Grizzlies, Gales and Giant Salmon

by Pat Ardley

  George said something like, “pshaw,” grabbed my rain gear off the hook in the back hall and started pushing me out the door. I insisted, “No, he tried to kiss me!” To this George said, “This is an incredible opportunity for you to see firsthand what it’s like to put the nets out and catch sockeye. I would love to go. You’re so lucky—you can’t miss this!” There were already hundreds of commercial boats in the inlet just waiting for the 6 PM signal to announce the fishery opening. I conceded that it might indeed be the only time in my life that I would be invited onto a working commercial boat fishing for the world-renowned Rivers Inlet sockeye run. Somehow, George cajoled me out of the house and onto Jack’s boat. Then Jack threw the engine into reverse and quickly pulled away from the dock, just in time for the start of the opening.

  We immediately headed out of the bay into Darby Channel and within fifty feet of the entrance of our main bay, Jack threw a bright orange Scotchman overboard to mark the start of his fishnet and, using the steering at the back of his boat, played out the net as he headed across Darby Channel toward Stevens Rocks. I stood in the cabin and watched out the front window as boats all around us were also setting their nets. Jack didn’t settle for long and, after about half an hour, called for my help as he started to haul the net back in. We pulled it as it came over the back of the net drum and every few feet, Jack stopped the winch and we picked kelp or twigs and sometimes fish out. By the time we had the whole net in the boat, there were twenty bright silver and blue sockeye in the ice-filled hold.

  He put the Grizzly King in gear and headed a short distance away from Sleepy Bay. Then, without coming into the cabin, he again threw the Scotchman overboard and let the net slide over the back of the boat as he slowly and carefully chugged along between other nets. This time he left the net down for about forty-five minutes before he started hauling it back into the boat. There were forty more wriggling sockeye added to the hold. He put the engine in gear and again moved farther away from Sleepy Bay. I came out on deck and asked him to take me home now, before he put the net out again. Jack just looked at me and smiled.

  “I can’t stop fishing now,” he said. “I have to put the net out.” He threw the Scotchman over the back, pushed the throttle forward and the net dragged off the boat again. He then came into the cabin and put a pot of stew on the stove. “I’ll leave the net out while we have supper,” he said.

  “Take me home,” I repeated. “I don’t want supper here, I want to go home.”

  “Well I can’t take you home while my net is out, so you might as well eat,” he said. “I made it myself.”

  I was sitting on the bench that ran along one side of the cabin. There was a table attached to the floor in front of the bench. Jack sat down beside me on the bench and stared at me with googly eyes. I picked up a magazine and started reading it. He leaned over, reached for my toque and tried to yank it off my head. I reached up and jammed the toque farther down onto my head.

  “Take your hair out of prison, Kitten,” he whined.

  That was too much. I whirled on him and hissed, “My hat stays on and I am nobody’s kitten!” At that moment, Jack’s eyes widened—he jumped up from the bench, bounded up the two steps and out the door. It was getting dark and had begun to rain, and as I glanced out the window I could see tree branches reaching through the rigging of the boat. I watched for a minute or two and then went to look out the door, slightly curious.

  Jack was leaning overboard and frantically sawing through his fishnet with a knife. It was indeed an emergency for him to cut his net, as the current had sucked the net through a channel, and was pulling his boat onto the rocky shore. I wasn’t concerned for my safety at the time, because we were surrounded by boats, and I knew that any one of them could drop the end of their net to rescue us. But Jack was very concerned about his boat getting dragged onto the rocks. I could not muster any sympathy, as I watched him getting soaked in the rain while he cut and sliced his very expensive sockeye net. He should have been paying more attention to his net and not staring doe-eyed at me. The smell of scorched stew filled the small cabin.

