Jennie@ifish
11-10-2008, 03:44 PM
Chapter Three
A Greenhorn Buys a Boat
For an outdoors man, being without a boat in Southeast Alaska marked you as a greenhorn.
Many people didn’t own cars, and there was no stigma about that. Anyone who loved
the outdoors simply wasn’t socially acceptable, at least around the people I associated with,
unless he owned a boat. With only 30 miles of road in the area, one needed a boat to hunt,
fish, dig clams, goof off and get to the really interesting places.
It made little difference what sized boat one owned. Misery loves company and a small
boat can be almost as much trouble as a large one. Owning any boat qualified one to join
the loose-knit fraternity of boat-owners. Faced with constant up keep, moorage, shipyard,
insurance, engine overhauls and painting bills, plus the constant worry that your investment
might, at any time, for a variety of reasons, sink, qualified you to receive sympathy
from other boat owners.
Owning a boat also endeared the person to the business people who provided support
services for boat owners: Bars and liquor stores, grocers, marine stores, welding shops,
engine repair facilities, hardware stores, tackle shops, fuel docks—the list of businesses who
relied upon boat owners was almost endless. One could see dollar signs rolling around in
the merchant’s eyes, like symbols in a slot machine, when a boat owner walked into their
store.
With the rather limited experience of a man who was raised in the Midwest, more than
a thousand miles from salt water, I decided to do something about this lack of owning a
boat. I intended to join, by hook or by crook (excuse the pun) this rather informal fraternity
of fishermen who caught salmon with hook and line. I had little money, no possessions
or credit record, and knew no one locally who would vouch for my financial reputation.
When you’re starting from the bottom there’s no place to go but up. Right? Alaska
was still a raw country. The Territorial government paid a bounty on wolves, seals, eagles
and Dolly Varden trout, all which gobbled fingerling salmon by the millions. Black bear,
also considered a threat to salmon populations, because they grabbed a few spawners as they
swam upstream, were shot on sight by many. The word environment, at least in Alaska, hadn’t
been coined yet.
Kay Antonsen, a local trapper, deep sea diver and hunter, claimed bounty on 17 wolves
the year I arrived, 1950. He received a nice check from the government for $850 and was
considered a local hero for ridding the country of that many carnivore. The local Fish &
Game also waged war on wolves, using poison baits, traps and guns to kill as many as possible.
Ken Eichner, a driver for White Cab & bus Company, a private pilot, and several
of his buddies ran wolf trap lines with airplanes. Animal trapping was an acceptable means
of earning a winter’s paycheck. One trapper, obviously a single man, explained it this way:
Whatever amount he earned trapping he doubled, because while out on the trap line he
stayed out of the bars, liquor stores and brothels along Creek Street.
Well, truthfully, there wasn’t much else for someone to do in Ketchikan during the
long winters. Not that everyone frequented the bars, but a surprising number of people
drank.
Traps were still the main method of harvesting salmon for the canneries. A salmon trap
was a huge affair of galvanized chicken wire suspended beneath large Sitka spruce “trap
logs”. Spruce and red cedar were the preferred, in fact the only woods used because they
floated high in the water. The assembled traps were gigantic, covering an area as large as a
tennis court, not counting the “lead” or cable, stretched from trap to shore and hung top
to bottom with galvanized chicken wire. Traps were held together by an elaborate framework
of logs lashed together with cables. Several ten-ton star anchors, plus the lead fastened
solidly ashore, held the trap in position. Sometimes a bad summer storm tore it loose.
Then there was a chance the watchmen living on the trap were in trouble, unless they went
ashore, where cabins were located during emergency. Most traps were owned by canneries
and the actual trap site was registered, like a mining claim, with the Fish and Wildlife
Service, the agency in charge of fish and game prior to statehood in 1959. Although building
and maintaining the traps was a large industry and employing many men, most labor
was “imported” from “outside.” Because of this, and other reasons (traps hogged too many
fish) a majority of Territorial residents wanted traps abolished.
In those days, Ketchikan and other Southeast towns, were great, free places where one
could do much as he pleased, as long as no laws were broken. One law, robbing salmon
traps, was uniformly overlooked. The authorities had never been able to find a jury that
would convict anyone of taking fish out of the ocean, even though the fish were surrounded
by chicken wire.
Robbing salmon traps during the short summer season wasn’t exactly an honest occupation,
but the money was quick, easy to get, and spent as well as if earned the hard way,
by actually setting the purse seines.
“Pink slips,” free steamship tickets south, were still handed out by the authorities to
undesirable transients who got into trouble, with the admonition to “not come back.”
