When I was sixteen, in the spring of nineteen-fifty-five, I began working on salmon fishing boats in Southeast Alaska. I would continue making the journey north twenty times over the next 35 years.
SALMON SUMMERS celebrates those years with scenes, stories, and characters from my years on the back deck of a salmon fishing boat. Text – Tim Olson – Photo credits: Rolf Hildre, Tim Olson
FLOATING IN THE OCEAN – ADDINGTON SALMON TRAP
During August salmon trap season, RapIII, Severin and I lift and fall on incoming Pacific swells on the north side of Cape Addington. A seven inch rope painter and a trap sized anchor 
secures
the Rap’s hull to the ocean’s bottom. The Rap. exposed to the open ocean, rolls in the never ceasing swells crashing on the rocks behind the boat.
The Addington trap head log, continuously awash in swells rolling in from the ocean, 
waits silently from July to September for returning salmon to blunder into its chicken wire lead stretching from the trap to shore. Following the lead, the migrating salmon trap themselves in a maize
of two connected log hearts funneling salmon into a gated square pot with a webbed spiller on either side.
Stymied, the salmon circle in the pot until the fish tender arrives to brail the salmon aboard the tender. A brailer scoops up the churning fish, drops them in the boat’s fish bins to flop and smother themselves to 
death. The tender takes the salmon to the cannery for canning and shipping to the grocery shelves.
Severin has a plan when seas hide Hat Rock in white spray and the heaving trap 
disappears beneath the breaking swells. If heavy swells roll in from the southwest, the Rap, Severin and I surf with sky reaching waves past Seagull Bluffs and round Cape Ulitka into Steamboat Bay.
While we shower and our laundry swirls in the tubs, Severin catches up on gossip while I dream of purchasing a spinnaker shirt in the company store. .
SID AND SEVERIN BRAIL IN HEAVY WEATHER
Sid, balding, paunchy skipper of the Rolfy calls the Rap from Frisco Point, “Severin, how is the weather out there? Can we brail?”
“Ya, vonderful vorking vetter! Light svell from soutvest. Ve got some fish for you.”
“Better be! Looks shitty out by Ulitka.”
“Sid you shouldn’t use language like dat on the radio.”
While Severin and I dry up the spiller, the Rolfy, windward side lifting on the swell, port rail dipping into the trough, water sloshing down the sides, hull working like a cork screw, makes a pass at the trap. The hull smashes the head log and bounces off into the ocean swells. Sid makes a second pass to tie up to the trap. Chuck attempts to drop a seven inch spring on a cleat but misses and the rope sinks in the surf. Sid makes a third pass at securing the Rolfy to the trap. The Rolfy crashes against the trap’s truck tire fenders. Before the hull rolls away, Chuck drops the line over a cleat awash beneath the sea running in past Hat Rock.
While the crew secures the Rolfy at bow and stern, Chuck sets a second spring line limiting the forward and backward plunging hull. Sid cracks open the wheel house door, glares down at Severin standing solid as a stump on the brailing plank. “You asshole, this is the last time I come out to this fucking asshole place! We can’t even brail.”
Severin, cigar dripping salt water from the corner of his mouth, points to salmon milling in the spiller. “Ya, Ya, ve got at least four brailers for you.”
Sid lurches out of the wheelhouse onto the bouncing bridge, leans over the railing to check the lines, nods at Severin waiting for the tender crew. Straining spiller web dries up, stretches taut in the rolling swells. Bill, chief engineer, rain streaming down his oilskins, pulls the cover from the winch, prepares to drop the Rolfy’s brailer into the boiling salmon.
Sevrin scowls up at Sid,
“Ya Sid, you got any meat for us?”
Sid one hand hanging on to the railing, one hand cupping his balls, “Sure I got some meat for you. You want it?”
“You shouldn’t talk dat vay in front of the boy.”
“Severin, why don’t you take the kid to town, get him bred?” Sid pumps the air.
Severin turns away. I stare into the spiller, scared I’ll fall in.
Severin calls to Chuck standing on the pot log drying up the fish into the dropped brailer, “Vere’s dat second enyineer? Is he afraid to get vet? A little vater von’t hurt him.”
Sam, cocooned in oil skins, crawls along the head log to the trap’s exposed corner. Steep swells break over Sam, sending geysers gushing through the tire bumpers. Whoosh, whoosh, the sea water erupts between Sam’s oilskins, drenching his ass every time. He lurches up, loses his balance, falls to his knees, “Dammit! God dammit!”
“Ya, Ya,” Severin chuckles, “A little vater von’t hurt you. Don’t use dose vords in front of Timmy, his dad’s a pastor.”
Hunched over the winch Bill lifts two brailers, splattering salmon into the Rolfy’s bouncing bin. Sid, water dripping off his cap yells, “That’s it, we are getting the hell out of here before the weather gets worse. Turn her loose, Chuck.”
The Rolfy, a following wind pushing her along, slouches past Hat Rock and back towards Ulitka, appearing and disappearing in the giant swells. “Ya, Timmy, der’s no reason to talk dat vay. Did you get any meat from dat cook? I shore hope de fresh vegetables is better den last veek’s.”
BLOW AT CAPE ADDINGTON
Sid is right. The weather is worse. I am spread-eagled in the wheel house door. Severin leans into the wheel, dripping stub of a cigar between his teeth. Rap idles dead slow 
ahead in the blackness, bow to the ocean, stern to the rocks, white water vaulting into the blackness. The Rap’s bow lifts on the incoming sea, snapping the slack painter taut before plunging deep, bow submerging in surging foam. Aft of the stern, the rocky shore is invisible.
“Timmy, if the trap should break up and come down on us, ve vill put the Rap right between those rocks.”
I squint into the black night and white crests, I press harder into the door jams.
“Ya, Timmy, ve haf vaited too long to get around the corner. Ve vait it out. Vhy don’t you go below? Der’s nussing you can do.”
I stumble down the ladder into the focsle, crawl into my bunk, brace myself between the hull and bunk board.
I awaken to a bleak morning, roll out from my bunk, lose my balance, slam down on the bench. I pull on my wet boots, climb to the deck, stare into stinging spray, my ears aching
from the pounding surf.
Severin’s thick fingers point forward where Addington trap contorts in careening shapes, in the seas.
I greet a grey dawn
without a horizon. Towering swells
overpower the dense clouds.
“Ya, Ya, Timmy, you go put on some mush, coffee . Ve haf breakfast. The weather is coming down now.”
To view previous Salmon Summers post – click here
Thanks Tim. Cape Addington and Severin Hildre had a special place for you, Ken and I, since we all spent a season there with him. Think of all the things we learned that would serve us well at sea and in life in general. One of my fondest memories was of Severin deciding to get ahead of the problem of kelp getting in the trap. So we got in the skiff with me at the oars and Severin standing with a pike pole with machete lashed to it cutting kelp in the kelp bed. The weather was rough and raining but more from southeast giving us some shelter. Severin commented on the two seiners, not the usual ones, making a set just off the haystack and said. “Look at those crazy fools. Out in this vether..” I silently wondered what they thought of us in a skiff just outside the surf line cutting kelp. That summer i finally got over being sea sick. Severin told me that he had told Kenny, when he was with him and sea sick, “Yah in a couple months out here you vill either get over it or die.”
What wonderful experiences you all had. I bet the lessons you learn were lifelong ones. Thanks so much for sharing