A picture of the village with our first few strong gusts. Approximately 6:00 AK time.
Satellite Shot of the storm Curtosy of Alaska Weather Service
Alaska Bering Sea Storm
After getting the net checked this morning, I got some wood cut and brought into the house to feed the always hungry wood stove. All was accomplished during what is made out to be the mother of all storms, headed our way. The Yukon River spills into the Bering Sea and the small Yup'ik Eskimo villages that live along its low lying areas are about to be flooded. That could be bad in more ways than one. First off, it's pretty much winter here and the low-lying villages are barley above sea level so when the wind blows the water up on shore during the high tides people will have virtually no high ground to get to.
I experianced one bad storm on the coast while on a hunt. When the tide came up and the small cabin we were staying in was flooded and we actually floated the cabin on a high tide that was six feet over the bank. Had I not tied two big set net anchors to hold the house in place before hand, the house would of floated inland with us in it. It was one of the most hair raising experiences I was ever in. At one point the tide went back out and we were set back on the ground. We opened the door and let the two feet of water that was sloshing around like bilgewater out. We simply lit the stove again with wood we had piled on the bunks to stay dry along with all our bedding.
We were tired but alive and all went to bed only to be awoke again because of the waves rocking the house again. And this time they were much bigger. We floated up again. The logs under the cabin acting as pontoons to keep up afloat, but this time the winds got even worse and one of the anchor lines pulled loose and the house went sideways in the wind. one anchor still held but we were no longer afforded the leward side of the house where we could tie to the boat out of the waves.
My partner and his young boy of 16 yrs old decided it was time to try and call on the VHF on channel sixteen [the emergencey channel]. But his call for assitance went unanswerd. We could see now, as it was getting light. And though we could jump into the boat and try to make it up the Yukon River to the safety of the river banks, they too were flooded. We pushed off and rolled in the huge surf of the Bering Sea in our 20 foot open skiff. It felt like a toy in the bath tub as we rode up one big wave and down the back side. Slowly but surely we made our way up, and after a few miles made it into the relative safety of river banks that were still somewhat flooded even miles up the river. We were tired and stopped at a fish camp to rest. The floor of the cabin was wet, so we knew the water came up that far. We lit the stove and slept for a day eating and drying up.
The next mornning we continued up river the remaining sixty miles and made it home where even here the water had rose overnight from the storm surge and went down again.
So now I sit and wait for our 948 millabar low that's supposed to decend on us tonight. If this was the lower fourty eight states they would call it a hurricane. But here it's still just a storm.
We hope and pray for those on the lower Yukon River and Bering Sea coastal areas, that they can find high ground and get out of harms way. We should be OK here with minimal damage, but those poor lowland folks could have ice chunks pushed by water crashing through there village tonight.
Our river here is fresh froze over with ice, so it will be interesting to see if the high water surge makes it upriver seventy miles like it did last time. Some fishing nets recently set in the new formed ice could be lost if the ice opens up again.
I can expect the house to be shaking from the high winds. It's a common occurance here. We can expect to lose our internet, perhaps even the power we all depend on.
But here we will be fine. We have freezers full of meat and fish and woodstoves to keep warm.
We hope for the storm to have mercy on the poor souls that cannot get out of it's path.
How To Set an Ice Net
Fish is a very important food source here on the big river. During summer it's salmon and in winter there is four species referred to as whitefish or white meated fish. There is burbot, lush, sheefish (that can get huge and look like a tarpon), and then two smaller species of actual whitefish.
These are important for fresh fish during the winter months and most families here will keep an under ice net all winter.
Early in November when the Yukon has frozen over only a few inches, all the men will go out on the new ice right in front of the village. There, they strech out their nets on top of a smooth patch of ice to create a marker for holes that they will chop to set the net. Laying the net down helps to measure the length.
At each end of the net a hole is chipped through the ice, until we have a round hole about 3 feet in diameter.
We also have a long pole or board about ten to fifteen feet long. A short string is tied on with a net floater (or an empty air-tight jug) attached to it.
The pole is laid on the ice as a marker in between the two holes and more holes are chopped through the ice at each measured length of the pole.
Then a line is tied to the floater and pushed under the ice until the floater pops up in the next hole. The line is then untied and held while the pole is retracted out the way it came. The line is tied again and pushed under the ice again until the floater pops up in the next hole and so on until you have a line under the ice from the first hole to the furtherest hole.
Then the net is piled in front of one hole and tied to the line. Going to the other hole, pull the line as the net feeds down the hole and under the ice. Continue to pull until it pops out at the other end. It is then tied to a long pole (approximately 6 to 8 feet). That pole is submersed down the hole several feet and tied to a brace stick that is frozen in the ice beside the hole for support. (To create the brace stick, chop a hole beside the large hole and place the brace stick inside. By the time we finish setting the net the brace stick is frozen into the ice enough to hold the other stick). The other end is also tied to a pole in the same manner. We push the stick straight down through the hole into the water and tie it off on a wooden support brace frozen into the ice as well.
When checking the net daily, ice is chopped out of the two end holes and the slush is scooped out with a shovel. Then a line is laid out the a little longer than the length of the net on top the ice. One of the poles is then untied from the support and pulled up out of the water. The net is untied from that pole and tied to the line stretched out on top the ice. It is let go. Then we go to the other end; that pole is untied from the support then pulled out of the water and left tied to the pole as the net is pulled out of the water. We pile the net on top of the ice in front of the hole and each fish is carfully picked out of the net as they come out on top of the ice.
Once you reach the end of the net the end is thrown back into the hole. The line at the other end, at the far hole, is pulled and the net feeds itself back under the ice. The pole is reset on the support stick and the other end is untied from the line and reattached to the pole and tied back to the support.
The line is rewrapped and the fish are loaded up in a sack to be shared with friends and family back in the village.
Waiting For Eels
It is Halloween and the river is freezing. Cakes of ice are flowing. The ice shelf is growing out from the edge and getting thicker each day. The nights have been down in the teens and single digits and the mighty Yukon is slowing down for the winter.
The salmon are done running, but there are still whitefish and others in the river. But right now it’s time for the great eel migration. They enter the Yukon from the Bering Sea. After living their life attached to salmon, sucking the life blood out of them until they are fat enough to detach, they make their migration up river to spawn in the silty Yukon River.
Lamprey eels are a delicacy here on the Yukon. They are raked up from long narrow holes chopped in the ice, using a long board with sharp headless nails up and down the sides. The eel stick is raked through the water back and forth until an eel is impaled on the nails much like a hotdog on a stick. They wrap there slithering bodies around the stick and are raked up and out from under the water and thrown on top of the ice. They act and look very much like a snakes slithering around your feet until the cold overcomes them and they quickly freeze.
When they are running thick dip nets are used and great quantities can be harvested. We even have a commercial fishery here on the Yukon and we will get a $1 a pound for them at the local salmon buying office. There is a market for them in Asia and they are also an important food source here.
The first eels of the season are brought home and shared for everyone to get a taste of the rich oily flavor. They remind me of canned sardines and are very good baked or fried.
Some years we miss them and they pass, so we try to check the river daily starting before Halloween and into mid-November until they arrive. Each day someone from the village will chop a slot in the ice to see if they have arrived.
We are still waiting patiently ....this all hallows eve.
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