During the fifteen years I lived in Ketchikan and Sitka we never locked either car or
house. I loved the small-town atmosphere, friendly people and the fact that wilderness
Downtown Ketchikan,
Tongass Marine, Ryus
float.
pushed, crowded and sometimes invaded the city on three sides. Whales, sea lions and herring
sometimes lurked in Tongass Narrows and king salmon were frequently caught right in
front of town. Black bears sometimes raided garbage cans in town. Inside Passage traffic,
huge tugs towing barges, steamships and all sizes of fish boats steamed through Tongass
Narrows in front of town. For a newcomer like me, it was an exciting, interesting place. Except for the nearly continuous rain!
Being primarily a fishing town, Ketchikan operated on credit. If you owned a commercial
fishing boat, the marine supply stores, Tongass Trading Company, Paul Hanson’s,
Harbor Hardware, Nordby’s Marine Supply and Henry Henn’s Marine, the oil docks and
grocery stores would give you credit. You were expected to pay when you could, or in the
fall after the season ended. During the fall Ketchikan’s economy really hummed, with
salmon and halibut money flowing into everyone’s pockets. Ketchikan Cold Storage, Jim
Pinkerton manager, aggressively bid for halibut trips against Ketchikan’s nearest neighbor,
and fierce competitor for fish, Prince Rupert, British Columbia, 90 miles south. Rupert
was the terminus of a railroad, which provided them with an edge on the market for iced
fish. Phillips Cold Storage and New England Fish Company also bought salmon and halibut.
About six salmon canneries operated through the summer season.
Iced, long line-caught halibut and black cod trips were sold at auction by placing the
trips on the “Exchange Board.” As soon as the vessels completed their trip they radioed
their agents how many pounds they had on board and the information was forwarded by
teletype to Seattle, Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Ketchikan. Buyers knew what vessels
took good care of their catch and this might influence them to offer a slightly higher price.
Whoever bid the highest price received the trip. A big load could be nearly 100,000 pounds
of iced fish, so a half-cent per pound amounted to enough to convince the vessel’s crew to
run the fish to another port. Few of the largest long line boats, the “schooner fleet,” were
home based in Ketchikan. Most of the larger boats were from Seattle, Prince Rupert and
Vancouver.
If you didn’t own a boat you might still get credit, but you had to fill out forms
divulging your financial history, employer and other personal questions. If you were a boat
owner, and had a job to boot, a rarity, to be sure, you had only to say so, then walk off with
anything in the store.
Ketchikan was a clannish town in those days. The Scandinavians tended to stick
together, spending their free evenings at certain bars, or the Sons of Norway. The Indian
and Filipino communities kept pretty much to themselves. The merchants, bankers and
professional people formed a loose-knit community, hanging out at the Elks Club as a
retreat from the “commoners” that belonged to the Eagles and Moose Lodges. The churchgoing
community didn’t associate with the bar crowd and so on.
Especially clannish were the commercial fishermen. They lived precariously, financially
as well as dangerously, in those days, especially before boats were equipped with two-way
radios and most were powered by gasoline engines. It wasn’t the sea that destroyed the
most boats, it was gasoline. Boat explosions and fires were frequent occurrences.
With the smugness of the self-employed, the fishermen were highly critical of government,
change, authority, and pitied, without exception, any landlubber, people resigned to
an eight-to-five day job.
When the fishermen discovered I didn’t own a boat they recoiled as if I had bad breath,
then peered at me with a puzzled, sympathetic squint. Anyone who didn’t own a boat was
pitied. If they acknowledged my presence at all, it was with disinterest, as if I was a paraplegic,
leper or had a communicable disease.
It was Ernie Copeland who forcefully brought this fact to my attention. Ernie was a
hard-bitten, skinny little twist of a fisherman who appeared as if he might blow overboard
except for the heavy woolen clothes and rolled down heavy hip boots he wore most of the
time. During the winter, at least while ashore, his feet were encased in a pair of elastic- sided
leather Redwing fishermen’s shoes that were so encrusted with salt they were almost white.
Ernie smoked roll-your-own Bull Durham and chewed snoose at the same time. He was as
lean and tough as a Sitka spruce trolling pole. His piercing eyes missed little that happened
around Leo Cochran’s Harbor Hardware on Stedman Street, or the comings and goings in
Thomas Basin.
http://www.ifish.net/board/../FCThomasBasin.jpg
Ernie was one of the few really old-time trollers still alive who could remember when
hand-trolling first started in southeast Alaska. Originally there was little or no fresh market
for king salmon because manufactured ice to keep them fresh wasn’t available. With only
one steamer a week service, shipping fresh fish south was impossible.
During the early days of salmon trolling the large red kings, known as “mild-cures,”
weighing 15 pounds and up, were split and salted in wooden barrels. The barrels were then
shipped, usually by rail, to the eastern markets, where the salted sides were freshened and
sold retail, either as smoked salmon, or lox, thin slices of mild-cured king salmon popular
with the Jewish trade.
