Alaska! Up North and to the Left

by Steven Swaks

  We had to prioritize, the river was first, the food would follow. We walked to the edge of the metal sea wall, there it was… nothing! The river was motionless and mostly frozen. A grotesque collection of giant ice cubes tangled with one another. The strange scene might have been an interesting attraction by itself, but the legendary ice flowing by was not there. The ice road had vanished, crushed by twenty thousand pound ice boulders.

  Lydia shrugged. “Oh well, too bad, let’s go eat.” I guess that was the only thing left to do. The river had officially broken, but jammed right after. We walked to the hot dog stand and waited in line. John, a neighbor who lived across our street was patiently waiting his turn to be served. He was in his late fifties with well-furnished white hair and beard. Bethel was his home, and he had made a simple and peaceful life in town with his wife, daughter, and their little Maltese dog I had seen the day we had come to visit our house. It was always a treat to watch them walking by in the street, the large man and the little white fur ball hopping by his feet.

  John greeted us with his typical upbeat outlook. “Hi guys! Talk about a breakup!”

  “Yeah, tell me about it… talk about a dramatic breakup!” I grunted.

  Lydia did not care. Her entire attention was dedicated to the grilling sausages and the condiments. So many possibilities, what should I do? Maybe I could get a second one. I hope they will let me. Yeah, they will let me!

  We walked like prisoners in line waiting for our food. Three high school girls were serving and giggling at nothing. The summer was coming; the boys were there, the hormones screaming for attention. They served us the long awaited snacks. We picked up the required condiments on a nearby foldable table and walked back to the edge of the river where we gulped our food. The moment was becoming romantic, at least in Lydia’s eyes. My brain had shut down a few minutes prior, locked on the motionless river.

  A clamor arose from the small crowd. The river was coming to life! Out of nowhere, the ice resumed its slow procession and picked up speed. Large slabs of ice came towards us crashing and grinding against the steel wall just beneath our feet. An invisible conveyor belt seemed to carry ice sheets downstream towards the Bering Sea. Thousands of translucent ice crystals littered the river and pointed straight up while firmly anchored on ice slabs. They looked like Kryptonite with the same flowery arrangement in hundreds of tiny icy frozen explosions going by. The parade was hypnotic. People were standing stooped against the metal railing admiring the spectacle going by in silence.

  Breakup was a lot more than pretty ice cubes going by. It was a liberation, the end of survival and the beginning of abundance. The river became a transport network for the villages. It carried fuel barges to dry village tanks, bulk goods, wood for construction, or gravel for the roads. As the ice thawed, the river became the ultimate food source and incredible fishing. Soon, the king salmon would be caught and served on the tables. We all felt that evening was the beginning of the new season, the long winter was dwindling down and moving back to its quarters up north, far away from us. There was an omnipresent sense of serenity, a peace we all shared. Lydia and I stayed for a while, holding hands and enjoying the spectacle passing by.

  The Smelts

  May

  Lydia and I were preparing to sleep while lying on the matrimonial bed, staring at the white popcorn ceiling. It was 10:34 pm, roughly 24 hours after breakup, and the sun was still high in the sky with no intention to dive below the horizon. The flimsy, used-to-be-temporary paper curtains were trying to do their job and block out the light, but it was a lost cause, as the bedroom bathed in strong sunlight. Even in the late evening hours, it was like trying to take a nap in the middle of the afternoon.

  “Lydia? Are you sleeping?” I asked.

  “Shine a spot light in my face and ask me if I’m sleeping!” Lydia threw back at me with a quick chuckle.

  The phone rang.

  “Who’s calling that late? Can’t they wait ’til tomorrow?” I barked.

  Lydia picked up. “Hello… hi, oh… um… smelts?… what’s that?… really… now?… a what? Where?” The conversation did not sound good. There was trouble on the way, I could sense it. I could feel my long night of sleep fading away like a train leaving the station, and I was surely the one doing the running with the white handkerchief. “We’ll see you there.” We? Who? Lydia and me? No, not that late! There was no way I would go anywhere this late, unless of course a true emergency obliged. “Bye” Lydia concluded on the phone and hung up.

