Fishing for King Crab

The rumors are true, Commercial fishing in Alaska is a COLD, exhilarating and deadly profession.

Sitting inside a warm cab and driving back towards my hotel I struck up a conversation with my cab driver. My Alaskan cabbie was a former physic's teacher, graduate school drop out turned Commercial Fisherman.

He described his years out on the water fishing each season for a different catch. Each story was more intriguing and admittedly more terrifying than the last.

The story I'll remember most, was his description of his frequent trips out on the ship to fish for King Crab. He said that fisherman work incessantly out on the ocean for 8 or 9 days at a time. They battle huge sea swells and lift heavy crab traps into the water just to drag indescribably heavy full ones out. He described cold that he said Philadelphians couldn't imagine-(And I couldn't I was shivering in 6 layers of clothing on one November evening [it was about 10 degrees out]. Forget about the winter in Alaska with minus 30 degree weather, soaked in icy ocean spray.) With wind chill he said it often felt like minus 60 or 70 degrees. He said that he stayed warm only by moving. He felt that if he stopped for even a moment his blood might freeze in his veins.

This lean, tall, bearded and distinguished man behind the wheel of the cab really looked the part. I could imagine him dressed in heavy layers of wool, topped with bright colored rain gear, shouting to his fellow fishermen.

He told me that he could actually see ice form before his eyes- water would turn to ice in front of him. He said that when the crab traps were sitting on the boat and waves would wash over them he would have to "scramble like a monkey" up the huge piles of crab traps to chip, chisel, and slash new ice off of the traps. Ice would form so quickly and so thickly that its weight could actually sink the boat.

His stories were so vivid, exciting and horrifying that when we reached our warm hotel, with fireplaces glowing in each room, it was almost comical to hear this strong man, who had thrived in the intensity of life on the icy sea, wish us farewell saying..."come back in the spring- it is beautiful then-- and warm, You'll never leave."