By 1906 king salmon had been reduced to only a percentage of historic runs on the
Columbia and Sacramento Rivers after several years of unregulated and over fishing by gillnets
and seines. J. Lindenberger, Incorporated and the Wiese twins, Christian and Engelbr,
moved their mild-curing operations to Alaska and began buying red kings. There was no
market for white-fleshed kings. An interesting turnaround: Today white kings bring a better
price that the red-fleshed fish.
About the same time, John Davis Sr. began building splendid cedar-planked doubleended
rowing boats in Metlakatla, on Annette Island. New 14 or 16-foot boats cost about
$45, and were ideally suited for the hand-trollers because they were seaworthy and easy to
row. Pete Holmberg also built great skiffs in Ketchikan. I used to own one and it was a joy
to row.
Ernie, along with Monty Rafferty, Dick “Bullfighter” Sanchez, owner of the Alma
Maria, Silent George, Helena, and a handful of others were permanent off-season fixtures
on a seat inside the front window at Harbor Hardware, located across the street from the
entrance to Thomas Basin. They came at opening time and left when the store closed,
except, perhaps for lunch at a nearby restaurant, or a stroll down to pump their boats.
Despite the fact that I was a boat-less Cheechaco, Ernie told me many stories of the
old days, before power was available to raise and lower the heavy leads used by salmon
trollers. Ernie remembered buying bread at Gilbert McLeod’s mother’s tent bakery on
Forrester Island in 1913 and 1914. As many as 200 hand troller’s were camped on this
remote island. He described the fights that sometimes broke out between the Finns and
Norwegians, over launching boats on the long, wooden ramp provided by the fish buyers.
He told how “Lapp” Sam Anderson hadn’t shown up one night after a quick southeast
blow had caught most of the trollers quite a ways from the island. When Sam didn’t appear
after several days they assumed he was lost at sea. They packed his tent and belongings,
intending to send them to town on the tender.
On the afternoon of the fifth day a stiff westerly sprang up, forcing the boats in. That
evening Lapp Sam’s little 14-foot boat was spotted bearing down on the island, running
before the wind with a jib sail. Sam sailed in close to the landing where the fish buyer was
anchored, dropped his tiny sail, sold several king salmon caught on his return to the island,
then rowed ashore, finding his tent and camp intact. The men had hurriedly pitched Sam’s
tent and placed his belonging inside, not wishing Sam to know they thought he was dead.
Sam explained the southeaster had caught him so far from the island, he’d been forced
to sail before the wind. He ended up in Port Santa Cruz, tipped his boat on edge to sleep
under, rigged his sail as a shelter, built a fire using a bottle of coal oil kept in the boat for
emergencies, barbecued a king salmon and waited for the storm to blow itself out. After
the wind changed directions to westerly, he sailed back to Forrester Island, insisting it had
been a great vacation!
Ernie’s memory was almost as good as that of Gilbert McLeod’s, who I considered the
best story teller in southeast Alaska, with Jim Pitcher second. That’s going some, because in
the days before television, and when few even owned a radio, storytelling was much appreciated.
There wasn’t much that had happened around southeastern that those three couldn’t
recall.
When I tried to get Ernie to reveal a few secrets about how to actually catch king
salmon with troll gear he clammed up, reminding me that I was “boat-less”, so what was
the use.
In the fifties, Ketchikan’s lower Stedman Street area was pretty quiet during the day.
June’s Café and the Creek Street boardwalk are on the south side of Ketchikan Creek, the
Arctic Bar was on the other. The Arctic Bar collapsed and washed under the bridge during
an extremely high tide and flood in Ketchikan Creek during the 1950’s. A few other small
stores and rooming houses, a pool hall, Diaz Café (Mama Diaz was a famous cook) a hotel,
pool hall, Harbor Hardware and Ohashi’s Grocery were the extent of the commercial buildings.
At night, after Creek Street’s brothel’s turned on the red lights, lower Stedman livened
up. Men, some with coat collars turned up to protect their faces from the “raw wind” (and
perhaps hide them from prying eyes) sneaked in the only entrance to Creek Street, near
June’s Café.
One stormy evening, with cold rain blowing into my face, I ducked into Harbor
Hardware before heading home to the Knickerbocker. Leo knew I was looking for a small
boat and drew me aside so the loungers couldn’t hear. “Tied behind the Renegade there’s a
nice-looking small boat about 17-feet long. They just arrived from the West Coast [of
Prince of Wales Island] and there’s a For Sale sign in the window.”
I thanked him, then hurried down the float. A southeast wind whipped up small waves
inside the boat harbor. I drew my woolen coat tight around my neck. The Renegade was a
36-foot troller with a small trunk cabin and living quarters in the fo’c’sle. A light appeared
from the skylight. Tied to its stern was the boat for sale.