  What was happening? Who was that? I summarized my fears, by a cool and composed, “so?”

  “Shirley called. The smelts are here, she wants to meet us at the sea wall.” Lydia made it sound like it was the most natural thing to do. The questions were rushing like a crowd hearing gunshots.

  “Hold on. What’s a smelt?” I had a disgusted look on my face. What were they? Where were they? What were we supposed to do with them? Couldn’t we just go to the store and buy a few tomorrow? Did it really have to be tonight?

  “Relax! It’s a small fish that comes for 24 hours right after breakup. We got to go to the store to buy a fishing net. Can you get a bucket in the garage? Let’s go!”

  My night was dying away. Why? She was a city girl! She did not care about hunting and fishing! She did not want to go fish at 11:00 at night! What was happening to her? “You sure you really want to go? We don’t have to, if you don’t want to…” But the Lydia train had already left the station and I could only run to catch it.

  I dressed up and laboriously walked downstairs. My warm bedding stayed in the bedroom, condemned to cool off; the separation was torture. I picked up anything I deemed necessary to go fishing, not like I really knew what I was doing. I found boots, buckets, and tossed everything in the back of the 4Runner. Lydia walked in the garage with the energy of a boxer ready to beat up her opponent. I was there, on autopilot, quietly mourning my rapidly fading full night of sleep.

  We drove to the local supermarket and looked for the net. All of a sudden, with the arrival of the little fish, the net had become a highly valued commodity. We found one of the last ones available. The fishing net was nothing more than a glorified butterfly net with an endless handle. Every customer waiting at the cashier was waving the precious tool, magically avoiding the neighbor standing in line with their ten to twelve foot long handles.

  We jumped in the truck and drove to the river. We reached the sea wall and parked again close to the Joe Lomack building. There was a steady flow of people coming in. It was not the affluence on Sunday afternoon at the ball park, but there was a fair amount of people already fishing over the sea wall.

  There was a curious ritual going on. People did not really talk; they mostly hung over the hand rail barely holding on to their long aluminum poles. They all did the same movement, dipping the net as far down as possible upstream and pushing it downstream while moving it back up to the surface in a large circular motion. The nets were mostly empty, and the fishermen quietly expressed their frustration before repeating the movement right away. Here and there, there was a fruitful dip with several fish fighting their way out; but their only escape was a nearby bucket where they found a few dozen of their suffocating friends.

  The fish was nothing impressive, a plain silver fish about 10 inches long for a meal to come. People kept trying their luck in the murky waters of the Kuskokwim. Everybody was out, men and women, elders and children running around excited by the activity. They all had their own technique, their little personal tricks to dip the net, whether it was shallow or deep, fast or slow, close to the sea wall or further out. The result only mattered at the end, the winners attracting more people around them. That was it! That’s the spot we have to go to, yes! Let’s go next to him!

  Lydia and I tried just like everybody else. We first attacked the sea wall like soldiers charging a fort. Armed with our bucket and net, we were ready to conquer the river. The night was ours! A few useless attempts later, we stood back and strat
egized. While Lydia was a frustrated serial killer in the making, I looked around and took the moment in. The midnight sun was still up and the flat light was casting its shadows. It was not even cold with the winter rapidly becoming a bad memory. Bethel was there with friends and neighbors. There was Mike, the snow machine dealer; Jack, probably the best mechanic in town; Brent, one of Norton’s mechanics; Mandy, his girlfriend, and so many other familiar faces. The pulse of the town was in front of me, beating to the scream and joy of a simple catch. We were not there for the fish, we gathered there to be together. The fish was the only excuse for another town reunion, another moment with family.

  “Let’s go to the beach!!” Lydia snapped me out of my mushy torpor. “They are catching a lot of fish down there!”

  I was not so sure about the idea. The sea wall allowed easy and safe access to deep waters. The beach was… a beach! It was shallow and would force us to go much further into the cold waters. That would not work out; besides, I did not have my boots. Lydia did not wait for me and frolicked down to the small beach nearby like a little girl towards a puppy.

