Naknek: Bears, Bones, Bald Eagles

Bald eagle on the beach

I am the front line against dental discomfort. I am what salmon tell their young about when they don’t eat all of their krill. I am spoken of in hushed voices around underwater campfires. I am a bone picker, tearing the bones out of the flesh of unfortunate salmon. Using a pair of tweezers.

I’ve recently finished my first shift in the plant. The afternoon was spent meticulously pulling tiny bones out of massive fillets. Riveting work, honestly. The task is almost surgical, an extraction of some large natural splinter, while doing as little harm as possible to the surrounding tissue.

Do you know the fishing regulations for Bristol Bay and the surrounding estuaries? I don’t. I couldn’t even find them online. Like almost everything here, it seems to be on a need-to-know and word-of-mouth basis. My supervisor didn’t even train us before our first shift, I was just put somewhere and began working, imitating the college students and tiny Asian octogenarians that surrounded me. I haven’t even actually met my supervisor.

The good news is that the plant is almost militant about cleanliness. Entering and exiting the processing area is very time consuming: put on a hairnet, put in your earplugs, put on your hat, put on another hairnet, wash and dry your hands, put on your rain gear, put on your eye protection, clock in, put on your glove liners, put on your gloves, wash your gloves and rain gear, step through the boot dip, and you’re in. Exiting is the exact opposite. So rest assured, your salmon is clean and bone-free.

This is like some semi-sadistic mix of a summer camp and a sweatshop. On one hand, we’re working insane hours doing repetitive, mindless work, we’re confined to a small space with stressful living and working conditions. Six people to a room, limited contact with the outside world, taking part in a process that is still shady without actually having sweatshops. On the other hand, we’re meeting hundreds of new people, mostly young adults. We start conversations with strangers because no one knows each other. We eat together. And we have bonfires together.

On my second night here, some of the employees decided to have a fire on the beach. It was an excellent time with no hiccups and was a great opportunity to meet coworkers. The sun shined until well after midnight.

Later that night, on the beach, two employees were charged by a grizzly bear. They ran and the bear backed off. No harm, just a heightened paranoia in camp. The next morning there were signs posted everywhere warning people to stay off the beach at night.

Bears are one of the several ways in which a person’s history with this fishery can be determined. Another way is their clothes. If a person’s clothes are spotless, for example, they’ve either just flown in or they are a wizened veteran. If someone is filthy, covered in mud and mosquito bites, they are somewhere in the middle; they’ve done some work and are too young and careless, unlike their older counterparts, to care about looking like a reputable supervisor or seaman. The bears, though, they can also show how long a person has been here. I walk boldly around blind corners, proud to have memorized the layout of the camp. Veterans notice the strange banging noise that I completely miss and stand behind the corner, slowly peering out to see if it is a bear trying to get into a dumpster. It’s usually just people cleaning buckets. Usually.

In Chile, I became familiar with one sound that would stop people in their tracks: the incredibly deep rumbling that comes from below and precedes earthquakes. The deadliest earthquake in recorded history occurred in Chile and the country experiences several earthquakes a day, so the fear is understandable.

In Naknek, Alaska, the equally paralyzing noise is someone yelling, “Bear!” Everyone stops, looking around tensely. Sometimes the bear is close and people run or get killed or the bear runs or gets killed. Most of the time, the bear is at a distance, wading in the river or chasing seagulls, and people give it a personal bubble that’s 200 yards in diameter.

Today I had my first encounter with a grizzly. I was walking down the beach when I spotted it stalking seagulls about a hundred yards away from me. I stayed just long enough to take a blurry photo and be alarmed by how quickly it ran before I turned around and jogged back to my building.

If mercurial weather, 12:30 am sunsets and 3:00 am sunrises, bears, and insane amounts of smelly work appeal to you, by all means, come to Naknek. It’s got everything you need.