I knocked on the pilothouse door. A man slid the door open about two inches. A peculiar
stench, a mixture of engine room bilge, sour clothing, stale food and unwashed bodies,
came from the cabin. The man picked his tobacco-stained teeth and peered at me suspiciously,
as if I might be either a tax collector or deputy sheriff. I’ve forgotten the man’s name,
but will refer to him as Lowlife Scum. When he saw I was just an innocent chap, he slid the
door wide open.
A tall, thin, flat-chested, emancipated-looking woman stepped halfway up the stairway
leading into the fo’c’sle behind him and gawked at me around and between his legs. Her
scraggly, uncombed hair looked like a mop. I’ll call her Bilge Scum.
Lowlife Scum wore a gray woolen halibut shirt and black Frisco jeans held up with
huge suspenders. The jeans were so stiff with salt, slime and grease I wondered how he ever
got them off. With a wife like that, perhaps he didn’t have any reason to. What this character
lacked in looks he more than made up for it with a silver tongue and line of bull. He
could have charmed a mongoose out of a snake’s den.
“I’m interested in the boat you have for sale.”
“Well, there it is. A beauty, ain’t she? Brand new too.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Go ahead. Watch you don’t slip overboard.”
The boat was painted white, trimmed in green. “She’s cedar strip-built, fastened with
copper nails. Best construction ever. Last a lifetime,” he yelled from the protection of the
pilothouse. I pulled on the boat’s painter until the bow touched the stern of the Renegade,
then scrambled onto the little bow deck. A tiny cabin barely large enough for a person to
lie down and take shelter in was built to conform to the shape of the hull.
“Previous owner fished her on the West Coast. Made a bundle,” he shouted. “If you
want to look inside the cabin you’ll have to crawl over the roof.”
I pointed my flashlight through the front window. The tiny cabin contained a fold
down bunk on one side and a bench on the other.
“How did he cook?” I shouted.
“Didn’t. Ate corn flakes and peanut butter sandwiches,” Lowlife said, laughing.
I found out later, like most everything else this man said, that was a lie, because I found
the manual for a Coleman two-burner stove in some junk in the cabin.
“What happened to the outboard?”
“Took it south with him.” This was also a lie. I was told later by people who knew the
original owner, a man from Bow, Washington, that Lowlife had taken the stove, motor and
everything else of value off the boat and stowed it on his own. But, of course, I didn’t know
that at the time.
Being a greenhorn and knowing nothing about boats, or gas boat people for that matter,
I believed everything anyone told me in those days. I climbed back aboard the Renegade.
They had both crowded inside the wheelhouse. There was no room for me to get out
of the downpour of rain. “Several others are interested in buying it,” Bilge Scum droned
in a high, squeaky voice.
“You let me handle this, Ma, you hear?”
They kept exchanging sidelong glances, then looking at me. “One’s out getting the
money. Be back in the morning,” Lowlife Scum said, flicking the ash off his roll-your- own.
“The boat’s sold then?”
“Didn’t say that. Whoever puts cash money down buys her.”
I didn’t like being pressured. But I liked the boat, especially the cabin, which could be
locked up so fishing gear, and other items too heavy to carry to my room, would be protected.
By now icy rain had soaked through my coat. It was too dark to really look closely
at the boat. I needed advice. I had no idea what the boat was worth.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. I have friends on the Eena and want to ask them about
this.”
“We ain’t ahold’n it unless we see cash. Anyone offers us money, it’s sold.”
“Fine. You do that,” I said angrily. These two people were something else.
I walked down the float to the Eena. Mary was frying potatoes, onions and ham. My
stomach did a few quivers, reminding me it was dinnertime at the Knickerbocker. I climbed
down to the galley and took a seat on a locker.
“I’ve been looking at the little boat behind the Renegade. Any idea what it’s worth?”
“I noticed it coming in. Pretty little thing. Probably something you’d like. No motor.
Offer him $500,” Del said.
“And if he doesn’t accept that price?”
“You can always raise, but never lower. That Renegade is a hard-looking outfit and the
crew appears even worse. He’ll jump at the chance to sell for $500,” Dell said.
“Honey, you don’t know that,” Mary scoffed, laughing at her husband’s reply.
“Well, can’t hurt to try.”
This time I was invited into the fo’c’sle. Leftover food was sitting in tin cans, the sink
was filthy and full of dirty dishes. It looked as if they used it to change oil in the engine.
Dirty underwear and towels hung from a line across in front of the exposed gasoline
engine.
“ I’ll give $500 for your boat,” says I, with all the confidence of a veteran boatman.
“Whooo! Not so fast. That’s a brand new boat we’re talking about. Not a scratch on
it. Hand built. Ain’t a boat like it anywhere.” He paused, trying to figure me out. “Won’t
consider less that $700” he retorted. “I’m sure the guy that’s coming back in the morning
will buy it. He said he could raise the money.”
“Split the difference. Six hundred.”
“Cash?”
