June 30: Dragonfly

Ever since 2008, Alex and dragonflies have been linked in my mind. I think this was the event that made this link. Can you see the dragonfly on his life jacket? He protected it there for as long as it would stay. With dragonflies, it's not very long.

And seeing the brothers working together like this has made this one of my favorite pairs of photos, taken in Alex's last year of fishing.

I've told this story several times, but this is really where it belongs. When Alex died last year, it took me a few days before I could make myself leave the cabin to go fishing (or anything else). I meant to before that, but it just never worked out. So when I finally did, the first day that I came back from fishing, the little bird that had been singing to me all summer from the peak of my roof flew down to the clothesline and really sang hard at me. I remember saying, "Yeah, yeah, I know. He's as free as a bird now. But it was never birds for me with Alex; it was dragonflies." And with that, I went back to my cabin.

The next day, when I returned to the cabin after the second day of fishing, when I was the same place on the walkway, a dragonfly, the only one I saw all season, came flitting around me. I was grateful. Last night when I was carrying the fireworks and other supplies down the steps to the beach, I saw the only dragonfly of the season (so far). I was grateful. And then I received an email from a dear friend of Alex. She wrote this, "Im waiting at the ferry terminal in Anacortes to go visit my sister and a dragonfly just flew up to me, he came about eye level and stayed there for a good minute then flew off. I think I've probably seen about 5 dragonflies in my life; seeing one today, on Alex's anniversary, was quite nostalgic." Hmmmm.

*1992

Alex grew up fishing. Here he was his first summer in the cabin, before he was one year old.

His dad, Scott, didn't want to spend the whole sum-mer with-out him so he came up for part of it. This is Scott, David, and Alex as Scott is getting ready to fly back to Seattle.

*1993

This was the next year. He was sitting with his uncle.

*1996

I think I may have been too preoccupied in the next few years to take many photos. They were hectic years, to say the least. Happily, other people took some. Here is Alex, probably about 3 years old, with his cousin, Anisha, washing clothes out on the tundra. They played together a lot. One time they were playing on the cliff, over near or on Anisha's stairs and Alex fell. I don't remember the details, but I do remember that Anisha thought quickly and saved him from a really hard fall. We had a hero party for her. He liked to torture me with my worry. When he was two, before he actually did fall down the cliff, he positioned himself perpendicular to the cliff when I was about 20' away, swaying toward it and then away, calling over to me, "Mooommm, I'm gonna faaallll."

*2001

Fast forward several years to 2001 when Kaitlin, our neighbor, came up to babysit Alex. She was a delight and they had a great time... so did I. (She came back the next year as a crew member.) She managed to take some photos this year. Yay, Kaitlin. This first one is Alex and me dancing in the cabin.

And this is a pair of photos that Kaitlin took. The cabin has a little loft over my bedroom where the kids slept. I put cargo netting up to prevent accidental falls, with a strict rule that they were not to be played in. I think this is Alex trying to play in the net, without breaking the rule... exactly.

I think this is the same year that David's step-cousin(?) came fishing with us. Alex always enjoyed other people, no matter what. Justin was huge and probably about 17 or 18. Alex, in Alex's way, connected with him right away. He had a way of syncing with anyone. I remember that he would play chess with his friends who were into that kind of thing, and in the next week, he would play on the cliff with our neighbor who was two years younger. He just enjoyed interacting with other people and could almost always find a way to connect.

This year we flew over to Katmai. It was before David convinced me that we wouldn't fall off the edge if we took the skiff across Naknek Lake.

*2003

I don't re-mem-ber quite when he did that - maybe 2003? But this is the first year we ven-tured to Katmai by skiff. Alex's sense of fash-ion was al-ready in full swing.

*2004

2004 was a difficult year for a new reason and this year, Alex found a limit to his ability to connect with other people. He wanted to move out of my cabin into the crew cabin, but David and Sarah couldn't come that year and Josh could come only for a little bit. Happily, my nephew Ben (Trina's older son) was able to come with his family, but again, only for a little while. The two kids we had with that season were not a good choice. They were so mean to Alex that he actually moved back to my loft. And he was a stubborn kid. But one morning he got up to find beluga swimming past. He came back to get me so I could see them too. And by now, I had a camera again!

Here is another from this series. Alex really proved himself this year and the next, at least in his understanding of how to work in the skiffs. Even at 12, his help was more helpful than the older boys who were so mean. By the next year, I also saw that he had a firm grasp of the concept of leverage. That kid could pull more than his body weight if he could just get himself in the right position to do it.

*2005

The next year was much better! We had a series of tough fishing years when the Kvichak run wasn't coming back as expected, so Fish and Game removed us from our traditional sites and had us fish in the river to avoid intercepting any Kvichak fish. The river is a hard place to fish because we are separated from our cabins and therefore, our stuff and the current is fast! Fishing in the river has its positives, though: if your site is reasonably near the mouth of the river, and if there any fish, you'll get some. We weren't the only ones that got fish this year. It's a good thing we were fishing with a skiff - this pick was after we'd already cleared the net at least once. Maybe twice. This year had a lot of hard work - our total was 170,772 lbs. I don't remember how many nets we fished that year but it was no more than 100 fathoms because when we fish in the river, we are allowed to fish only 25 fathoms, not 50. Alex was right there with all of us, fishing hard, working hard, not getting enough sleep. He was happy too.

Also on the positive side, because it was cold and we couldn't get back to the cabin, we spent a lot of time together around a campfire, trying to stay warm and enjoying each other's company. David took this photo and it's always been one of my favorites.

