Wednesday -- Alaska Letters

I brought three books with me, although one was almost finished when I left (I practically ate that for breakfast so it's gone now), and I got through Confessions of a Shopaholic on my epic never-ending flights.  Actually, my other book is The Causal Vacancy too!  How funny.  I just bought it in paperback recently.

There are tons of businesses on the island, but pretty much all of them are fishing related stuff.  On the island, there is the runway for the airport, piles and piles of fishing nets and crab pots and heaps of other gear and scrap metal, and then there are approximately three processing plants, stores for all the boat gear/repair, and then a couple restaurants.  As far as hotels, The Grand Aleutian which is the nice one, and the Harborview Inn are basically it, because anywhere else to stay is all company housing for the processing plants.  The plants employ so many people, it's ridiculous.

Dutch Harbor is kind of the big harbor for a little island in the middle, and the bigger island of Unalaska is surrounding it like a horse shoe.  Technically Dutch Harbor is just the body of water and the docks, and the city is the city of Unalaska.  But that’s not really important.  There's one little bridge across a narrow part of the harbor, and that's how you connect to the rest of the island of Unalaska.  There are mostly houses out there, the primary school and secondary school (because you're either in high school or not, as far as buildings are concerned), and a few more restaurants.  The MAC Enterprises guy is out on the Unalaska side, and I think that's basically so he can live in his office.

I think all the businesses know that even though that's "the competition," we're more like sister companies in the industry.  Because whatever is happening to us is also happening to them, so it's not really worth competing.  Marcus was telling me about when they rationalized the fishing industry: he said that 15 years ago, before rationalization, everything in Dutch was constantly anxious, high speed, everyone raced around and even the coffee girls would rush you out because you were taking too long.  And I understand why, because here you have an island that is only populated when you’re fishing, but the seasons went off and on, and everyone fished right up to the line to get as much as possible.  People were leaving for November and December, and June and July, and during the off-season, there wouldn’t be a soul on the island. 

So it’s really important to rush around and get as much as you can.  But since they rationalized the industries about 10 years ago, it’s made everything a lot more stable.  They were able to develop more consistent residents, and seasons that ended sooner because people were catching quota instead of as much as they could.  And the thing is, as one guy who struck gold early in the season moves out, that means that the little guy who hasn’t been doing well now has fewer people to compete with, and can also get closer to wrapping up his season.  Rationalization is one of those mixed bag sort of situations.  Some of it is probably really good, and some of it is just a big demonstration of a functionally organized economy.

But on the flipside of that, you’ve got The Corporation.  Which is a total misnomer, because it is just a false-front for the Indian Reservation.  The Corporation of Ounalashka (which must be the more traditional spelling) owns basically everything on the island, both where Dutch Harbor is located, and the horse-shoe part of Unalaska.  It probably owns all the islands, really, but I haven’t checked them out yet.

The thing that is such a classic government bullshit problem, and I feel is probably exacerbated by the fact that it’s a tribal government to boot, is that there used to be the World War II bunkers all over this island to defend against the Russians and the Japanese.  And there was this incredible network of underground munitions caves and cool look out points, and all the cool things to see, you can see from the gun stations and stuff like that. 

And it’s all just collapsed and gone to hell because no one is taking care of it because the little island can’t afford to, and besides who would see it beside fishermen and locals anyway?  And you know that if anyone had suggested, thirty years ago before everything started collapsing and getting covered in graffiti, that we should sell the whole Bunker Hill complex to someone for housing, they would have been up at arms.  They would have said that a private owner would ruin the integrity, the historic quality of the bunkers, and they would have never allowed it.

Which is awfully rich considering how great The Corporation is doing taking care of it now.  Marcus and I agreed that the gun turrets, which are sunk in the ground with tracks so the guns rotate, would be the coolest living room ever and you could have a fireplace in the center and circular couches all around.  And the sighting bunkers would be super cool for sitting rooms or bedrooms because they look out on the most gorgeous ocean ever.  And you could scatter the in-laws across the hillside in their own private bunkers, and they could travel by underground tunnel to the battery where you could have a massive dining room.  All the kids could have their own Quonset hut bedrooms.

But, whatever.

Grammers asked about the ExtraTuffs.  These are not your garden variety rubber boots.  They are brown with thick pale yellow soles, and they are about as heavy and sturdy as they come.  When I bought mine, they were still slick with the PAM cooking spray they use to get the rubber out of the molds.  These are not your mother’s rain boots.

Ok.  So today I had time to check my e-mail and write all this stuff (above) before Marcus and I went to breakfast.  We went to Amelia’s again, and this time I had corned beef hash, and it was just me and Marcus and Tim, so I was fairly involved in the conversation.  We talked a lot about camping and Marcus is always full of stories.  He used to live in Dutch, and he’s just a really interesting and active guy.