“One hundred now. Three hundred by tomorrow night. The rest within two months.”
A Greenhorn Buys a Boat
For an outdoors man, being without a boat in Southeast Alaska marked you as a greenhorn.
Many people didn’t own cars, and there was no stigma about that. Anyone who loved
the outdoors simply wasn’t socially acceptable, at least around the people I associated with,
unless he owned a boat. With only 30 miles of road in the area, one needed a boat to hunt,
fish, dig clams, goof off and get to the really interesting places.
It made little difference what sized boat one owned. Misery loves company and a small
boat can be almost as much trouble as a large one. Owning any boat qualified one to join
the loose-knit fraternity of boat-owners. Faced with constant up keep, moorage, shipyard,
insurance, engine overhauls and painting bills, plus the constant worry that your investment
might, at any time, for a variety of reasons, sink, qualified you to receive sympathy
from other boat owners.
Owning a boat also endeared the person to the business people who provided support
services for boat owners: Bars and liquor stores, grocers, marine stores, welding shops,
engine repair facilities, hardware stores, tackle shops, fuel docks—the list of businesses who
relied upon boat owners was almost endless. One could see dollar signs rolling around in
the merchant’s eyes, like symbols in a slot machine, when a boat owner walked into their
store.
With the rather limited experience of a man who was raised in the Midwest, more than
a thousand miles from salt water, I decided to do something about this lack of owning a
boat. I intended to join, by hook or by crook (excuse the pun) this rather informal fraternity
of fishermen who caught salmon with hook and line. I had little money, no possessions
or credit record, and knew no one locally who would vouch for my financial reputation.
When you’re starting from the bottom there’s no place to go but up. Right? Alaska
was still a raw country. The Territorial government paid a bounty on wolves, seals, eagles
and Dolly Varden trout, all which gobbled fingerling salmon by the millions. Black bear,
also considered a threat to salmon populations, because they grabbed a few spawners as they
swam upstream, were shot on sight by many. The word environment, at least in Alaska, hadn’t
been coined yet.
Kay Antonsen, a local trapper, deep sea diver and hunter, claimed bounty on 17 wolves
the year I arrived, 1950. He received a nice check from the government for $850 and was
considered a local hero for ridding the country of that many carnivore. The local Fish &
Game also waged war on wolves, using poison baits, traps and guns to kill as many as possible.
Ken Eichner, a driver for White Cab & bus Company, a private pilot, and several
of his buddies ran wolf trap lines with airplanes. Animal trapping was an acceptable means
of earning a winter’s paycheck. One trapper, obviously a single man, explained it this way:
Whatever amount he earned trapping he doubled, because while out on the trap line he
stayed out of the bars, liquor stores and brothels along Creek Street.
Well, truthfully, there wasn’t much else for someone to do in Ketchikan during the
long winters. Not that everyone frequented the bars, but a surprising number of people
drank.
Traps were still the main method of harvesting salmon for the canneries. A salmon trap
was a huge affair of galvanized chicken wire suspended beneath large Sitka spruce “trap
logs”. Spruce and red cedar were the preferred, in fact the only woods used because they
floated high in the water. The assembled traps were gigantic, covering an area as large as a
tennis court, not counting the “lead” or cable, stretched from trap to shore and hung top
to bottom with galvanized chicken wire. Traps were held together by an elaborate framework
of logs lashed together with cables. Several ten-ton star anchors, plus the lead fastened
solidly ashore, held the trap in position. Sometimes a bad summer storm tore it loose.
Then there was a chance the watchmen living on the trap were in trouble, unless they went
ashore, where cabins were located during emergency. Most traps were owned by canneries
and the actual trap site was registered, like a mining claim, with the Fish and Wildlife
Service, the agency in charge of fish and game prior to statehood in 1959. Although building
and maintaining the traps was a large industry and employing many men, most labor
was “imported” from “outside.” Because of this, and other reasons (traps hogged too many
fish) a majority of Territorial residents wanted traps abolished.
In those days, Ketchikan and other Southeast towns, were great, free places where one
could do much as he pleased, as long as no laws were broken. One law, robbing salmon
traps, was uniformly overlooked. The authorities had never been able to find a jury that
would convict anyone of taking fish out of the ocean, even though the fish were surrounded
by chicken wire.
Robbing salmon traps during the short summer season wasn’t exactly an honest occupation,
but the money was quick, easy to get, and spent as well as if earned the hard way,
by actually setting the purse seines.
“Pink slips,” free steamship tickets south, were still handed out by the authorities to
undesirable transients who got into trouble, with the admonition to “not come back.”
