Into the AK

It is the morning of the 30th of August, and these are my last hours in Anchorage. A cab is coming to pick me up at 9:30 to take me to the airport. I have my boat assignment, and by 8pm Pacific, I'll be on a boat.

I'm the first one of the group to leave. Everyone else got their first boats also, but some of them aren't leaving until Tuesday. And even then, their boat doesn't get into to port of a couple of days after that. I wish I had some extra time and money in Anchorage to go see more of the outlining areas to this city, but that is the nature of this job. I am pretty much on call 24-7 for the next 90 days.

I am not flying into Dutch Harbor any more. Plans changed and I'm getting on a boat at St. Paul Island in the middle of the Bering Sea. When I say in the middle of the Bering Sea, I don't mean that it's part of the Aleutian Islands. This island is out by it's self with St. George Island about a day and a half by fishing boat north of Dutch Harbor and the Aleutian Islands. This island is only inhabited because the the Russian fur trade. The Russians kidnapped a lot of natives from Alaska and put them on this island to kill Alaskan Fur Seals and ship them back to Russia. This island is a big breeding ground for the Alaskan Fur Seal. After the US put a stop to the slaughtering of the fur seals, no one bothered to take the natives home from the island. So they remained there and set up home and now they just considered it their little island. There are only around 500 people who live on St. Paul, 130 of which are students. The island is flat with no trees what so ever. Where Dutch Harbor has a lot of great hiking trails and beautiful scenery, and is a major fishing port, St. Paul is full of natives who got left on a island full of Fur Seals that they can't hurt with no mountains, no trees, and whipping winds.

Needless to say, this island is not a huge desstination point for the tourists of Alaska. I am expecting there to be some where in the neighborhood of 1 to 10 people to be on my 4 hour flight. The airport in St. Paul is right next to the port. I will walk off my little prop airplane right over to the dock with my army surplus duffel bag, backpack, and NMFS issued sampling gear. I am going to stick out like a sore thumb. There I'll be, sitting at the dock with my feet dangling in the water, waving my hand wildly, with my ear to ear welcoming grin, thrown across my face as the boat comes into to port to pick up their biologist, (I officaly can use the title biologist now, it feels awesome).

The boat I'll be on is an old crab boat, about 30 feet larger than the Northwestern, the one seen on the Deadliest Catch. They'll be using the same crab pots you see on that show, only I'll be on their while they're fishing Pacific Cod. It's going to be little compared the 300 foot floating factories most of the other people in my company are getting deployed to. I am happy I'm not get on one of those boats. On those you are just standing in front of a conveyor belt in the heated, dry factory, during a 12 hour work period, pulling off anything that isn't Pollock, (which isn't much). I get to be on the deck the entire time with the crew, sampling at sea. I'll have my own little station away from them so I don't get in their way. The catch is usually pretty clean, so I wont have to sort through a bunch of fish other than Pacific Cod, but there is a good chance that I am going to have to sort through a bunch of crab. They are not allowed to keep the crab until crab season. This is an old boat that doesn't fish for anything but crab unless they need the cash. The crew doesn't make near the money they do catching fish instead of crab, so I'm not expecting a jubilant crew to work with.

I am really excited, and extremely nervous as the minutes tick down until the cabby gets here. I wont be able to have access to internet for a while, maybe a month or more. The boat will be out for around 2 weeks at a time maybe longer, maybe shorter, and if we unload at St. Paul, then I won't have access their either, and then it's right back on the same boat for another 2 weeks or so depending. So this will be my last message for awhile. I would like to say I apprecate all the support and comments from all of you that have been reading this. It makes me feel less isolated from the from the people that I care most about. This blog gives me a chance to tell long winded stories about mundane things, or about the little things that get me excited like the planet walk. Please keep leaving me comments and writing me emails while I am away at sea. I wont get to read them for awhile, but it will make me feel like the world didn't forget about me for the last month to two months. I am humbled by the amount of truly good people have surrounded me in my life. I didn't fully realize this until I chose to make the journey into the AK, how many there were and how well you all support and care about me. I have gained a lot from this experience already, but I want you all to know that I miss being in Spokane surrounded by the people who made smile and made all the little things in life joyous. I do not know when I will make it back there next, but when I do, I will make sure that it is known to all.