After breakfast (again, we ate until noon.  Marcus seems to enjoy endurance meals.  Hour and a half breakfast that doesn’t start until 10, 10:30 are normal), Tim and I went and grabbed my truck and we were going to go deal with his office at the plant.  That’s all fine and dandy, but I wasn’t exactly confident in my ability, so after turning around – almost all the way there, mind you – I called Tim from the Safeway parking lot and I’m like, “so… If I were coming from, say, the Safeway…”  I made it there eventually, a security guy saw me roaming around the outside of the plant trying to figure out which door to go through without getting crushed by something, and helped me find my way to Tim’s.  I saw him again later, and he’s like, you make it ok?

Tim’s office is a fairly small, standard rectangle.  It’s a really horrible shade of lilac though, and I would really love to paint it.  The mint trim around the windows makes it all a little sickening.  There was a whole wall of banker boxes about four feet tall that lined one whole wall, and Tim was fairly sure that there was not a single valuable thing in any of them.

Tim was much more willing to part with his crap than Elizabeth had been when I cleaned out her office, so we pretty much went to town dumping stuff.  Except for one box of things to be sent to Seattle, everything went.  Most of it was either fish tickets from 2001, or giant boxes of urine-tests for the boats.  They were sending gross boxes for each vessel, every year.  So we got rid of eight boxes of those.  Had to be nearly 2000 pee-cups.  Re-diculous.

So just as we remove everything from his office into the waiting room outside all the other offices (there’s a whole office floor and a bunch of Japanese people are in there doing stuff or whatever.  I think it must be for the Japanese selling end or something. Anyway,), that’s when Tim says the Viking just got in, so he’s going to go talk to Mike Johnson about some kind of violation.

He grabbed me an industrial dolly and showed me how to use the giant elevator, and basically said, go stick all this crap in a dumpster somewhere.

So five trips later, I got it all out.  I was proud of myself, I averaged probably six boxes a load, and each were very heavy or large or both, and I got it all done.  This was my route: From Tim’s office on the second floor, out the doors, down the hall, through the parts department, through the parts department, wait for the elevator.  Open the giant elevator doors, wheel the dolly in, push the button.  Go downstairs, stand awkwardly in the way as forklifts are going by while I am waiting for the elevator.  Open the elevator, unload the dolly partially (because there is a one foot difference between the elevator floor and the ground floor.  No difference on the second floor, so this was a new problem for me to figure out.), lower the dolly, reload the dolly, shut the giant doors, wheel through the forklift runway to get outside, walk past 8 Maersk semi-truck trailers, find a dumpster.  Unload dolly into dumpster, close dumpster, walk back, carry dolly upstairs, repeat.

So it was a long process, and luckily it had stopped raining by the time I was making all these trips.  It’s about as cold as Seattle in October or so, so it’s just a little brisk.  I didn’t bother with my coat because indoors it was hot and outside it was chilly.  I was sweating my ass off.  Everyone along this route was super nice, like the guys with the fork lifts were being super nice, and at some point along the way on each trip, somebody held a door open, or helped me get the dolly off the elevator or something.  One guy saw that I was putting so much paper stuff in the dumpster, and got a guy to bring me some totes to put it in.  Which was really good timing because the dumpster was getting full.

After that, Tim was back from talking to the Viking, so we went over there and looked around.  I was a little anxious about going over there, because when I messed up the checks for Dean Scates and Steve McLean, it was a big hairy mess that still hasn’t been all the way sorted out.  So I didn’t really want to walk into somewhere that was going to be like, hostile or something.  And of course, the first guy we walk into is Dean, who was the one who was short $6900 and was the most upset.  But he seemed alright, and I guess Steve just paid him the difference for the switched checks and they’re ok with it now.

Interestingly, for all the hullabaloo that Dean was raising about getting his money, Tony (not the same Tony, can’t think of his last name) was telling me that since I joined the office, they are actually getting their checks really reliably.  I know that’s true, because I put them in the envelopes every other week, but I guess when Elizabeth was super swamped, she sometimes wouldn’t get to it for two or three periods in a row.  So Dean really shouldn’t have been worried, because it was not that unusual from before.  He was getting spoiled by my recent appearance and got used to it.  Antsy bastard.

We met up with Marcus for a little while, and then Tim and I went to the radio meeting, which I guess is just a check in with all the boat captains to see how they are fishing, where they are, and size estimates and stuff.  One of the Japanese guys makes the call, and then Tim and I were there with like two other Japanese guys to see what’s going on.  One guy, the Bering Defender, is out almost to the border with Russian waters, he’s like 80 miles from it.  He’s hella north.

