And so I found myself in Arcata, on the California North Coast, smack in the midst of Coastal Redwood forests, delicious produce of local organic farms and farm markets, and remnants of the 1960s.

I was feeling restless by the end of last year, and it seemed like an extended hiatus from my home town of Juneau, Alaska was in order, to explore and photograph the rest of the West Coast. I packed my car with whatever (my friend Carl, miraculously) could fit in it, plus my tortoise and my cat, and a couple of favorite plants for good measure, and set sail on the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry for Bellingham. I spent a month at a friend’s house on San Juan Islands, visited old friends and made new ones along the way, replaced cars, and in February threw anchor in Arcata. And here’s where the story really begins. And it begins for two good reasons – to share my favorite photos from this area and to keep me from loosing a bet and having to make and wear a chicken costume…

I spent two days last week in and around the Prairie Creek Redwood State Park, watching the elk and scouting locations for possible shots of Rhododendrons flowering amongst the Redwoods. The classical Redwoods Forest picture, of course. It’s still a bit early – another couple of weeks before they will start blooming in full force, but I am ready!. The Prairie Creek Park, which is roughly half way between California’s northernmost coastal city, Crescent City, and Arcata has become one of my favorite spots. I spent several days exploring it in January, and with so many old-growth trees, lots of day-long hikes, a couple of campings spots, and the famed Fern Canyon, it is certainly a gem.

While settling for the night on the beach at the Dry Lagoon (where, officially, you can’t camp), I met two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists – a fishery biologist and a herpetologist, to be exact – who came to fish in the surf for surfperch. Unfortunately, the waves were too big for the fish to be close enough to the shore, but I did get several interesting shots. I hope to try fishing for surfperch myself soon – it seems quite removed from combat-style fishing for salmon in certain areas of Alaska, yet has the high energy of breaking waves and expansive beaches.

Berners Bay is a jewel of Southeast Alaska. Located just 45 miles north of Juneau, it is a picturesque small bay, accessible by kayaks and boats from the end of Juneau’s road system. Not only is the bay and its system of rivers an important spawning area for several species of fish, it is also a favorite recreational area for many Juneaunites. But, like so many pristine areas that are not far from population centers, it is threatened by a proposed road that will snake around it, and a near-complete mine that will tower on its East side.

Every spring, around the end of April – beginning of May, Berners Bay bursts to life with an explosion fueled by small and inconspicuous-looking fish. Returning from roaming the ocean, these fish enter Berners Bay and go up Berners and Antler Rivers to spawn. For just two weeks, what follows needs to be seen to be believed. The back of the bay, the delta area of two small rivers and sandy intertidal beaches, usually very tranquil and relaxing, explodes with thousands of sea gulls descending on the fish as they enter the rivers. Dozens of seals and sea lions follow the fish towards the sandy shallows of the rivers’ deltas, where they are out of the reach of orcas that also come in for a snack. Humpback whales show up in greater numbers than usual, often being the first and the last to greet a human visitor to the bay.

The culprit of this explosion is eulachon. Also known as hooligan, Thaleichthys pacificus, are an anadromous (living in saltwater and spawning in freshwater) species of smelt. They are so rich in fat when returning to spawn, if dried and lit, they will burn like candles. In fact, their high fat content is the reason they are so sought-after by so many birds and other animals. I can attest that they are very tasty to people, too, lightly fried or smoked.

I was graciously allowed by Pete Schneider, a U.S. Forest Service fisheries biologist, in charge of the Berners Bay eulachon study to join their field camp for several days during the eulachon run the past spring. I was hosted by two U.S.F.S. field biologists, Chad Hood and David Beatley, who worked out of the Hooligan Camp on a bank of Antler River, trapping, measuring and tagging the fish caught in three traps along the river. Although this year’s run was small, the experience gave me a greater appreciation of the importance of these fish to the whole Berners Bay ecosystem and provided me with a couple of photography projects I will be exploring over the next year.

With the halibut and black cod (sablefish) season just opening in Alaska, I decided to post a few photos from my photo archive of the halibut fishery from Dutch Harbor, Alaska from 2005. Halibut can get very large. They are one of the largest bone fishes, not that rarely reaching over 300 pounds. At about 3 to 5 dollars a pound paid to fishermen, such a fish could easily fetch over a thousand dollars. They are commercially fished with a longline – a line stretching up to several miles with baited hooks every foot or so. A buoy is tied to one end of the line, and when the line is set, it floats on the water surface, indicating where the line starts. After soaking for one to several days, the line is retrieved. Once caught, halibut are usually bled right away by having their gills removed. They are put in a fish hold below the main deck and covered with ice, which keeps them fresh for up to several days.

Once delivered, large halibut are offloaded individually by tying a line over their tail peduncle and lifted with a crane. Smaller ones are loaded in brailers (mesh sasks) and brought up from the fish hold in bunches, also with a crane. Several options are available for processing them. They could be packed in large shipping boxes with fresh ice and shipped to markets in the Lower 48, often to Seattle. They are also commonly cleaned, headed and gutted and then sent to fish markets.

I was lucky to meet Charlie – captain of F/V Erika Ann – while photographing Tanner crab processing at the Alaska Glacier Seafoods in Juneau, Alaska. He graciously invited me to accompany him on a two-day golden king crab fishing trip to photograph the fishery in Lynn Canal in Southeast Alaska. As he was leaving in a couple of hours when I met him, I had to rush home across town to get my photo gear ready and pack my Grundens raingear and some layers in a duffel bag. Given that it was February, unpredictable and potentially  cold in Lynn Canal, I had to pack more than usual, not knowing whether the temperature would drop and the wind would pickup overnight.

F/V Erika Ann is a very comfortable 59-foot boat based out of Petersburg, Alaska. Besides Charlie the captain, it had two great crew – Paul and Jon from Petersburg and Wrangell, respectively. Like most pot-fishing boats in Southeast Alaska, F/V Erika Ann uses cone-shaped pots. Fishing vessels crabbing in the Bering Sea are often larger and thus have the space for large square 700-pound pots. Three bait cups, stuffed with chopped herring and pink salmon, are suspended in each cone pot. The pots are light enough that they can be pushed off the landing rail by a single person. The pots are also not “long-lined”, i.e., not tethered together by a line that could stretch for miles. Rather, the whole assemblage consists of a pot attached to a line stretching to the surface, where it is attached to two buoys that float on the surface.

Pots are left to soak for one to several days, long enough to attract king crab and welcome them inside. To retrieve a pot, a three-prong hook is thrown  over the line connecting the two buoys. The buoys are pulled in by hand and the line is put on the hydraulic wheel which pulls the pot up from the bottom. The line is accurately coiled, and often put in a tub. Once the pot is at the surface, it is hooked by a hook from the crane and moved on the landing square rail on deck. The bottom of the cone pot is then opened, and crab fall into a tub. Once on deck, crab are sorted and all females and sub-legal males (smaller than 16.5 inches wide, I believe) are tossed back to live and love. The keepers are put through a chute into a holding tank underneath the deck, which is filled with circulating sea water that keeps them alive and well.

Usually, when crab is delivered live to processing plants, they are cooked and frozen. However, F/V Erika Ann was fishing for a niche market that delivered fresh live crab to markets and restaurants down south, primarily in Seattle. Once back at the dock, crab was quickly offloaded into large square boxes lined with ice packs, and flown to Seattle. Once at their final destination, they were “revitalized” by being submerged in cold sea water, and then sold live.

Too see more of my favorite photos from this trip, CLICK HERE.