The fishing trip

In my life, when the principal comes to the classroom, it means something bad has happened.  A student has had a family emergency, is in serious trouble with the police or I am about to get laid off-again.

So it was with no small amount of trepidation that I went to the hallway outside my door when beckoned by Sam, my principal.  "Do you have boots?" he asked.  Because Sam wears a cochlear implant and is hearing disabled sometimes it is hard to understand him so he is really good about gesturing to be understood.  He pointed to his feet.

I told him yes, I had boots wondering why in the world he was interrupting my classtime on a Friday to ask me this.  Sam is not the kind of efficient, businesslike principal I have worked for in Portland; he is much more laid back, always has a smile even when discussing something serious (like the boiler room break in) and rumor says he has his eye on retiring as soon as the new Assistant Principal has a few years under his belt, so he can spend all his time fishing.

"Would you like to go upriver to fish after school today?"

Oh boy, you bet!  In my time in Togiak, I have been five places: school, home, teacher housing up the hill for Walking Dead night, the post office and one of the two grocery stores.  For the rest of the day, I was as anxious as the kids to get out of school.

But once home, to change into my crappy pants that I don't care if they get dirty or stained, long johns since it was already blowing outside though sunny, and my awesome, actually water-proof twelve dollar boots from Sears, I started to get more than anxious.  All my life I have suffered from panic attacks.  I just didn't recognize that's what they were.  Countless times I have bailed out, usually at the last minute, due to paralyzing fear.  Fear of what I cannot say, only that there are times when I just can't.  Can't leave the house.  Can't imagine doing the thing that sounded fun when I agreed to it.  Can't go to work because, ironically, I am afraid of losing my job.  A million kinds of can't.

But two years ago, my very wise wonderful oncologist put me on medication to help me cope with the unrelenting hot flashes that come after one has a life-saving hysterectomy.  The side effect was that I was pulled out of years of chronic depression.  I was actually...happy?  Woah.

Being happy for the first time in years, made me more aware of when I wasn't happy.  I didn't care if the happiness was drug induced; I could cope better with my life.  So I decided to take the next step and talked to my regular doctor about getting medication for social anxiety disorder.  When I told him how many times in an average week I panicked, he seemed stunned and said, "Well that's no way to live" and put me on a co-med with the anti-depressant. 

Now let me be clear about this for those who have no reference.  I do not panic lightly or get depressed because I am sad about external factors.  My kid was great, I enjoyed my job and wished I could do it all the time, I loved my friends and family.  But chemical brain stuff can easily take over and become the norm.  When I found what the norm was supposed to feel like, I felt liberated like never before.  Without the help from Big Pharma, I wouldn't be here.  I would still be in Portland stuck in my apartment bemoaning the fact that I didn't have any money because I literally couldn't go to work because I was panicking or depressed.

So, when I felt the fear coming on, I did what now works.  I talked myself into it.  I reminded myself that this was the reason I was here; to experience new things, to have adventures, to not be afraid any more.  And I took a backup med that I use to fly to keep me over the hump and able to go on the fishing trip when Cam the Counselor and Katelynn the First Grade Teacher came to pick me up.  This was to be an all newbies trip, and we surmised that Sam probably paid for it out of school funds, calling it "orientation."

Another fear I have is boats, as I am a poor swimmer to begin with so it didn't help when we ran into Sam's wife Mary at the store, a very nice cheery White lady who warned us that Sam tended to drive like a New York cabbie in the boat.  Awesome!  Just what I needed to hear.

One of the best decisions I made before coming to Alaska was going to Andy 'N Bax surplus store for gear.  This was my first chance to try out my balaklava to protect my face and keep my hair out of my way.  I also put on contacts so I wouldn't have to worry about dropping my only pair of glasses overboard, and brought along my amber lensed goggles.  I may have looked like a total dork but I was warm, dry and could see.

After boating across Togiak Bay, we followed the river for about ten minutes.  We stopped and since I was in the front (the bow?) of the boat, I had the best view.  It was so beautiful that no picture could do it justice.  Short trees, tundra, mountains, gorgeous.  I was told to drop the anchor but didn't realize that just throwing it over the side would result in a huge splash and probably chase all the fish away.  We had seen silver salmon jumping all the way so we knew they were there but after only about five minutes, Sam insisted we pull anchor and he found us a better spot.  We stayed there for a full ten minutes, then moved again.  This time, it was only minutes before Katelynn had a fish on.  Her father is a fishing guide in Montana so with the help of Sam's gig hook, the big fish was soon in the boat.  Cam was next, but he only caught a flounder.  When we asked Sam if you could eat flounder, he smiled and said "Sure.  But no one does" so Cam threw it back.  This act of mercy was rewarded by an almost immediate hook of a silver, which heck yeah we kept.  In little more than twenty minutes, the two of them caught six fish!  All beautiful silver salmon weighing at least ten pounds each.  Finally, I decided to take a turn, though to be honest I was pretty happy just sitting in the boat with the sun on my face, watching the fish jump and get caught.  But I wanted to at least try, so with many (many) lessons from everyone else (hold the line, flip the thingy down, draw back the rod, let it fly over my head remembering to let go of the line, flip the thingy up again, reel it in, repeat repeat repeat).  I did this perhaps one thousand times before I felt something tugging on the line that was not the bottom of the river or a piece of seaweed getting gunked up on my hook.  I had a fish on! 