During the fifteen years I lived in Ketchikan and Sitka we never locked either car or
house. I loved the small-town atmosphere, friendly people and the fact that wilderness
Downtown Ketchikan,
Tongass Marine, Ryus
float.
pushed, crowded and sometimes invaded the city on three sides. Whales, sea lions and herring
sometimes lurked in Tongass Narrows and king salmon were frequently caught right in
front of town. Black bears sometimes raided garbage cans in town. Inside Passage traffic,
huge tugs towing barges, steamships and all sizes of fish boats steamed through Tongass
Narrows in front of town. For a newcomer like me, it was an exciting, interesting place. Except for the nearly continuous rain!
Being primarily a fishing town, Ketchikan operated on credit. If you owned a commercial
fishing boat, the marine supply stores, Tongass Trading Company, Paul Hanson’s,
Harbor Hardware, Nordby’s Marine Supply and Henry Henn’s Marine, the oil docks and
grocery stores would give you credit. You were expected to pay when you could, or in the
fall after the season ended. During the fall Ketchikan’s economy really hummed, with
salmon and halibut money flowing into everyone’s pockets. Ketchikan Cold Storage, Jim
Pinkerton manager, aggressively bid for halibut trips against Ketchikan’s nearest neighbor,
and fierce competitor for fish, Prince Rupert, British Columbia, 90 miles south. Rupert
was the terminus of a railroad, which provided them with an edge on the market for iced
fish. Phillips Cold Storage and New England Fish Company also bought salmon and halibut.
About six salmon canneries operated through the summer season.
Iced, long line-caught halibut and black cod trips were sold at auction by placing the
trips on the “Exchange Board.” As soon as the vessels completed their trip they radioed
their agents how many pounds they had on board and the information was forwarded by
teletype to Seattle, Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Ketchikan. Buyers knew what vessels
took good care of their catch and this might influence them to offer a slightly higher price.
Whoever bid the highest price received the trip. A big load could be nearly 100,000 pounds
of iced fish, so a half-cent per pound amounted to enough to convince the vessel’s crew to
run the fish to another port. Few of the largest long line boats, the “schooner fleet,” were
home based in Ketchikan. Most of the larger boats were from Seattle, Prince Rupert and
Vancouver.
If you didn’t own a boat you might still get credit, but you had to fill out forms
divulging your financial history, employer and other personal questions. If you were a boat
owner, and had a job to boot, a rarity, to be sure, you had only to say so, then walk off with
anything in the store.
Ketchikan was a clannish town in those days. The Scandinavians tended to stick
together, spending their free evenings at certain bars, or the Sons of Norway. The Indian
and Filipino communities kept pretty much to themselves. The merchants, bankers and
professional people formed a loose-knit community, hanging out at the Elks Club as a
retreat from the “commoners” that belonged to the Eagles and Moose Lodges. The churchgoing
community didn’t associate with the bar crowd and so on.
Especially clannish were the commercial fishermen. They lived precariously, financially
as well as dangerously, in those days, especially before boats were equipped with two-way
radios and most were powered by gasoline engines. It wasn’t the sea that destroyed the
most boats, it was gasoline. Boat explosions and fires were frequent occurrences.
With the smugness of the self-employed, the fishermen were highly critical of government,
change, authority, and pitied, without exception, any landlubber, people resigned to
an eight-to-five day job.
When the fishermen discovered I didn’t own a boat they recoiled as if I had bad breath,
then peered at me with a puzzled, sympathetic squint. Anyone who didn’t own a boat was
pitied. If they acknowledged my presence at all, it was with disinterest, as if I was a paraplegic,
leper or had a communicable disease.
It was Ernie Copeland who forcefully brought this fact to my attention. Ernie was a
hard-bitten, skinny little twist of a fisherman who appeared as if he might blow overboard
except for the heavy woolen clothes and rolled down heavy hip boots he wore most of the
time. During the winter, at least while ashore, his feet were encased in a pair of elastic- sided
leather Redwing fishermen’s shoes that were so encrusted with salt they were almost white.
Ernie smoked roll-your-own Bull Durham and chewed snoose at the same time. He was as
lean and tough as a Sitka spruce trolling pole. His piercing eyes missed little that happened
around Leo Cochran’s Harbor Hardware on Stedman Street, or the comings and goings in
Thomas Basin.
http://www.ifish.net/board/../FCThomasBasin.jpg
Ernie was one of the few really old-time trollers still alive who could remember when
hand-trolling first started in southeast Alaska. Originally there was little or no fresh market
for king salmon because manufactured ice to keep them fresh wasn’t available. With only
one steamer a week service, shipping fresh fish south was impossible.
During the early days of salmon trolling the large red kings, known as “mild-cures,”
weighing 15 pounds and up, were split and salted in wooden barrels. The barrels were then
shipped, usually by rail, to the eastern markets, where the salted sides were freshened and
sold retail, either as smoked salmon, or lox, thin slices of mild-cured king salmon popular
with the Jewish trade.
