Southward Bound

It's hard to believe, but it's been exactly four months since Rigby and I arrived in Haines on the ferry from Prince Rupert. From the Southeastern Alaska State Fair, to hiking Mt. Ripinsky and the trails in Chilkat State Park, to learning about spawning salmon, subsistence fishing and canning, to setting out trail cameras and finally, trapping and tagging bald eagles, the last four months have been filled with a host of new experiences and opportunities. And bears.

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Canning

With fall settling in and snow on its way, it's time to start preparing for winter. Haines is one of the few towns in Southeast Alaska connected to the interior by the road system. The town is located along the Haines Highway, which travels inland to Haines Junction in the Yukon and links up with the Alcan Highway. Most places in Southeast Alaska are accessible only by ferry or plane. But a road system does little good in winter months when heavy snowfall and ice make crossing mountain passes difficult and dangerous.

Ferries and ships are the most reliable means of transportation during winter months, but these vessels can be hindered by icy waters and bad weather. Groceries and other goods are transported to Haines only once weekly, by barge. If you want to survive in Haines during the winter, you need to make sure you have plenty of firewood and a good supply of food stocked up for the long, dark months ahead.

People in Haines are fortunate to have access to some of the best wild foods available anywhere. Their salmon runs are plentiful. Many subsistence hunters are lucky enough to harvest moose in the fall, or are given part of a moose by friends or relatives (a single moose can yield more than 800 pounds of meat). Wild berries and roots are collected throughout summer and fall, and although the growing season is short and soils are acidic, red potatoes, chard, beets, mixed greens, zucchini, and carrots grow reasonably well in gardens here. It's impractical to rely on the ferry to bring in your groceries every week. Your best bet? Stock up on food when it's available, and can everything you have for winter.

This year, I learned about canning... what else? Salmon!

The canning process is extensive. It all starts with catching the fish. This is a 5 foot long gill net that belongs to our friend Mike, a subsistence fisherman in Haines. Each year Mike fishes along the Chilkat from late spring through early fall, catching and processing Sockeye, Coho, King, and Chum salmon. Salmon swimming upriver to spawn rest in eddies along the banks, and, on their way out of the eddies, become entangled in gill nets like these.

When a fish becomes stuck, the net is removed and the fish is instantly killed. Subsistence fishers must also immediately cut off the dorsal fin of the fish-- this marks it as a subsistence catch so that it cannot be sold to market.

Once the fish is killed, it's time to fillet. Here is Taal at work filleting a fresh-caught salmon:

Salmon fillets can be cooked and eaten immediately, but when salmon are running strong and many fish are caught each day, it's time think about preserving the catch. Fillets can be vacuumed sealed and frozen, or immediately canned. They can also be smoked! Smoking fish is a bit of a luxury, for those who have the time and the energy to build and maintain a smokehouse. Smoked fish has the best flavor of any type of prepared salmon, but smoking can take several days. Smoke levels need to be constantly monitored, and there is always the threat of bears coming by and raiding your entire catch.

The first step in smoking is building a fire. Time to chop some wood!

 

The Tlingit Indians that live in Klukwan, the native village here, typically use black cottonwood in their smokehouses, while others, including Mike, use alder. The salmon fillets are brined in saltwater and then placed or hung in the smokehouse for anywhere from one to three days, depending on the intensity and temperature of the smoke and the desired outcome. Here's the smokehouse on day two of a three-day smoke.

Smoked salmon can be eaten as-is, but won't last long before going bad. (Salmon jerky can also be made this way, and has a longer shelf life, as it is dried almost completely.) In order to preserve the fish to use for winter months, the smoked fish must be canned.

Canning salmon is just about like canning anything else. Glass jars, in pint or half-pint size, are thoroughly cleaned and sterilized in boiling water. If you're really keen on putting in the effort to make your jars nice, you can remove the skin from the fillets. I took the time to do this, and Mike usually does, too, as he cans fish for a lot of other people. Also, the dogs get to eat the skins. :D

Most folks leave the skin on, because it's a lot less time-consuming. The skin almost falls off of canned salmon, and a lot of people, especially the Tlingits, eat it along with everything else-- it has a high nutritional value. Removing it before canning comes down primarily to aesthetics.

