Well. I’m kinda bummed to say it, but I’m leaving Sitka. The herring season was short and the long days are over. As well as leaving such a beautiful place I also wish I could have made a little more money. The past few days have been exciting, though. I made a lot of great friends here, and like usual, had way too much fun. My last hoorah, last night, started with a good friend from Sandpoint picking me up and taking me to town to get some drinks. He’s up here doing construction for some outfit from the lower 48, and I’m a little jealous of him. For me to see places like this I have to be knee deep in fish guts part of the time. I am very fortunate to be able to embrace opportunities like this and get shit-faced with exceptional people in exceptionally beautiful places. It was so refreshing to hear that the fishery had closed, and that I’ll soon be heading up to my room in Valdez, but I don’t think just shots and beers downtown was exciting enough for my friend. A police officer was patrolling the bars, which they do entirely too often here, and on his way out, my good buddy started making fun of him. Something along the lines of “you’re pretty old to be in the academy”, or “Sitka cops aren’t REAL cops”. I don’t know why I expected the police guy to tell us to have a good night and go on his merry way, but he was really pissed at Homeboy. Everyone in the bar was asking me what his problem was and I expressed to them that he was a really humble dude, and is definitely not the type of guy to stir things up like this. They told me “Go get him, take him home”. I thought “Yeah. I’ll just tell the cops he’s had a couple too many and I’m walking him to his house”. So I put my arm around him and called him Larry and said “C’mon Larry I’m taking you home”. The cop wasn’t amused by me trying to squirrel out of the situation, and called for back up, and momentarily detained me, and took our licenses, and called us names, and was just a real asshole. I know you all know I’m a smart ass, and I was so stoked about being done with work that I might have been smiling and laughing a little too much during this whole ruckus, but I was really trying to be the voice of reason. I don’t need any more trouble in my life, and I’ve kept my act clean for a really long time now.

Pretty cute except for those blood red eyes staring at me.

Anyway… the cops gave us our licenses back and asked where we were going, and I said I had to meet some friends to get back to the fish plant. Officer Dipshit said he didn’t want to see us out the rest of the night. I told my buddy that it had been fun, but we gotta go our separate ways, and I met up with my co-workers at the other bar. Fast-forward three hours to closing time at The Pioneer Bar. I see aforementioned officer and I straight-line it for the door. Not trying to create a scene on my way out, apparently he spotted me and was  quicker. Right as my foot stepped out the entrance of the bar, a hand grabs my arm and pulls me aside and starts singing the same song from hours ago. I told him that I let him know I was meeting up with these people, and this is the ride I was talking about, and I gotta go. Everyone from the plant that had just walked into this stupid argument, without any knowledge of the initial fracas, was really taken aback by the cops actions, and I think between me staying level-headed, and the onslaught that he was about to get from my great new Sitka family, he made the decision to let me go. I don’t think my Sandpoint buddy shares the disdain for police men that I do, but I think he wanted to show them he could question them. Either way, Red Kid, now you know the rest of the story, and thanks for an exciting send off.

Oh. And the bears in the pictures are rescue bears that a guy keeps in captivity just a stone’s throw from my bunkhouse here in Sitka. I just learned of the place a week ago, and went there after a sixteen hour shift, and just about passed out on the railing.

Goodbye, Bear!

So long, Sitka. You’ve been delightful.

Well, I’m still waiting for fish to show up, here in Sitka. It’s been a long wait, but they’re on their way. It looks like we could have herring in the plant as soon as tomorrow. The internet’s been coming and going in the bunkhouses, so I’ve only done a few things on the ol’ Facebook machine. I would like to get some  decent video editing software, and I think the only program I’ve succeeded with that didn’t come with my computer was a conversion tool, but I did manage to piece together a decent little video. Then, I had to wait until I was online again and start a Youtube account. Now you can view part of my run down Verstovia Mountain, here on my blog.

I am starting this blog from a fish processing plant in Sitka. I have worked in Alaska for a couple of years, and now I am processing herring. I left my job in Montana three weeks early to get a chance to come to a place I’ve always wanted to be and make some money. It is bittersweet that I came here to work, and left a job at a wonderful place where the snowboarding is phenomenal.  Montana. The snowboarding in Montana is phenomenal. I love the lift lines, I love the mountains, and I love snowboarding.

Boats and Tenders at Eliason Harbor.

So. Here I am in Sitka sitting in my bunkroom listening to a playlist I made called “Sleep in Alaska”. I have four roommates in a 275 square foot room. When the herring fishing picks up, we will just be ships passing in the night, metaphorically. Realistically we would more likely be on forklifts. As for now, everyone has a lot of time on their hands. There must be around one hundred and sixty people here, and they look forward to meal times and work.

My first shot of an eagle. Chillin' over The Indian River

Even though I have had to give many a wide-eyed fish processor the “you just wait ’til the fish get here, then you’ll wish you had the time off” speech, I had never been on the receiving end of it. I have been a carpenter, and a dock worker, and a foreman, but never had this much time off in Alaska. Although I really could use the money, and just want this next couple of weeks to be over, I couldn’t be stranded in a better place. I am exceptionally focused on this blog, today, because I am extremely sore from a few hour sessions at the gym, and satiated from the black velvet and PBR I had in town last night. This afternoon, I plan on hiking to two lakes from a trail that starts near the fish plant. The trail ends near Whale Park, which is the closest attraction to the fish plant. About two miles away. There are orcas, and porpoises, and even humpback whales, and everyone’s seen them but me. Most likely not everybody has been within 15 feet from a brown bear, but I have yet to see a whale, and I want to see a frickin’ whale.

Mountain side.

The town of Sitka is very pleasant to me. The little old houses near the water with the chimes and windsocks remind me of the coasts of Northern California, or Oregon. The wilderness has it’s own, confident and overwhelming personality, and the ocean smells wonderful. All of that topped with a seemingly constant under 40 degrees temperature, and apparent lack of assholes makes this place pretty damn awesome to me. I don’t want to live here… a long time anyway… but like I said, what an awesome place to be stranded.

Hey, Everybody! I recently have a lot of time on my hands, so I’m messing with my web site a bit. First order of business is that it’s now a web log. I wanted to distinguish rypie.com by creating my own templates and style sheets, and such, but to continue publishing it without content, or items or services for sale, or any real focus besides myself would be a little tricky. Since I do only want to talk about myself, and because wordpress has it’s own plug-ins, and databases, I’m blogging.