By 1906 king salmon had been reduced to only a percentage of historic runs on the
Columbia and Sacramento Rivers after several years of unregulated and over fishing by gillnets
and seines. J. Lindenberger, Incorporated and the Wiese twins, Christian and Engelbr,
moved their mild-curing operations to Alaska and began buying red kings. There was no
market for white-fleshed kings. An interesting turnaround: Today white kings bring a better
price that the red-fleshed fish.
About the same time, John Davis Sr. began building splendid cedar-planked doubleended
rowing boats in Metlakatla, on Annette Island. New 14 or 16-foot boats cost about
$45, and were ideally suited for the hand-trollers because they were seaworthy and easy to
row. Pete Holmberg also built great skiffs in Ketchikan. I used to own one and it was a joy
to row.
Ernie, along with Monty Rafferty, Dick “Bullfighter” Sanchez, owner of the Alma
Maria, Silent George, Helena, and a handful of others were permanent off-season fixtures
on a seat inside the front window at Harbor Hardware, located across the street from the
entrance to Thomas Basin. They came at opening time and left when the store closed,
except, perhaps for lunch at a nearby restaurant, or a stroll down to pump their boats.
Despite the fact that I was a boat-less Cheechaco, Ernie told me many stories of the
old days, before power was available to raise and lower the heavy leads used by salmon
trollers. Ernie remembered buying bread at Gilbert McLeod’s mother’s tent bakery on
Forrester Island in 1913 and 1914. As many as 200 hand troller’s were camped on this
remote island. He described the fights that sometimes broke out between the Finns and
Norwegians, over launching boats on the long, wooden ramp provided by the fish buyers.
He told how “Lapp” Sam Anderson hadn’t shown up one night after a quick southeast
blow had caught most of the trollers quite a ways from the island. When Sam didn’t appear
after several days they assumed he was lost at sea. They packed his tent and belongings,
intending to send them to town on the tender.
On the afternoon of the fifth day a stiff westerly sprang up, forcing the boats in. That
evening Lapp Sam’s little 14-foot boat was spotted bearing down on the island, running
before the wind with a jib sail. Sam sailed in close to the landing where the fish buyer was
anchored, dropped his tiny sail, sold several king salmon caught on his return to the island,
then rowed ashore, finding his tent and camp intact. The men had hurriedly pitched Sam’s
tent and placed his belonging inside, not wishing Sam to know they thought he was dead.
Sam explained the southeaster had caught him so far from the island, he’d been forced
to sail before the wind. He ended up in Port Santa Cruz, tipped his boat on edge to sleep
under, rigged his sail as a shelter, built a fire using a bottle of coal oil kept in the boat for
emergencies, barbecued a king salmon and waited for the storm to blow itself out. After
the wind changed directions to westerly, he sailed back to Forrester Island, insisting it had
been a great vacation!
Ernie’s memory was almost as good as that of Gilbert McLeod’s, who I considered the
best story teller in southeast Alaska, with Jim Pitcher second. That’s going some, because in
the days before television, and when few even owned a radio, storytelling was much appreciated.
There wasn’t much that had happened around southeastern that those three couldn’t
recall.
When I tried to get Ernie to reveal a few secrets about how to actually catch king
salmon with troll gear he clammed up, reminding me that I was “boat-less”, so what was
the use.
In the fifties, Ketchikan’s lower Stedman Street area was pretty quiet during the day.
June’s Café and the Creek Street boardwalk are on the south side of Ketchikan Creek, the
Arctic Bar was on the other. The Arctic Bar collapsed and washed under the bridge during
an extremely high tide and flood in Ketchikan Creek during the 1950’s. A few other small
stores and rooming houses, a pool hall, Diaz Café (Mama Diaz was a famous cook) a hotel,
pool hall, Harbor Hardware and Ohashi’s Grocery were the extent of the commercial buildings.
At night, after Creek Street’s brothel’s turned on the red lights, lower Stedman livened
up. Men, some with coat collars turned up to protect their faces from the “raw wind” (and
perhaps hide them from prying eyes) sneaked in the only entrance to Creek Street, near
June’s Café.
One stormy evening, with cold rain blowing into my face, I ducked into Harbor
Hardware before heading home to the Knickerbocker. Leo knew I was looking for a small
boat and drew me aside so the loungers couldn’t hear. “Tied behind the Renegade there’s a
nice-looking small boat about 17-feet long. They just arrived from the West Coast [of
Prince of Wales Island] and there’s a For Sale sign in the window.”
I thanked him, then hurried down the float. A southeast wind whipped up small waves
inside the boat harbor. I drew my woolen coat tight around my neck. The Renegade was a
36-foot troller with a small trunk cabin and living quarters in the fo’c’sle. A light appeared
from the skylight. Tied to its stern was the boat for sale.