  “Just stay on the shore with the bucket, I’ll go in the water!” What was wrong with her? In Los Angeles she was a couch potato and I had a hard time convincing her to do anything. Here, especially tonight, she was relentless, and perhaps even restless. The advancing hours and the dropping temperature were not changing anything.

  Lydia walked carefully into the water, just below knee deep, her tall rubber boots barely keeping the water out. Another foot further, or a small wave, and her boots would be flooded. The odds did not stop her. She dipped the net again. It dove and disappeared in the dark waters. Lydia dragged it in the current before it came back up. There it was, heavy. Lydia raised the net out of the water. It was loaded with half a dozen smelts flapping and hoping to find an impossible escape. She walked back to the shore wading in the water and threw the fish into the bucket, looking at me triumphantly.

  It was the beginning of a carnage. Lydia went back and forth, catching more fish and bringing them back. By 12:25, the sun was finally giving up. The long shadows of the nearby houses cast on the small beach and marked the time to leave. One by one, the dedicated fishermen and bystanders left the stage. We charged the back of the truck with our gear and a bucket full of dying smelts. We drove home and contemplated the evening. We emptied the fish into a large plastic utility sink by the kitchen. We rinsed and froze most of them but a handful. A few would not wait long to be cooked and headed straight for the refrigerator. All together, we (actually Lydia), had caught 48 smelts. Shirley never showed up, who knew why; but thanks to her we had enjoyed our evening. Looking back, it had been one more experience, one more token to add to a beautiful summer.

  The Sad Reality

  May

  We decided to cook the smelts the evening following the genocide. I do recognize that we should have filleted the fish right away; it might have made a difference after all. As a weak defense, I could only say that last night, or this morning as a matter of fact, was already late enough, and Jim would not be thrilled to have a zombie pilot just because I went fishing late and I wanted to fillet the little things on the spot.

  I had successfully filleted salmon before and I did not expect any particular difficulties with the smelts. After all, a fish is a fish and a smelt was only a smaller version of the sacred king salmon. I picked up a wooden cutting board, a sharp fillet knife and set them on the dark green Corian counter top. My work space was ready. With the confidence of an old timer, I picked up the first smelt and laid it sideways on the cutting board. I inserted the blade into the belly. Usually salmon did not bleed much, so I did not expect much bloody mess from the little fish. I was wrong. Blood gushed out as soon as the blade penetrated the outer layer of the skin. What was meant to be quick and easy work turned into a slaughter house. Semi-coagulated blood spread onto the counter, droplets of dark blood dripped down the cabinets then onto the wooden kitchen floor. The strong blood and gut smell invaded the kitchen in a real life version of a bad horror movie. My stomach rebelled in a coordinated mutiny with my gag reflex, but I was stronger than a primitive reaction and continued working. My bloodied hands kept on slashing the knife ever deeper into the fish. I gutted the organs and bowels. Every second, the sharp blade hit a small bone and gave me a taste of the distasteful meal to come. After a few minutes of agonizing work, I rinsed the smelt and dropped it on a plate.

  The pan was next on the ongoing failure. Surely the tremendous amount of butter would help damper the vivid and grotesque picture I had freshly ingrained in my traumatized memory. I rolled the fish in flour and dropped it into the sizzling pan. I stoically waited and turned the fish over a few times. I stood there and attended my cooking hardly entertained by the distant television playing. The other smelts were waiting in the freezer. I had only been brave enough to clean up two smelts; the remaining forty six would have to wait their unconceived fate. Soon, the king salmon would come in and room would have to be made, one way or another.

  My smelts never stood a chance. After a forced bath in the greasy pan, they crash landed onto the dish accompanied by dull mashed potatoes and a couple pieces of bold broccoli. I had difficulty hiding my skeptical look. My stomach was at the edge of a coup d’état at the idea of digesting the upcoming meal. Lydia had been luckier or smarter than I was; she was upstairs paying bills while I was butchering my smelts. Now, she was sitting at the dinner table, staring at the well composed and almost aesthetic dish. She looked at me and only muttered a quick “hmmm” of perplexity. The first bite sealed their predictable fate. The trash was the next logical step for the tasteless and insipid matter.

