Fishing

Ever since I started thinking seriously about writing a book, I have begun doing some light research on the state of the Bering Sea crab fishery. Any one who considers their self to be an, up to date on contemporary affairs, kind of person, will be able to guess what the biggest hitter is out there on the world wide web even if they, like me dont watch TV.
The television series, The Deadliest Catch, produced by the Discovery channel corporation. Not only does TDC pop up all over the screen whenever the key words, crab, Dutch, Bering Sea or commercial fishing are used, but the site itself offers up a myriad of further links: the local newspaper of Unalaska, the Aleut corporation's own history of the Unangan peoples (named Aleut by the Russians), employment in the fishing industry and a hyperlink to the USCG.
From TDC's home page I can navigate around and look at boats I used to be familiar with captained by men whose faces I at least remember, though a few of them, I knew. I even worked for one of the captains who will be featured in this season's upcoming or already on going show.
And so, I posted a comment on the TDC's blog site which featured this old skipper of mine who has been married for 15 years, has two children, (and admittedly likes spending time with them) and prefers gardening of all things during the off seasons. If you were to spend some time surfing around in TDC's website, you would find this a rather unusual dossier compared to most of the men who captain the boats. For example, in an interview with the skipper of the, Wizard, when asked about his family, you could tell he had become a little bit uncomfortable. Or maybe to be fair, he was embarrassed, caught off of his tough macho guard. He blushed, made bashful movements in his chair and finally said, "The most important thing in my life". The trouble was, he had already given away this answer, between the lines so to speak, in regards to how he felt about fishing, his boat and being a captain on the Bering Sea. So before I posted my comment, I carefully read through all of the other people's comments. I did not want to sound arrogant or sentimental or God forbid, to say something that might cause a row of some sort. But there didn't appear to be anything overly spellbinding or even pertinent, mostly just fluffy little 3 liners about wanting a date with one of the crew members or a pep- o -rally inspired , "GO Deadliest Catch Go"!
Sigh. This is difficult for me, but also inspiring. I realise I am supposed to be writing about Greenland but in a way, Greenland is writing about me. Fishing thoughts and memories have always been flowing through me as if they had a tidal current all their own. I don't expect these sensations to ever completely go away, and so I write:
I introduce myself as having never watched the deadliest Catch, but of having worked on the decks of such boats for eight years. I then give sensitive honest credit to Capt F of the Early Dawn, a very good man indeed who was never out of line, rude, crude or unimproved. Perhaps that is why he has a wife of 15 years. I thank him for having the guts to hire a women and for paying her full share and allowing her to work one of the most prestigious positions on a crab boat deck, the rail. After I sign off, I leave for the green House. Thoughts start flooding in: What if he contacts me and asks me to be a crew member and I become just another character on the Discovery Channel? What if the Discovery Channel contacts me? What if no body even cares?
After all those years out there in Dutch Harbor beating the docks for jobs on boats that are now famous actresses in a popular documentary, I sense the Ego beginning to rise. If I were a "guy", maybe there would not be such a loud voice coming from the previously so well silenced Id, but as far as I can tell, in over four years of production, not a single "girl" has ever stood upon the working deck of any one of those boats and that irks me, because I know, it cant possibly be true. And now there is a connective thread between me and one of those boats. It is weird, but even from a capitalistic point of view, although I tend to be more of a socialist, if I were to be hired as a TDC crew member, I could really market this unwritten book of mine. ...I mean, "come on!" look at what the making of Hollywood's The Perfect Storm did for Linda Greenlaw! Besides, worrying parents and concerned, loving others, seriously, compared to the days when I fished, (when there were no camera crews or crab rationalization laws to keep the danger level in check), this stuff today has got to be a piece of cake! Plus you get two pay checks for being a sailor; one from the boat and the other from TV!
But according to the great philosophers , there is no such thing as chance. Which means, be careful what you wish for. And, as Steve points out, I am training for a triathlon..........