Holy cow!  Katelynn screamed directions, Sam yelled to keep the tip up (tip of what?  oh, the rod/reel/pole!), and Cam just yelled.  Since all the previous fish were caught by people in their early twenties, I didn't quite realize how much force it takes to reel in a five hundred pound fish.  I nearly let go of the rod but it wasn't until Katelynn offered to do it for me, that I really got serious about getting that fucker in the boat. I found that if I stabilized the rod against my tummy it was easier to reel.  Once the fish was in, I kind of collapsed on the seat and while my right hand cramped up into a ball that I had to use my left hand to unwind it from itself, Sam bashed the fish and Katelynn removed the hook.  I am very proud to say that it was the largest one caught that day, according to the others, not me.

Everyone else caught at least one more fish before we called it good.  At that point, Cam, Katelynn and I were ready to go back home but Sam insisted we find a pretty spot on the beach to light a fire and cook the fish.  He also said that if we saw some ducks close by, maybe he would shoot one and we could eat that too.  That's when I noticed the huge gun on the floor of the boat back by Sam running the motor.  When it's the principal running the trip, it's best to be polite and stay out longer than you wanted to, but even more so when the principal has a shotgun.

We went upriver some more for about thirty minutes that were colder as we went.  But, again, it was so beautiful that I didn't have the heart to complain.  It was so magnificent, again beyond words to describe.  Suddenly, Cam shouted over the motor, "Is that a moose?"  We all looked to the shoreline where there was a great big blob of something alive.  I quickly got my phone from my pocket as Katelynn screamed "It's a bear!"

A big bear.  As big as my Honda sedan sitting in the parking lot of my apartment in Portland.  When the boat got nearer, it must have heard us shrieking like maniacs and started running along the beach, a huge salmon dangling out one side of its mouth.  I got one pretty good picture but since I had my contacts in, I was taking pictures blind (my contacts don't correct bifocally).  All the rest of the way to the beach, we talked about the bear, how the bear was at the place where the two of them had camped overnight over Labor Day, how big the bear was but still smaller than a grizzly.

Once ashore at a place called Three Rivers (guess what it looked like?), Sam set up his propane grill while we others tried to start a camp fire because with the sun going down, and the wind going up, it was getting seriously cold.  Like, see your breath cold.  But the wind made it impossible to start a fire so we snuggled into the sand or stood near the grill.  The grill Sam kept calling Hawaii, a joke that made him giggle in the sweetest way ever.  But cold or not, that fish was cleaned in a jiffy with an uluak that had belonged to Sam's mother and made by his father.  Technically, uluaks are "women knives" but Sam handled it like a pro, gutting the fish in no time at all.  We ate it seasoned with Johnny's Seasoning Salt, a familiar staple when I was growing up, atop Pilot Bread, a kind of big cracker that I have had before but the others had not.  Katelynn really enjoyed it until she saw how many calories they are.  But with the freshest fish ever, they are divine.

By this time, we White people were chilled to the bone and not at all looking forward to the ride home.  But Cam gently managed to get Sam to agree to leave and not stay out all night.  The sun set as we rode home, making the water look to me, in my amber goggles, like pink sand.  At one point, we slowed down, turned around and made for shore.  Sam had spotted a fox on the shore but something made him decide to not shoot it that day.  I don't know why, but I am kind of glad.  Fish are one thing, mammals are harder for me to think about killing, even if it is for subsistence reasons.

Back in the bay, we were joined by a bunch of other boats slowly making their way to the shore.  At first I thought it was some kind of maritime courtesy but actually Sam hung back to find out where the channel was that evening.  One boat carrying Sam's cousin (very few of the people we saw were not Sam's cousins) got stuck on a sand bar, so we drifted closer and once we got stuck too, Sam jumped out to help the other boat get unstuck.  Cam grumbled but jumped out too, while Katelynn and I discussed how glad we were for the cultural norm that forbade us, as women, from getting out to help too.  Then everyone was unstuck and we made our way to the shore near Sam's boat rig, where I was greeted by one of my students, who is the sister of the people in the boat that got stuck and so, is also Sam's cousin.

Hauling over 100 pounds of salmon from the boat up the beach, made up of mostly pea gravel, was no fun, nor was the realization that now we had to gut and fillet the fish.  Cam volunteered his kitchen for the job, and by working together we got it finished in little under an hour.  My job was to carry the fish from the truck bed up the stairs to Cam's kitchen.  While I was glad earlier for the balaklava and goggles, boy was I glad now for the leather work gloves I bought at the store on a whim right before we left!  Sturdy and thick and warm, they helped me get a good grip on those slimy fish, and I was thankful that my first few days in training I learned the proper way to hold a salmon.  Stick the index finger in the gill, and hunt around until you can hook it by the lower jaw bone.  That way, the fish is less likely to bite you back, it holds together nicely and using this technique I could carry two at a time up the stairs.  Until the last load when I only had one, of course this was the trip where my knee went out just enough, not to hurt, but to make me drop the fish right onto the carpet at the top of the stairs.  So while Katelynn and Cam washed the fish blood off the sink, floor and counter tops, I scrubbed it off the carpet.  I thought how strange it would sound to someone who didn't know what we were doing to overhear our conversation.  We looked like extras from Dexter when we were all finished but we also came away with lots of fish to share.  We all split the haul equally even though I only caught one, and decided that now we are fishing buddies for life.

 Even if I never go again, I can say with pride, "Oh yeah, I caught a salmon in Alaska once."