  I thought that would be the end of the fishing adventure. But no, he managed to cut the net that was hooked on the rocks, put the engine into reverse and free the rigging from the trees. He then motored another 150 feet toward open water and away from Sleepy Bay. Then he reattached the Scotchman to the tattered end of his net and played it back out over the end of his boat. He was making another set! I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  At this point in the evening, I was so angry that I could have tossed him overboard. I was not at any moment worried about my life or my virtue. I was slightly worried about how it would look if I dumped an old man out of his boat while he was leaning over the side reaching for his net, but he would have been a very sorry man if he tried to approach me again. The nice and heavy cast iron pan on the side of his stove would do the trick.

  When he was satisfied that his net was once again safely set, he stomped into the cabin. He was soaked from head to toe and rather disgruntled. He went forward and climbed down the set of four steps into the forward bunk area where he peeled off his wet clothes. Suddenly he was dancing about in front of the steps calling in a singsong voice, “Don’t look now … I have nothing on!” I grabbed the nearest magazine and held it up in front of my face. There wasn’t a chance in hell that I would want to look at that old wrinkled scrawny bobbling body. I did not put the magazine down until I was certain that he had finally put dry clothes back on.

  I told him he had to take me home. I was sure that George just thought that Jack would put out his net once or twice and then bring me back in. It was fully dark now, and I knew that George would be anxious. Jack just pretended to not hear me and went back out to pull in his net. Once again there were beautiful bright sockeye caught in his half-shredded net. He moved his boat another few hundred yards away from Sleepy Bay and put his net out yet again. He came into the cabin and wouldn’t look at me. Ha—as if he was mad at me!

  “Please take me home,” I repeated. “George is probably really upset by now.”

  “No, no,” he said. “We’re going to have breakfast in Namu.”

  “Oh no we’re not. There is no way that I am going to Namu with you.” Namu is about forty miles from Sleepy Bay.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “We are having breakfast in Namu, and you’ll love it.”

  I argued that I didn’t want to go to Namu, that I didn’t want to be on the boat with him for another minute, that I knew by this time that George would be getting really annoyed. Jack just laughed and went out to check on his net. I was furious and didn’t want to be anywhere near him. I stayed in the cabin and picked random books and magazines off the shelf behind the bench and read through the night. At one point I stood up and looked out the windows that were all around the sides of the cabin and saw lights from boats and net markers in all directions. It was a beautiful scene with all the fishboats twinkling around us. There were roughly a thousand commercial boats in the inlet for the sockeye opening, with several hundred fishing here in Darby Channel. Rivers Inlet was sometimes called “The River of Lights,” and it was a magical sight. Then I saw Jack working away at the back of his boat, and with a low growl, I thumped myself back down on the bench.

  Jack continued to set his net then pull it in, always with sockeye to throw into the hold. Then he would nose his boat skilfully between the other nets and boats to set it again, always farther from Sleepy Bay and out toward Fitz Hugh Sound. He came back into the cabin to grab his rain jacket off the hook when it started pouring rain again. I didn’t look at him, I was seething with rage, but bided my time until the sky started to lighten and I could see other fishermen working away at the back of their boats. When Jack had pulled his net in again, I went out on deck and told him that he had to take me back home. He started to sputter out arguments about how much fun we would have.

  “See that fellow
at the back of his fishboat a mere fifty feet away?” I said. “I wouldn’t even have to raise my voice to let him know that you have kidnapped me and that my husband has been looking for me all night. Turn the boat around—and take me home now!”

  He knew he was defeated. He was very angry and turned the boat so hard that I had to grab at a rigging pole to keep myself from toppling overboard. He weaved in and out of the nets, one Scotchman on the right, the next one on the left, waving hello to the working fishermen. There were so many sockeye still being caught, they must have thought he was crazy. I certainly did. I knew he was crazy. A crazy, ancient, decrepit old coot. We finally turned into Sleepy Bay and rounded the little island. A dishevelled George was already standing at the edge of the dock. Jack reduced the Grizzly King’s speed and turned it sideways to our dock, slowed down further but didn’t actually stop. I jumped onto the float and George steadied me and gave me a big hug. Then he glanced up with a quizzical look as Jack and his boat made a hasty retreat from our bay.