Smoked fillets are cut into "fingers" and arranged nicely in the jars (if you're anal-retentive like me) or stuffed in haphazardly (if you're like... most other people here, I guess). At this point you can add in flavoring if you wish. Some people use olive oil or soy sauce, others get fancy and use fruit juices, brown sugar, or spice mixes. We used olive oil.

In the jar they go! The photo below shows me canning fresh-pack salmon-- fish that hasn't been smoked but is canned immediately after filleting. A bit of salt is added to these jars to help preserve the fish. Smoked salmon has better flavor, and can be used in salads, sandwiches, rice or pasta, or eaten straight from the jar. Fresh-pack fish is used more like raw salmon, in salmon patties or chowder, or like tuna fish in sandwiches and dips.

Once the salmon is in the jars, sterilized lids are added, and the jars go into the pressure cooker. A steady pressure is maintained for anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours. Everyone learns the canning process a little bit differently, and so every person who cans fish here has a slightly different brining/smoking/canning/seasoning/cooking method. Mike cooks his smoked fish for an hour and fresh-pack for an hour and a half.

Monitoring the pressure cooker:

Once the pressure cooker finishes its work, we remove the jars and let them cool for an hour or more. We also listen for the sweet sound of jars sealing, the little "plock" of the seal on the lids securing. If the lids don't seal, the fish must be eaten within a few days. Here Mike and I stand next to our first batch out of the pressure cooker. Everything sealed!

Once the jars cool completely, we wash them off and label the lids with the type of fish (sockeye, coho, etc.), preparation (smoked or fresh-pack) and the date. Then completed cans of salmon go into cases for distribution or winter storage. It takes a couple months for the flavors of canned salmon to develop fully, and a properly prepared, sealed, and stored can will last for years.

Mike fishes all spring and summer, so he proxies for several people with subsistence permits who don't otherwise have the time to fish for themselves. This means Mike is often fishing and canning for anywhere from two to seven people at a time. He doesn't deal in money. The people he fishes and cans for trade him canned vegetables, equipment, moose, crab, shrimp, and halibut. He is also very generous with his own subsistence catch, donating cans, or sometimes cases, of fish to friends and neighbors that can't fish, or fresh-caught fish to curious tourists that happen upon his fishing camp.

Typically, Mike likes to set aside five or six cases of fish (anywhere from 60 to 72 pints of salmon) to last him through the winter, subsidized by moose, vacuum packed frozen fillets, canned vegetables, rice and pasta, and the occasional grocery store run. Salmon may only run part of the year, but this way, folks in Haines can eat salmon year-round!

The Chum are Coming!

Over the past couple weeks, the Sockeye runs have been slowing down. Most of the Sockeye in the spawning areas have now died, and few new Sockeye appear each day. Carcasses litter the streams, ponds, and banks. We've gradually seen less activity on our trail cameras-- fewer bears are visiting key feeding areas, and we come across fewer partially consumed carcasses along bear trails. But the bears have no need to be concerned. There are plenty of other fish in the stream!

Pink salmon are still running, although their numbers have decreased, too. Coho salmon also continue to spawn, but spawn in much lower densities and across larger areas than Sockeye, so it's more difficult to locate their spawning grounds. The bears' next big target, though (and ours, too, for our trail cameras) are the Chum. Just last week, there were only a few fish in this spawning channel off of Herman Creek. Already, the densities are quickly increasing:

Chum salmon are also called Dog and Keta. Keta is the name typically used by canning companies (after all, who wants to eat "chum" anyway?). Chum and Pink salmon are the least commercially valuable fish. Most commercial fishing and canning operations prefer King and Sockeye, but many subsistence fishers in this region like Chum just fine-- especially when smoked, fresh-caught Chum has good flavor.

Chum salmon spawn in autumn, from roughly the end of August through the winter, or at least until the rivers freeze enough to prevent their travel upstream. Chum spawn by the hundreds of thousands, and much like Sockeye they pack themselves into their spawning areas. Chum can pack themselves in even greater densities than the Sockeye. Sockeye are limited by available fry rearing habitat-- once their eggs hatch the young salmon fry need suitable places to grow for a year or two before migrating to sea. Thus, Sockeye need good places to lay their eggs that are also in areas fit for little fish to grow.

