You will enjoy my brother Dave’s second story about his time working out of Waterfall on a cannery tender. Now a first year skipper of the tender GOLDEN WEST, what is he to do when his mate brings a puppy aboard? The story is also available in BONDED BY WATER, a memoir Dave published in 2014.
A note from Dave: “I continue to be thankful to the many friends and relations who contributed to the writing and the favorable comments continuing to come my way making me glad I finished BONDED BY WATER. If you are interested in a copy, email Dave Olson at dbolson72@comcast.net and I will respond to your interest in BONDED BY WATER.”
Tim Olson
"GOLDIE" GETS A MASCOT
On the evening July 3rd, prior to the beginning of trap season, Don Franett, Assistant Superintendent, dispatched the Goldie to Craig, Alaska, a small 
fishing village and commercial town twelve miles from Waterfall. On arrival I turned the crew loose with orders to be back aboard before midnight. Off they went to have a couple of beers at one of the local saloons. When they dutifully showed up at curfew, mate Sam Deniston was carrying a skinny buff-colored three or four month old puppy he had found wandering around, apparently lost on the waterfront boardwalk. He said, “Look, he’s homeless. We can adopt him for crew-company on the boat. Name him Mrs. Roberts (after the title character in the best selling novel of life on a navy supply ship during World War ii.) Promise I’ll take care of him, including boat breaking, – no shit on deck – Okay?”
“No way!” I said “You hustle him off to where you picked 
him up, and get your butt back to the boat.”
Five minute later Sam reported back and we took off. Perhaps an hour later Sam gleefully appeared in the pilothouse with the puppy saying “Somehow Mr. Roberts managed to follow me back to the boat. Guess someone put him back on board.”
There was no returning to Craig as I already had orders for the boat’s movement the next day. Sam wrote in the log, “Mr. Roberts came aboard sober.” Sam was forgiven. For the rest of the run to the cannery, my mind as on the story I’d be telling the bosses.
Mr. Roberts was trainable, smart, and took to the boat life well. He was boat-broke in a week. As time went on with Mr. Roberts aboard, on arrival at Waterfall, we were waved away as other tenders 
didn’t want us tied up along side their boats. The reason was Roberts would eagerly stand at the rail as we came in for a landing. As soon as I eased us close enough, he would leap to the deck of the other boat – and do his duty. His notoriety spread through the fleet and all the way to the superintendent’s office.
Most of that season was spent making daily runs south from the cannery to pick up the catch of Nakat owned or affiliated purse seiners fishing out of Port Bazan, a protected harbor on the west side of Dall Island. Our almost daily job cycle was to make the seven-hour run south in the afternoon, anchor up on 
arrival and spend the evening counting and loading the catches from each of the seiners selling to Nakat, and then up anchor and make the run through the night back to the cannery for unloading the fish the next morning. This return run could be a bit nerve-wracking because there was always a moderate sea 
with fog to keep you awake through the night.
On August 20 we made our routine afternoon run down to Port Bazan. After anchoring and dinner we were prepared by six-thirty to load fish and finished loading just after midnight. Throughout those hours no one gave a thought to where Mr Roberts was hanging out. Underway for return to the cannery, Sam went looking for him. He returned to the pilothouse crestfallen with the news that Roberts had disappeared. He wrote in the log, “ Mr. Roberts jumped ship 0120-0140 hours.”
We were back at Port Bazan to load fish the next evening. Sam asked the crew of every seiner as they came along side us if they had seen or heard 
anything of a dog swimming in the harbor the previous evening. One reported seeing a seiner crew (not on one of our Nakat boats) pick up a lost dog either swimming in the harbor or barking on the beach. ”They have taken your Mr. Roberts with them to Hydaburg, their home port.” All of us were amazed and ecstatic to hear Roberts was alive, but realism, more or less, dictated Roberts beginning a third life in Hydaburg, a small ou-of-the-way native village, perhaps three to four hours from Port Bazan where no Nakat tender ever had reason to go.
Or so we thought. During lunch while we docked at Waterfall on August 25, Bill Funken, the cannery superintendent decided he needed a tender to take him down to Nutkwa trap, which was owned by the the Haida, an Alaskan Native group, but serviced and fished under contract with Nakat. The schedule showed the Golden West had the time, so I was told to fire up for us to make the brief trip.
Soon we were underway, Sam observed the route to the trap location passed within two miles of Hydaburg. The only time consideration was to be at the trap in time for closing before the legal deadline of 
six-o’clock. “Dave, you know we can stop in Hydaburg for fifteen minutes to see if we can find Mr. Roberts,” Sam calculatd.
”Yeah, if you can sell Mr.Funken,” I said.
Mr. Funken was with us in the pilothouse listening and laughing.
“Is it okay?” asked Sam.
Luckily, Funken had previously been introduced to Mr. Roberts on the cannery dock before his disappearance and knew the story. Also, we knew Hydaburg had one pier with one short road forming a “T” going each way from the land end of the dock. Funken agreed, but a warning whistle would blow after ten minutes, allowing five more to get back on the boat – with or without Roberts.
We had hardly stopped alongside the dock when Sam and two other crew bounded off the boat to split up and make the search. They disappeared shouting, “Here, Mr. Roberts, come on Roberts, where are you?” Before it was time to blow the warning whistle, they all returned carrying ice cream cones for sharing with the rest of us – and Roberts was joyfully running for the boat ahead of them.
Sam wrote in the log, ”Roberts returned from five days A.W.O.L.” The two became inseparable and Mr. Roberts was major entertainment on the GOLDIE for the remainder of the season.
To read Dave Olson’s previous story CAPTAIN COOL – click here –