  I told George about my commercial-fishing experience. His mouth dropped open and his eyes got bigger partway into the story, and stayed that way until I finished. He had become concerned when I wasn’t home by 8 PM, and then 9 PM, and finally he thought something must have happened. So he headed out in our speedboat to look for us. He spent three hours weaving in and out of boats and nets in the dark before he finally decided that he wasn’t going to find us and talked himself out of the concern that he was feeling. Then he went home to bed and finally fell asleep until he heard Jack’s boat coming into the main bay. I walked into the house, stepped out of my rain gear and sank into bed.

  The following week, we went to visit our friends, the Coopers, on the other side of the inlet and ended up staying overnight with them. During the next afternoon, the wind picked up and kept getting stronger. We headed home anyway after George convinced me that it probably wouldn’t be that bad on the inlet. As we passed Duncanby Landing, where Jack was the caretaker, we could see that the wind on the inlet had started to blow like stink. We wouldn’t be able to head home after all, and heading back to the Coopers was impossible by now because of the hundred-foot walls of water that were rising and flowing up to the head of the bay. I swallowed my disgust as George pulled into the Duncanby Landing dock and we tied up safely out of the wind. Jack welcomed us, and of course he said we could stay overnight in one of the extra rooms. But during the night, I could hardly sleep, remembering my experience with him on his boat and expecting him to come dancing into the room naked with a rose between his teeth. Fortunately nothing happened, and we made it home safely the next day.

  Footings for the Fisheries House

  We needed gravel. We had another contract with Fisheries. This time we were building a house for them at Dawsons Landing, so we couldn’t just dig up gravel from the side of the local rivers. There was a huge pile of gravel at Addenbroke, left over from a big building project that was now finished. Since lighthouses and fisheries are both managed by the federal government, we got the okay to go and pick up as much as we needed. We had a light twenty-one-foot speedboat that would not easily tow a heavy barge, so we asked our friends Richard and Sheila if they would come with us and tow the barge back with Richard’s fishboat, the Red Witch.

  We waited for good calm weather and when we were sure there would be several days without much wind, we headed up the coast in our speedboat to Addenbroke. Richard and Sheila left shortly after we did, towing the Fisheries sea truck, a heavy, thirty-foot, flat-bottomed aluminum boat with no motor. We arrived well ahead of them and circled around in front of the lighthouse until we caught the attention of one of the children on the island. Then we anchored our boat in the bay where the wharf is. We had a quick visit with the lightkeepers who had replaced the Salo family and showed them the letter that authorized us to help ourselves to the gravel. Then George and I started piling the thick black plastic bags of gravel onto the freight wagon. It was gruelling work. Every bag weighed at least fifty pounds, and the stack was below the raised walkway and not easy to reach. We used the tractor to haul the gravel down to the wharf, and we had enough time to get several wagonloads piled on pallets on the wharf, before Richard and Sheila arrived.

  The water was calm when they pulled into the bay and anchored the Red Witch. Unbeknownst to George, Richard dropped the anchor line for the sea truck straight down behind it. They climbed into the lighthouse skiff, and the keeper rowed them to shore. We worked for another hour, and after piling a third pallet with the heavy bags, George decided that we had enough. It was late afternoon by this time and the lighthouse keeper helped us use the crane to swing the heavy pallets down into the aluminum barge.

  We watched the three boats floating peacefully, bobbing on the swell as it rolled gently into the bay. We were running out of daylight but the boats looked just fine, so we decided to stay the night and have a little party with the lighthouse people. We knew from experience that lightkeepers love to have company and company equals a good excuse for a party. The boats looked completely safe, the weather forecast was good and we needed the break as well. We had brought a bottle of rum just in case, the Coopers brought wine, and the lightkeepers had beer so we all had a fine time into the wee hours of the morning.