  The minute the smelts were snatched out of the water, their destiny had already been written; we just did not know it yet. The first two had been scouts exposed to our uneducated barbarism. They had stepped out of the ranks and paid the ultimate price as they dove into the trash can. I was still torn about the future of the others. I could not get myself to throw away so many fish. A few days later, Henry, one of my ex-coworkers from the flight school days came to rescue me from my dilemma and accepted them. He was Yupik and knew how to deal with the little smelts. As an ultimate resort, his dogs always volunteered to eat them.

  The Next Day

  May

  The next morning marked the beginning of yet another miserable summer day. As the clouds loomed the roof tops, the airport stayed quiet. Led by an irresistible force, the entire Norton Aviation’s personnel gathered around the coffee machine for small talk to wait for the weather to improve. It was not about company policies or flight safety; it was not even about world politics and our relations with Al-Qaeda and their faithful volunteers. No, this morning was all about the smelts. There was an ongoing conflict of cultures and diverging opinions flew across the room.

  Toad, as usual, left us rather rapidly. “How can you eat that stuff? I hate it! Tastes like garbage.” It only went downhill from there, Toad nosedived into an unbearable sea of vulgarity. Toad was nice and well appreciated, but once in a while he could not control himself and went on his own tangent, he opened the gates to his personal little world and temporarily checked out. He was not mad, angry, or frustrated, but he was driven by a wild and self-entertaining imagination, and was unable to put a stop to his fantasies and cursing. Diving much deeper into the abyss of crudeness, his cursing had no limit. His large smile and sparkling eyes betrayed any bad meaning. It was just about the twisted pleasure of hearing himself cussing and having a unique, way off the beaten path, sense of humor.

  “Hey, Toad, are you done?” I could not help but watch him laughing at his own weirdness.

  “You got to deep fry ‘em.” Ron, the older native dispatcher, was joining us.

  “What are you talking about? Either way, the smelts are disgusting!” Robert, the highest company authority present looked at us with a disgusted look. “I don’t even understand why people are so fond of fishing that thing. It’s messy, t
hey bleed like there’s no tomorrow and they are not even good.”

  Trent, one of the ground crew, was seated on the metallic armrest of our old couch. Like most of the other ground workers, Trent was Yupik. He was well built, in his late twenties, and even if he did not talk much, he was showing a passive strength and a bright eye. “A lot of people still eat’em at the villages. They can be goot.”

  Ron came back from answering a quick phone call. “A lot of the Yupik grew up with that, they like it.”

  “I guess it’s an acquired taste. But I’m telling you, if you didn’t grow up with that, it’s disgusting,” Robert replied.

  The argument was not convincing. I had tried, Lydia had enjoyed the fishing, but I doubt I would try it again. Besides, just like everybody else in town, I was hooked on salmon. Soon, they would be here and the feast would begin.

  The Skyvan

  June

  It was one of those gloomy pre-summer days. Not that the actual summer would be much better, but in this early June, we still hoped for nicer days to come. Later on, towards the end of September, any hope would morph into an appreciation of just being above freezing. Today, in my narrow 207 world, the weather was down with a cloud coverage much too low to legally launch a piston powered single engine aircraft. Waiting for better omen, I stood in front of the Skyvan, Five Zero Niner, day dreaming about the captain seat and its promises. With her two turbine engines she was the gateway for bigger and better, the grand golden gate to the major airlines so far away from the low and slow. I could not help but stare at her like a teenager in love with his beautiful muse. I did not see the ugliness, the shoe box look and the twin vertical tails like a long descendant of a Star Wars shuttle. It did not matter; I only wanted to call her mine. I wanted to get to know her, because so far, she did not have a good reputation. In a last suicidal attempt to bravery, she had killed before within Norton Aviation, twice, and she was always ready to escape the unwary pilot.