad storm, with a flying ham. I was locked in freezer. I saw a man jump from his bunk during a nightmare wearing nothing but a pair of leopard print skivvies. I watched from the galley during a storm while a deck hand had his shoulder set by the Chief, who received directions from the doctor on call via radio satellite.
My sister lasted out her entire contract. They weren’t able to find a replacement for me so I ended up working for 4 straight months on the same boat, rarely seeing daylight, piling up checks and redefining, for all time, what being exhausted meant.
Later, once I’d rested in Seattle, I signed on for 2 more contracts. I flew to Alaska for 2 months of cooking at sea and wrote, traveled and lived reasonably well for the six months I had off. Eventually I paid off all my student loans and a portion of my future husband’s. I helped contribute to the purchase of our first home.
Working in Alaska is extreme living and moments of unbelievable beauty. I will never forget the playful Dahl porpoise swimming alongside the vast hull as it sliced the water or the Aleutian Islands sloping into the improbably bluest water.
I met people I would have otherwise never encountered: strong, intelligent people and misguided fragile people with vastly different lives and goals. That New Year’s Day, when we stood on that ramp, was the beginning of a test that ultimately, my sister and I both passed.
(My sister got into UW Law School. She also married the Chief Engineer.)
The Chief Engineer of the vessel saw us board the boat from the vantage of the wheelhouse. Snowflakes fell lazily down from a steel grey sky. Beyond us stretched the icy waters of the Bering Sea and some of the most profitable and dangerous fishing grounds in the world.
The other people boarding the vessel for their contract were from vastly different backgrounds. My sister and I were from private colleges and in my case, had a graduate degree. We were clean cut, enthusiastic and in the eyes of the Chief, who said, “Oh boy, those two think this is Outward Bound,” completely unprepared for life on a fishing boat.
The boat was older, well-used but perfectly safe thanks to one of the finest Chief Engineers ever to grace the ocean. We were to work 16 hours on, in the slime line, gutting and packing fish. In our 8 hours off, we would eat 2 meals, take a shower and somehow, on a rolling, turning, groaning boat, sleep.
Given that lots of people turn up in Dutch Harbor thinking they can easily make their fortune, the Chief’s estimation was dead on. Not only were we “Greenhorns,” we were women, a rare commodity in Dutch Harbor and on fishing boats. Some old timers even considered us bad luck.
My sister, whose previous work experience involved counseling those in crisis, worked her way into the part-time position (in addition to working in the factory) of “house mouse,” doing laundry, stamping roe bags for sale to the Japanese.
Everyone loved her. Not only was she a hard worker, she found ways to make the factory workers lives a little easier. She joked around with them constantly, taking special care with their laundry and made it her business to help people. When the cook had what I can only call a well deserved nervous breakdown half way through his contract, she suggested that I at least get a chance to cook one meal, as a tryout. If I worked out, the Skipper would save time and lots of money. We wouldn’t have to tie up at the dock, burning through cash, sitting out the season waiting for a replacement.
My tryout recipe was, stupidly enough, taken from the Silver Palate Cookbook. I used prime cuts of chicken that should have been saved for several meals, bottles of lemon juice I would kick myself later for dumping into a marinade. The shaking, chain-smoking, jabbering cook watched me prepare Lemon Chicken for a crew of men whose tastes ran to plain stew, biscuits and gravy and under-the-sea Jello salad, (a dish I’d never heard of and would try, later, with little success, to prepare.)
Amazingly, the Skipper, who had the same taste as his crew, promoted me to cook. I learned to listen to the crew, posting a sheet and pencil asking for favorite meals, most of which I’d never heard. I borrowed cook books from other boats cooks who took pity on me.
I’d been raised in a family of gourmet cooks, which was a liability with this crowd. I made stews without vegetables, thick white gravy with lumps of sausage, invented Chicken Cordon Bleu on a bun, which everyone loved. I was generally admired not for my ability to master down home cooking but my willingness to kill myself trying.
I was even hit, during a bad storm, with a flying ham. I was locked in freezer. I saw a man jump from his bunk during a nightmare wearing nothing but a pair of leopard print skivvies. I watched from the galley during a storm while a deck hand had his shoulder set by the Chief, who received directions from the doctor on call via radio satellite.
My sister lasted out her entire contract. They weren’t able to find a replacement for me so I ended up working for 4 straight months on the same boat, rarely seeing daylight, piling up checks and redefining, for all time, what being exhausted meant.
Later, once I’d rested in Seattle, I signed on for 2 more contracts. I flew to Alaska for 2 months of cooking at sea and wrote, traveled and lived reasonably well for the six months I had off. Eventually I paid off all my student loans and a portion of my future husband’s. I helped contribute to the purchase of our first home.
Working in Alaska is extreme living and moments of unbelievable beauty. I will never forget the playful Dahl porpoise swimming alongside the vast hull as it sliced the water or the Aleutian Islands sloping into the improbably bluest water.
I met people I would have otherwise never encountered: strong, intelligent people and misguided fragile people with vastly different lives and goals. That New Year’s Day, when we stood on that ramp, was the beginning of a test that ultimately, my sister and I both passed.
(My sister got into UW Law School. She also married the Chief Engineer.)
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