Summer of Slime Pays Off

 A knock on the door roused me reluctantly from a deep sleep. It must be morning, or was it afternoon? Night? The thick sheet my roommates and I affixed over the window had slipped, allowing abundant light to cascade over our bunks. Still not an indicator of the time here in the Land of the Midnight Sun. 

"You guys wanna work?" Antonio, one of the company supervisors called through the door. 

I sat upright. After two weeks of doing little else besides eating, sleeping, and dragging wooden pallets down to the "beach" for sunset bonfires at 1 a.m., I was anxious to make some money. 

Several of us followed Antonio to the dimly lit processing facility. Puddles covered the floor, and the smell was nauseating, but after a few minutes, I grew accustomed to it.

Eyeing the monstrous machinery with trepidation, I learned it would not be running today. The king salmon which we would be cleaning were too large for the automated processors. On average, king salmon weigh 25-50 pounds. We were shown a rudimentary demonstration on how to cut them open, remove their entrails, and scrape away the blood line, running the length of their backs. I lugged one of the slippery fish to my table and set to work.

Four hours later, my wrists and back were aching. Luckily, we were finished with that batch. A few days later, the smaller salmon arrived in droves, and I went to work on the "slime line." The fish were cut open and gutted by a machine, then traveled down a long conveyor belt where 10-15 "slimers," (us) awaited. We grabbed them quickly as they went by, scraped out the goo the machine missed, cleaned the blood line, and sent them on to racking and freezing. The first shift lasted about nine hours, the next day, it was twelve. 

To relieve the monotony, I went back and forth between the slime line and the egg table. Shorter people were usually sent to lean over the egg table for hours on end; even at my vertically challenged 5'3", it became backbreaking after awhile. 

Arguably, the egg table was one of the most lucrative stations for the company. As the fish were automatically gutted and sent down the conveyor belt, the entrails were spit out onto a slanting metal table. Two people were stationed at this table to grab the valuable egg sacs. It was fast paced work; as they had to be pulled away from the rest of the innards before they slid down a chute leading under the floor. 

Once several buckets of eggs were filled, a Japanese man would come and collect them, taking them for further processint to the "egg house," located somewhere inside the complex. Voila! Salmon roe caviar. 

Around the second week in July, the height of salmon season, the shifts increased to 16 hour days. Eight hours of processing fresh fish, and eight hours of packing frozen fish. It broke up the day slightly; I preferred working with the frozen fish. It was colder, but dry, and not as messy.

And so the next several weeks passed without a day off. It may sound unbearable, but it was surprisingly rewarding. Despite cramped muscles and exhaustion from standing so long, laughing and talking with co-workers in the same boat (no pun intended) made the work easier. Many of my fellow processors were Mexican, or Filipino; some were older drifters, some were college students, too. 

At season's end, there was a celebration in the chow hall, during which the crew bosses congratulated us, and each other, on all of our hard work. Looking around, there were a lot fewer people than there had been at the beginning of summer; even one of my Connecticut friends had returned home prematurely. 

Several days later, I boarded one of the small bush planes back to King Salmon, and then continued on to Anchorage. With a sizeable paycheck, I was able to splurge on some sightseeing, including a day cruise of the Kenai Fjords out of Seward. Sailing past majestic glaciers, sea lions basking on rocks, cliffs dotted with Pacific Puffins, all served as a preamble to the journey's highlight:  three humpback whales, frolicking about 70 yards off the starboard bow. One of them breeched, completely clearing the water in a midair flip that drew a collective gasp from everyone on board. 

Leaving Alaska, I set up a base in Seattle, spending a week visiting my cousin, eating at the top of the famous Space Needle, and taking a bus back north to spend a couple days in Vancouver. The Capillano suspension bridge was unforgettable. 

As summer was winding down, I reluctantly made plans to return to my university in time for the start of classes. Portales, New Mexico, was a 52-hour bus ride from Seattle, but bearable with picturesque stops in Salt Lake City, and Grand Junction, Colorado.