I knocked on the pilothouse door. A man slid the door open about two inches. A peculiar
stench, a mixture of engine room bilge, sour clothing, stale food and unwashed bodies,
came from the cabin. The man picked his tobacco-stained teeth and peered at me suspiciously,
as if I might be either a tax collector or deputy sheriff. I’ve forgotten the man’s name,
but will refer to him as Lowlife Scum. When he saw I was just an innocent chap, he slid the
door wide open.
A tall, thin, flat-chested, emancipated-looking woman stepped halfway up the stairway
leading into the fo’c’sle behind him and gawked at me around and between his legs. Her
scraggly, uncombed hair looked like a mop. I’ll call her Bilge Scum.
Lowlife Scum wore a gray woolen halibut shirt and black Frisco jeans held up with
huge suspenders. The jeans were so stiff with salt, slime and grease I wondered how he ever
got them off. With a wife like that, perhaps he didn’t have any reason to. What this character
lacked in looks he more than made up for it with a silver tongue and line of bull. He
could have charmed a mongoose out of a snake’s den.
“I’m interested in the boat you have for sale.”
“Well, there it is. A beauty, ain’t she? Brand new too.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Go ahead. Watch you don’t slip overboard.”
The boat was painted white, trimmed in green. “She’s cedar strip-built, fastened with
copper nails. Best construction ever. Last a lifetime,” he yelled from the protection of the
pilothouse. I pulled on the boat’s painter until the bow touched the stern of the Renegade,
then scrambled onto the little bow deck. A tiny cabin barely large enough for a person to
lie down and take shelter in was built to conform to the shape of the hull.
“Previous owner fished her on the West Coast. Made a bundle,” he shouted. “If you
want to look inside the cabin you’ll have to crawl over the roof.”
I pointed my flashlight through the front window. The tiny cabin contained a fold
down bunk on one side and a bench on the other.
“How did he cook?” I shouted.
“Didn’t. Ate corn flakes and peanut butter sandwiches,” Lowlife said, laughing.
I found out later, like most everything else this man said, that was a lie, because I found
the manual for a Coleman two-burner stove in some junk in the cabin.
“What happened to the outboard?”
“Took it south with him.” This was also a lie. I was told later by people who knew the
original owner, a man from Bow, Washington, that Lowlife had taken the stove, motor and
everything else of value off the boat and stowed it on his own. But, of course, I didn’t know
that at the time.
Being a greenhorn and knowing nothing about boats, or gas boat people for that matter,
I believed everything anyone told me in those days. I climbed back aboard the Renegade.
They had both crowded inside the wheelhouse. There was no room for me to get out
of the downpour of rain. “Several others are interested in buying it,” Bilge Scum droned
in a high, squeaky voice.
“You let me handle this, Ma, you hear?”
They kept exchanging sidelong glances, then looking at me. “One’s out getting the
money. Be back in the morning,” Lowlife Scum said, flicking the ash off his roll-your- own.
“The boat’s sold then?”
“Didn’t say that. Whoever puts cash money down buys her.”
I didn’t like being pressured. But I liked the boat, especially the cabin, which could be
locked up so fishing gear, and other items too heavy to carry to my room, would be protected.
By now icy rain had soaked through my coat. It was too dark to really look closely
at the boat. I needed advice. I had no idea what the boat was worth.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. I have friends on the Eena and want to ask them about
this.”
“We ain’t ahold’n it unless we see cash. Anyone offers us money, it’s sold.”
“Fine. You do that,” I said angrily. These two people were something else.
I walked down the float to the Eena. Mary was frying potatoes, onions and ham. My
stomach did a few quivers, reminding me it was dinnertime at the Knickerbocker. I climbed
down to the galley and took a seat on a locker.
“I’ve been looking at the little boat behind the Renegade. Any idea what it’s worth?”
“I noticed it coming in. Pretty little thing. Probably something you’d like. No motor.
Offer him $500,” Del said.
“And if he doesn’t accept that price?”
“You can always raise, but never lower. That Renegade is a hard-looking outfit and the
crew appears even worse. He’ll jump at the chance to sell for $500,” Dell said.
“Honey, you don’t know that,” Mary scoffed, laughing at her husband’s reply.
“Well, can’t hurt to try.”
This time I was invited into the fo’c’sle. Leftover food was sitting in tin cans, the sink
was filthy and full of dirty dishes. It looked as if they used it to change oil in the engine.
Dirty underwear and towels hung from a line across in front of the exposed gasoline
engine.
“ I’ll give $500 for your boat,” says I, with all the confidence of a veteran boatman.
“Whooo! Not so fast. That’s a brand new boat we’re talking about. Not a scratch on
it. Hand built. Ain’t a boat like it anywhere.” He paused, trying to figure me out. “Won’t
consider less that $700” he retorted. “I’m sure the guy that’s coming back in the morning
will buy it. He said he could raise the money.”
“Split the difference. Six hundred.”
“Cash?”
“One hundred now. Three hundred by tomorrow night. The rest within two months.”