As a testimony to this life, we have all too make sure we do our best. If not to ourselves, then at the very least, to others. Of course, without doing unto ourselves first..........anyway, I was once interviewed by an anthropologist who had received a grant to go to Antarctica and talk with the women in the trades. Up until that year, there was little to none of this type of historical data. She felt it was very important. The number of women working on the Ice had increased from less than 2 percent in the early 1970's to over 45% in the later part of the last century. I reluctantly told her my story and she was almost annoyingly adamant about having my picture taken in the shop next to the bulldozer I was working on. I refused, saying that I was no different than any of the other "guys". I had learned this behaviour as a survival mechanism (in fact one skipper wrote my name out as Shawn in order to get around the companies policy of not hiring women due to fear of sexual harassment suits) called, don't act like your special. This developed into a credo. I even worked for a women who owned and skippered her own crab boat, who once gracefully bowed herself out of a television interview with the Anchorage daily news. I forget what she said verbatim, but it was roughly, "I am not special".
The thing is, she was. And she still is.
I did not live through the women's liberation movement. I have seen a few females act obnoxiously about their modern day emancipation. One moment they wont allow a door to be held open for them, then the next they are bitching about having the man not open the door in front of them. I understand that I may have taken allot of things for granted in the past, but some world traveling and some maturity (a grey hair) have inspired me to re think most of these things.
The sexes are different. Men can be flight attendants and women can be crabbers. But, it is wrong when they do it to prove some kind of a point or to get some sort of self aggrandizing attention from there position. But whenever any minority goes against the grain led by adventure or desire, passion or curiosity, there should come, from society, an awareness of this unusual circumstance. An acceptance. And certainly, if a documentary is going to call itself a documentary, it should do its best to document the truth and to learn how to at least try and partially dissolve its mantra of rough neck tough guy machismo in which they have steeped this "real life" depiction of the industry in. After all isn't it enough that we as humans have almost depleted all of the worlds seafood stocks without having to make it seem like a bunch of Quipeqags are still out there with harpoons and tattooed faces killing the leviathan? Shouldn't we take a pause from all that manifest destiny style guts and glory and show the more meaningful side of this rapidly diminishing life style? Rather than scare people out of their armchairs into a deeper and deeper depression for having to go to an office job which requires a commute (actually more people still die in traffic accidents than on the sea) why not show that there are still a places in the world where we can spend our lives with nature. There are still fisherman and skippers and gulls and sunsets and cold sparkling mornings at which dawn is all your own....
I have seen grown men break down and cry. I have seen guys leave the boat with their head hung low after only one short trip. I have seen them fight each other over loosing a bet on a ball game and I have seen them shaking from the DT's so badly they cannot light their own smoke.
I have also seen them hugging each other and calling their Moms over the single side band radio just to tell them they are OK.
I doubt any of this gets shown either.
I felt a glimmer of hope when surfing TDC' links.; there were two "crab related blogs" posted by seemingly female names. I was thrilled that they might be women deckhands, but no. One was a women who wrote erotic romance tales. The other was a relationship advisor who loved crab fisherman. Wink Wink.
My head is smart enough however to recognise that even though two of the world's oldest professions, like peanut butter and chocolate are, "two great tastes that still go great together" there has also got to be a more modern version in which this stereotype is abandoned for valor.
I suppose all writers need to have their minds re-steeped in that which caused the idea of a great enough subject to write about, in the first place, from time to time; to get the description of any fine tea down well enough to seek its flavor, one must not merely recollect a memory, but have a sip from a freshly brewed cup. Though the experience may be different the writer is too, and this is exactly the point, if the writer is aware of having changed, then how can he or she write honestly about that which has changed too?
And how could she not be in the least bit be tempted by a chance of being documented in a role so unique, so familiar so inspiring, whose televised image of, "smart like tractor strong like bull" could use some serious censor.
I would defiantly wear a tutu.