  At some point in the night, the wind picked up a little, and there was a rough chop coming into the bay when we arrived at the wharf in the morning. We figured it shouldn’t be a problem. We all clambered down to the beach while the lightkeeper lowered the rowboat with the crane. He dropped me and George off at our boat and then went back for Richard and Sheila. George started to pull our anchor line and immediately ran into a problem. Since the sea truck’s anchor line had been dropped straight down and all the boats had been swinging with the wind, all the anchor lines had been twisting around each other all night.

  We waited until Richard was on his boat and ready to pull his anchor, and we tried again to pull ours. The wind was getting a little stronger as we tried unsuccessfully to untangle the lines. George shouted for me to start the engine just in case, and I could see the puff of diesel fumes that showed that Richard had started his boat. George was leaning over the back of the boat and shouting instructions to me to put on a little throttle. “Turn the wheel … turn it harder … turn it that way … more throttle!” My heart was in my throat. I was afraid of doing the wrong thing and having George tumble off the back.

  The tide was about halfway toward low, and there were several feet of rocks jutting out of the water that we were quickly approaching. Our anchor was off the bottom and we were now drifting but not loose from the unyielding anchor of the sea truck. Then George climbed down onto the platform at the back of the boat trying desperately to separate the lines as we rocked harder and harder in the growing waves. The boat floated closer and closer to the shore while George was busy at the back. Then a huge swell rolled into the bay, and as the boat rose up, I knew it was going to crash down on the rocks. George was bent over out of sight and wrangling with the anchor lines. Without thinking about anything but saving the boat, I suddenly leaped overboard onto the rocks, beautiful wool Holt Renfrew coat and all!

  I momentarily teetered on the uneven rocks then turned to see the boat looming above me as it rose up on the swell, frigid water swirled past my waist and I pushed against the boat with all my strength. I braced my feet against the rocks and the rising boat and heaved and pushed as the swell washed back out and the boat slid crunching and grinding back down with it. Another swell rose up and almost knocked me over, the water was so deep that this time I was up to my neck in it, but still pushing on the boat, as it again crunched down across the rocks. George was shouting something but I couldn’t hear him over the crashing waves and engine noise. Another wave and swell lifted the boat and I looked up at it, pushed with all my might as once again the ice water was up to my neck. This time, as it crunched down the rocks, I could see George reaching for me over the side of the boat. When the b
oat was at the bottom of the swell, and just before another one arrived, I pushed again as hard as I could, grabbed George’s hand and made a mighty leap to drop unceremoniously in a heap on the floor of the boat. George had already turned to the steering wheel and, ramming the motor in reverse, blasted us away from the shore.

  Every muscle and every nerve in my body was vibrating. I was chilled to the bone and wrapped in a soaking wet full-length coat. We weren’t finished yet, but George made me lie down in the cabin and covered me with any extra jackets and life jackets to keep some warmth in. At this point, Richard untangled his boat from the sea truck, and they finally managed to pull the third anchor line. He hooked a line onto the sea truck and started towing it out of the bay. Freed from the lines, George quickly turned our boat out of the bay and headed home as fast as he could go. I spent the whole thirty-minute trip trembling with mind-numbing, teeth-chattering cold.

  The boat was barely tied to our dock before George was sprinting into the house to run a warm bath for me. Ahhhhh! I was so cold that my bath started out little better than lukewarm. George kept bringing kettles of boiling water to add to it as I warmed up very slowly. He brought me a hot, sweet cup of tea, and just as I was finally starting to feel a little better he brought me the most delicious meal I have ever eaten. A platter of bacon and eggs, baked beans, slices of tomatoes and hash browns. This had been one of George’s signature dishes, and our go-to meal at the end of a fun day at the beach, a late night with the freight boat or other frightening escapades. And by the way, his other signature dish was fried-egg sandwiches. No one could make them quite like George could.