I had time to go back over to MAC Enterprises to give Jimmer my card.  I can’t remember the name of his secretary, but she was really nice, and she gave me a map of the island roads so I quit getting lost and turning around (which I did on the way to MAC, so yeah).  She was cool, we chatted for a while, then I drove back to my hotel.  I realized that I had plenty of time before the dinner with Roy at The Grand Aleutian, which was cool because I was sweaty dirty and fishy from the plant so I took a shower.

While I was in the shower, I was thinking to myself that these poor women out on this island must have a hell of a time finding a decent bra.  And unless you know your size and can order online, getting fitted must be a massive ordeal.  You’d have to go to like, Anchorage for any major shops.  So I was thinking that if this whole Alaska thing gets really serious, I might just open a bra business on the island.  I bet I’d get TONS of traffic.  Women from other islands might come over just to buy my bras.  That would be super cool.

I broached this idea to the nice girl behind the counter at The Grand Aleutian, who checked me in and who just cracked up at my Sarah Palin impersonation, and she said that it’s tough to find a bra.  She said it would be a great idea, and I probably would be very popular.  Later when I mentioned this idea to Tim and Marcus, they insisted that the men probably preferred for the women not to wear bras at all, so they wouldn’t be interested, and I felt that that is exactly the kind of thinking keeping women off the island now.  So good job there, guys.

Anyway, I perused the gift shop in The Grand, and I think I’ll probably buy some stuff there.  I don’t want to cut it too close to the wire with my purchases, and end up buying stuff in the airport.  Cause that just seems wrong.

The buffet was tonight, so everybody and their brother was at The Grand.  Roy was there with Tim when Marcus and I sat down, and I gave Roy my card, because I had them now, and I guess he realized when he went to grab his own card that he had left without his wallet – and he was supposed to be paying for dinner tonight – so he ran off to go get it.  While he was gone, we three went and got our first course and there was SO much good food.  I started with some weird salads, like a walnut, bleu cheese, beet salad which was weird but good.  The beets were yellow, which was part of the weirdness.  There was a Greek salad and some baby bok choi that were sprinkled with bacon and sesame seeds, and that was pretty good.

Roy got back and gave me his card, and after a little while we went back for entrees.  So apparently Marcus got the point of the “appropriate starch” comment a little better than I thought he did, because as we grabbed our entrees (there was one of those roast beef cutters), we discovered that they had provided an appropriate starch, and Marcus realized that with the bread and the rice, he wasn’t sure which was the appropriate starch.  We decided that the bread didn’t count, because it was starch, vegetables AND bread, so he was able to eat happily again after that.

They had so much food.  There was a lot of seafood, and I tried some fried clams (ok, kind of chewy) a fried scallop (yuck) and a tempura shrimp (meh).  They also had sushi, and I grabbed some neutral looking pieces and one of halibut, which was wrapped up with pickled asparagus, so it was actually pretty good, and I could have eaten a couple more of those.  There was also dessert, and our third trip up was for cheese cake and shooter sized dollops of berries and custard of some sort.

A guy from Stabbert Yacht and Shipyard in Ballard came and table-hopped our table. I guess they are thinking of building a shipyard in Dutch, so Marcus talked a lot to him about that.  At some point we talked about debate, and camping and skiing, and Alaska, and a little bit about how much money they put into kids who do sports on the islands.  I guess it’s like $40,000 a kid if they do a competitive sport in high school.  And most of that is air travel, and these kids will be gone multiple weeks at a time for competitions and tournaments.  I guess if you do sports in Alaska, you better do it well, cause there’s a lot of money invested in you.  That seems like a lot of pressure.  But it explains why a lot of their teams, like the college debate team and stuff, are really good.  There’s a lot invested, and they take it seriously.

After dinner, I walked over to the Alaska Ship and thought about buying stuff, and didn’t.  Then I drove back to my hotel and got ready for bed.  Tomorrow I’m supposed to be riding with the Westward One over to the fuel dock so I can, I don’t know, see how that is.  I was feeling a little sick while we at the dock by the plant.  The seas were a little choppy, and the boat in front of us was moving differently than we were, so I was getting some pretty good vertigo.  I hope I don’t get seasick in just an hour’s trip, but I’m taking some Dramamine or whatever anyway.

So I’ll keep you updated, I’m glad you’re all enjoying the stories.  There’s so much to talk about, so I’m sure I’m not even getting it all.  Keep asking questions, because it gives me more to talk about.  And for those of you following on a map, it’s was actually Cold Cove where we had to turn around during the enduro-plane ride.

And also the new narrative is that I’m from Alaska.  Just to update you about my entire life history that now is changing.  I’m an Alaskan now.