*2006

The next year (2006) was one of the hardest fishing years I've ever had - and one of the best - because of a perfect storm of circumstances. We were already short crewed with only six crew members: David, Sarah, Alex, Josh, me, and Erik - the new guy. Then Sarah had a wedding to attend in early July and Alex got a knee injury while we were fishing in the river (terrifyingly, he got his foot caught in the anchor line on its way out. It jumped up and caught him and after some dancing, it let him go. ) So there were only four of us left when they moved us out of the river and into the district... and the run hit. It came later than it ever had since 1959 when my family started fishing (and probably some time before that as well), in the middle of a huge storm with 45 MPH winds that lasted for days. The fish buyer was unprepared so we couldn't deliver the fish from the flood, and the ranger was out of commission. We had also been trying to drift in the river during drift openings, so we weren't sleeping. It was a miserable 3 days, but as always, the kids were great and it was the way that we all pulled together, just putting our heads down and working through it that made it also one of my best experiences ever. I'm glad I have these photos because otherwise, I would probably only remember those traumatic few days. These photos remind me that this year also gave us much joy... and eventually, depth. Here is Alex, with life jacket inside his t-shirt, lying on the buoys we are taking to the river to set out.

All the kids always prefer to take the four-wheeler, especially on a nice day. After a day of setting out buoys in the river, Alex and Josh, the other older brother, decided to ride back together. They spent a lot of time together on the four wheeler that summer. We often liked to have the four wheeler ride shotgun with the truck because I was always afraid that the truck wouldn't make it and we'd need the four wheeler to go for help, right away. This year, Josh and Alex were riding shotgun back to the cabin some night and they happened onto a bear (the big grizzly type). When we tried to decide whether to go to Katmai at the end of that season, Alex said, "That bear on the beach was Katmai enough for me."

This is our first set net opening of the year, in the river. This photo shows Alex attaching the brailer bag to the pelican for Brad to lift out and take over to the waiting insulated totes on the same 2 1/2 ton trucks that still come to the beach (and when I want to sound really knowledgeable, I call them "deuce and a halfs").

Alex and Josh, working together to pull the nets.

This was the year that David (an excellent teacher) decided it was time to teach Alex to drive the skiff. David did a fine job, and so did Alex.

Again, the sense of fashion emerges. Really, though, this is Alex's sense of fun. I always end up with a collection of hats in the boat. I'll put them on because I'm cold, but I always warm up when we're fishing and take them off and stuff them in a dry bag or in the steering console if I'm in a hurry. Additionally, I'll usually bring some spares along, just in case. Alex decided it would be fun to wear them all at once.

David really took the lead in the drift fishing. He is way better at handling a skiff than I am. We fished out of our skiff in the midst of all the big 32' boats. I decided to buy a drift permit because a new ruling was decided that effectively shut setnetters down when we were put in the river to fish. This was a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" decision. However, despite David's considerable skill in skiff handling and the whole crew's nerves of steel when it came to competing with these big boys for a set on the line, we weren't that good at it... and it was exhausting because our setnet skiff wasn't set up for drifting. But we did it. Every single opening. Which is part of the reason we were so wiped out when the run finally hit later in July.

Here is my crew, capitalizing on the skiff's maneuver-ability relative to the drift boats', racing for a set on the line, Alex in the bow, of course. Exciting for them; a little terrifying for me.

Brad let Alex ride the forks up to the top of the truck and then fly down with them. I've always thought that such a photo would loosen the bowels of the risk management folks at the processors, but Brad knew what a kid could do and really, needed to do.

This was our last night tide in 2006. That is Alex in silhouette.

*2007

This was Alex in the 2007 season. Goofball as always. His friends Paul and Erinn came up this year. We started in the river again - that's where this photo was taken.

We took the skiff to Katmai this year. It was the second time. One of these days, I'll learn to look at the weather forecast. It was windy and that's worse on a fresh water lake than in brakish water like we fish in. We only meant to have a day trip and go see the bears. But the rangers (park rangers, that is) pretty much forbade us to take the skiff back when we planned to because it was so rough and they were afraid we would get hurt. David was scornful, observing that we fish in worse weather than that. But I couldn't think of a reason to take that risk, so we camped, thanks to the borrowed camping equipment provided by the park ranger staff. So we got to spend a bit more time looking around and seeing the bears. Here is Alex, making this photo of the biggest bear in the falls, much more interesting.

*2008

2008 was Alex's last year fishing, before we enrolled him in the John Dewey Academy where he faced even greater challenges than bringing in 230,000 lbs of salmon, which is what this crew did in Alex's last year. It was our record.

I don't remember if it was the first year of fishing in the New Boat, but I do remember how much Alex enjoyed being part of the New Boat crew.

This was the year that Alex really began to pay attention to our delicate and beautiful tundra. He and another crew member, Carbon, spent a lot of time walking in the tundra and theorizing about it. Alex is over looking the bay in this photo and I think I remember that Carbon was down below. I used to bring toys, like big styrofoam glider planes and I think Alex and Carbon were learning about updrafts here.

This was the bonfire we finally had at the end of the season. In one of our heavy tides of this season, Alex realized that quite a few fish had hit the net after we finished going through it. I realized it too, but had decided that the crew was too tired and I was going to just get them on the flood of the next tide, but I didn't want to say that plan out loud because it was not the best decision, except that it was the crew-sparing decision and we were tired. Since I didn't say anything, Alex just tied Skook's line around his waist, bent into the wind and the mud, and dragged that boat out the quarter mile to the outside site to get those fish and bring them in. When I saw that, I knew that he had arrived as a full-fledged crew member - no longer The Kid. And the rest of us went along to help.