I sit here in Anchorage, blessed and honored to have been apart of all the lives of the people I have come across. You have given me the confidence in my self to know that I am strong enough to take on a challenge such as being on a boat full of crazy old fishermen. Strong enough to know that I'll be able to keep my integrity in any situation that presents its self, because I am secure with who I am. And I attribute that to all the people I have surrounded myself with and who have presented themselves to me over the last 25 years. I look forward to hearing about your lives when I get back to dry land so please feel free to write to me about anything and everything.

Always leave one hand free for the boat.

Here I go, into the AK.



- Casey

PS. I will sleep cuddled up with my emergency suit mom. You can sleep well.

Planet walk

I went for a walk one day after class with my Ipod and ran into this downtown Anchorage. A giant Sun. Naturally my curiosity spiked and I had to see what the heck this was. Next to this sun is a Kiosk of information on the solar system. Ameditly I thought to myself, "This is my kind of town." It only gets better, or nerdier depending on the size of your inner science nerd, there is something called a light year walk through downtown Anchorage and around the bay. Here's how it works, if you walk at a normal pace you will reach each planet in the amount of minutes it takes for the light of the sun to reach the planet. Exciting, I know. Also, the planets are constructed in their relative size to that of the Sun and each other. Did I mention this is my kind of city. I made my way to Mars which is at the end of the downtown area and leads you to a trail around Turnagain Arm which is the bay on the outside part of the city. I had already been out for awhile, and I walked down the trail for a bit, but had to turn around to get back to do some homework. The trail takes you all the way around the bay to a look out point right where Pluto would be, 11 miles away from downtown. One of the many paved trails around the outside of the city. There is more paved trails within the county limits of Anchorage than any other county in the USA. This little innovation to get tourists to see more of the trails, makes my inner science nerd smile.



- Casey

Wondering Where the Lions Are

... Had another dream about lions at the door. They were not as fighting as they were before, some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me ...




It's been a stress filled week with tests to pass, but I've been walking around with a gigantic smile on my face. This city, this state, has a feel to it that I can't put my finger on, but it makes me feel happy. I haven't been able to hike really at all. I've been too busy, or the plans just didn't line up right. That's alright. There is going to be plenty of things left for me to explore when I get up here in December before my next deployment to Dutch. I've been talking with a couple of the other cats I'm training with to see if we can get up here a week or a couple of days early so that we can take the train in the winter.

We wondered into the tourist center one day as we walked past it on the way home from dinner. We spent the next 45 minutes or so talking and plotting adventures with both of the ladies that work the desk there. They stayed like 20 minutes after closing to tell us places off the beaten path of the tourist adventures and told stories that made our mouths water and our adventurous bones quiver. Things like guided glacier climbing and camping, snow shoeing to the glaciers, and the main attraction being the train that goes from Anchorage to Sweard to the South, and Anchorage to Fairbanks to the north. One of the ladies told us that it is completely different in the winter. The train travels through the mountains, and you travel into parts of the AK that you could never get to with a car. She also told us that is also the only train in the US that is still a whistle train, which means that at any point on the tracks and at every train station, the train is flagged down and will stop to let people on. She took the train north one weekend in the winter and there were campers who were flagging down the train in the middle of nowhere. Some of them had been lost, while others planed out ahead of time they were going to hike in one direction and camp until they reached the train tracks and hop on. I don't think I'm down with that, but from everything I've heard, its worth four times as much as they charge.

So far this experience has giving me nothing but great and exciting opportunities. I've met more fun loving and like minded people then I have met in a long time. It leaves me wondering where the lions are? When am I going to see the rub? What's the catch? I'll probably see the lions once I get to Dutch Harbor. But the more and more we train, and get to learn about all the other opportunities that come with this job, I'm going to be in a postion to see things that will have always wanted to, but probably never would without this job. I'm not sure if I'm really going to see this as a job. Maybe it'll be more like a ride-a-long you can do with a police officer, only I'm doing it with fishing boats in the Bearing, while doing collecting samples for research on the side. There will be times when the work is really difficult, and times when it is simpler. There will be times when the sea is rough, and times when it is calm. But the time out on the boat will never be same as it would have been stuck in a lab 8 to 10 hours a day with no widows and the only light being the neon ones above me. Where getting to wear a lab coat as a uniform was the only perk. I may have left the lions back in Spokane.

- Casey

PS. The top picture is of the city of anchorage on an overcast day from flat top, and the other one is the green covered mountains that surround the city to the water