Chum, however, are limited only by spawning habitat. Their fry migrate to sea more or less immediately after hatching. Chum salmon don't need to find suitable places for their fry to grow, only good spots for the eggs to hatch. As long as they can locate nice, rocky substrate with good water flow, they can spawn, so Chum find whatever spawning habitat is available, even if there are already hundreds of other fish around. This makes them easy for wildlife to access. Just walk up to the water and grab one!

With the weather quickly cooling and the Chum beginning to run, the eagles are beginning to congregate. We've started to see far more eagles around Haines recently. Gradually over the next month, the water level of the Chilkat River will drop, exposing the river flats and providing many shallow areas for wildlife to access fish. The Chum run will increase, until the braided areas of the Chilkat are packed with fish. And, as temperatures continue to decrease and freezing begins elsewhere along the coast and in the interior, more and more eagles will travel to Haines to feast on Chum through the beginning of winter.

We will continue to set our trail cameras out to capture wildlife feeding on salmon. At the end of this week, we will take down our last set of trail cameras from the Sockeye runs, and, starting next week, will set our cameras on Chum spawning areas and on higher elevation wildlife trails. Once the eagles begin arriving en mass, we will also start working on the second part of our research here-- looking into eagle migratory behavior!

Hello everyone!

My name is Jenn and I'm here in Haines with my dog, Quark. I'll be working as a field assistant on the project and Quark is employed as Rigby's suitor. First order of business - raft the Chilkat River.

I came to Haines last summer and fall to work with Alaska State Parks. I fell in love with it here and vowed to come back the next summer, and here I am. One of the many things I love here is the subsistence lifestyle Alaska, and Haines in particular, has to offer. I would like to talk a bit about it because it's such an important part of the culture here. Wildlife management officials work hard to strike a balance between the subsistence fishermen and the commercial fishermen, which, of course, are constantly at odds with one another. Right now, I am camping at a friend's fish camp where we put out set nets to catch Sockeye and Coho salmon. Drift netting is another method of catching salmon, and is much more efficient. The Humpies and Chum are usually thrown back into the river as they have less desirable meat. If you catch King, it is mandatory to throw them back in unless you have a separate stamp; a subsistence license won't cut it. Basically, they taste the best. There are far fewer King in the ocean than any of the other species, therefore they are more heavily regulated. Here is my friend, Mike, pulling in a set net.

Then into the smokehouse they go.

Sick of salmon? How about Dungeness crab or shrimp? With a boat, you can go out into Lutak Inlet, which drains the Chilkoot river, or Letnikov Cove, which drains the Chilkat river. I went out to Letnikov with some subsistence fishermen to check crab and shrimp pots. All the female crabs have to be thrown back, and the males have to measure 6.5" or more across the largest part of their shell. Slow day, we only caught 4 legal crabs, but who doesn't enjoy an evening out on the bay?

We'll go out this weekend and set Halibut skates. They haven't had too much luck yet this year, but a single Halibut should yield a good 50 lbs. or more of meat. Once the fishing and smoking ends, everyone packs up fish camp and heads out to moose camp. I'll be spending one week at Assignation Creek up the Chilkat River this year for moose camp. Of course, I won't be able to hunt a moose. This management area only allows 25 resident permits which people had to apply for in February. If you are one of the lucky 25 to get a moose, clear out the smokehouse and start hanging meat! This is tiny part of a moose we were given last year. We hang it in the smokehouse for a day or two to dry out, then into the freezer it goes.

Hanging out with the locals is a great way to learn about this ecosystem. Working with Rachel, I'm given a chance to explore deeper into hard to reach areas, either by boat or on foot. It's great having Rigby and Quark around. They are hyper-vigilant to the sounds and smells of the forest and also make our pack a little bigger. With all the bounty of the land, the threat of brown bears is considerable here. Stay tuned for some great pictures and videos of our work here!