Making smoked salmon; we have a smokehouse that we built while we were on strike; we fileted the red salmon, cut them in strips, brine them for an hour or so, and tied them in pairs so we could hang them over a 1" x 3" in the smokehouse.

Our leadman, Jade, (in the orange rain gear) and Mac Meiners pick out females and undersized tanners,  after we picked our subsistence pot. I have the water going in the crab cooker already!

Our leadman, Jade, (in the orange rain gear) and Mac Meiners pick out females and undersized tanners,  after we picked our subsistence pot. I have the water going in the crab cooker already!

Making smoked salmon; we have a smokehouse that we built while we were on strike; we fileted the red salmon, cut them in strips, brine them for an hour or so, and tied them in pairs so we could hang them over a 1" x 3" in the smokehouse.

We smoke the fish strips and filets for 24 hours, they dry them at 70 F. or so for a week, till the strips ar dry; the Alutiq call it "balik" (just a guess on the spelling); we also make "sikiyuk"; whole filets of salmon, slashed diagonally at three- inch intervals,  joined at the tail still, only smoked and dried for two or three days(It's still raw in the center); then we bake it with onions; have it with rice (and peas). We canned quite a bit , too, Kodiak is very moist; drying fish requires care, to avoid mold and souring...

I used to longline for halibut; I always was the guy that cleaned the fish: removed gills and guts and packed the fish with ice, always white side up, in the fish hold...I like to practice, even though salmon seining coincides with halibut fishing too much for me to do it seriously any more...I should; the prices for Halibut and other longline-caught fish is way up; over $2.00/lb ....!  I'm not going to complain too much, we did better than most salmon fishermen.

We eat some red meat, too; deer season opens the first of August; the limit used to be six, eight or ten years ago; a series of bad winters has been hard on the deer population; the limit's been reduced to three; I didn't see enough to get that many!  This used to be a lot more common sight than it is any more...

One red and one blue King Crab, caught out of our subsistence pot... we may not get rich, be we eat like we are!