Letters from Naknek Part 2

A Chronicle of a first processor season at Leader Creek Fisheries

Wednesday, July 1st, 2020 (2:15 PM AK time)

Dear those who own birds, those who do not, those who have something they're not entirely sure what it is so they can't confidently classify as bird nor bird-less and will hopefully find this category of inclusion to be some comfort, and Erica (who expressly commanded this email, though I disobeyed and am sending it late),

First an apology! I'm sorry I've taken so long to write again. I've not forgotten nor have I been unwilling, I've been unable. For a great deal of it I was available to write save one detail: connection to the internet. What gods I angered I'll never know, but everyone else angered them, too. One day the WiFi said the password was wrong and so, confused, I re-entered the password that had signed me in before. No luck! Thus I realize the WiFi is no more, but day after day I repeat this until today, July 1st, the WiFi is back in order! I'm half afraid it shall only fail to send this and thusly give me false hopes—so dashing them is all the more ruining—but assuming you get this I'm sorry for being this late already.

With that apology and explanation out of the way, let's get to the meat of things. After a hard day of work, nothing can keep me from sleeping; I would know because I finally worked. I preface with the fact I've no sense of stability yet. The reason this letter isn't five lines containing all this same information is that I probably don't have to wake up in six hours to work, like I would if I was working my normal shift regularly. So while my hours have been ever-changing, so has how I spend my days. I work in packing and I've been assigned to pushing racks. But through the seven or so days and four shifts I've worked, I've pushed racks, scraped spines, racked (which isn't pushing racks but very closely related), loaded fillets into a bone picking machine, filled boxes with finished fillets, washed racks, and briefly shoveled ice.  I'm not going to explain everything I did because that would take too long and I'm tired and sleeping as soon as this is sent, but I'll explain pushing racks because I will be doing that once normalcy arrives.

It's what it sounds like. I push racks. Racks are square, metal shelves with square, metal trays in them. In theory, they all fit and slide out and back in. In practice, this is sometimes true and sometimes they do less sliding out and in and more wrestle-you-for-dominance and then submit, not because you've won, but because they got bored and decided they wanted to see you try to wrestle them back in. That aside, the metal pans are filled with fish (this is the job of racking, in short) and then pushed into a big, tunnel freezer called the Tunnel (you have 3 chances to guess why it's called that).

This is where I come in. My job is to go into the -30°F freezer (one time I blinked and had sweat on my eyelash and it partially froze shut), pull out the rack that's at least two hundred pounds of metal and fish on wheels, and take it outside where generally I push it into a machine called the dumper. It lifts up the rack nice and slow, tilts it up so fish can slide out and down, then proceeds to thrash up and down to beat the rack upon its side and dislodge the frozen fish. Then it sets the rack back down, I pull it out, and take it to the side. I make sure all the fish are all off the trays (if they aren't we scrap, bang, or yank them off and toss them onto the conveyor belt with the others), then push the lighter, empty rack into a line of racks to be washed and reused.

So yeah, that's what I'll be doing for the rest of my time here, more or less. I worked my first 16 hour shift today (the first of many) and honestly I'm not mentally tired. My legs are a little achy but fine. No, it's my feet that hate me. They just wish I was less me. Preferably less of all the heavy bits. I imagine in time I'll get used to it. Or I won't, and every day I'll love the sight of my bed because I get to sleep AND not stand.

I've nothing else to report besides that, but I can give some ball points on other things I've managed so far. I took laundry to the laundry ladies and picked it up (woo!), I've eaten, I've written this letter four times before praying I'd get WiFi in time for it to be relevant, slept, checked the reader board (TV's around campus) for my start times, been confused about schedules, got another Q-Tip shoved up my nose for COVID, tried to shower with my shirt on, adjusted my sleep schedule, and skipped meals because who needs food when you can sleep?

Also meeting people is strange. First, we end up working together. After a while, we realize this will last more than an hour and shout to be heard over the machines, music, and through hearing protection at each other. We ask each other's names then pretend we heard, understood, and will remember what the other person just told us. This is followed by a nod, proud of our accomplishment in bonding, and we go back to working. The only person I've really gotten to know so far is one coworker named Luke who's on my shift, so we have meals to talk where we actually hear each other. He pushes racks with me.

I miss you all. If anyone would like to trade feet, please contact me promptly. I've briefly read your replies to this email but any and all other messages you have for me will wait until later because now, I sleep.

Excitedly,

Jason