A Fisherman’s Dream
Seward Gateway
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The other day running home
ftom Unga in my power dory, I
must have been asleep and
dreaming; I fancied I could
understand the fish language
£>nd to be able to carry on a con
versation with them. Passing
Kelly’s Rock fish trap, I saw a
commotion in the traplead; a
school of salmon was jumping
end splashing in an extraordin
ary manner. I hailed a straggler
coming out and said: “You fel
lers are raising the devil there;
you are throwing up your heels
the same as we do on dry land
when we are on a sourdough
jamboree; you must be celebrat
ing something?”
“No,” he said, “we are not on
a drunk, nor celebrating any
thing, but we are having a meet
ing; representatives from every
salmon-tribe on the coast have
met here to discuss different
tilings. We have just passed a
resolution to send a delegation
to Washington to petition the
President to have a law passed
b> Congress to compel trap-own -
ers to put an Ikon inside the jig
ger of every fishtrap with O’Mal
ley’s picture in it.”
‘‘Have you no Ikons of your
own and what do you want O’
Malley’s picture in your Ikons
for?” I asked him.
“Yea,” he said, “we have Ikons
of our own but left them behind
in our homes of the deep for our
descendants to worship, and be
side that we have only Christ’s
or His mother’s picture in our
IkOns; here, we want O’Malley’s
picture to worship while we are
waiting for the trap-tunnel to
open so we can go through and
proceed to our spawning
grounds.”
"An<J what is the reason you
are going to worship O’Malley?”
I asked him.
“He is doing a lot of things for
us,” he replied. “He is putting a
limit outside of every creek to
slop the fishermen from using
their nets and seines, and he al
lows traps to be driven across
cur runways for our protection.”
“You mean for your destruc
tion,” I said.
“No, no! For our protection.
We are sure of that. The-traps
are killing our enemies; we see
thousands of silverhakes, codfish
and halibut sinking to the bot
tom around the traps lead, but
we see no dead salmon among
them.”
“You are a lot of deluded
fools,” I said, “the traps are
nothing but a delusion and a
snare. If you know what is a
waiting you on the other side of
the trap-tunnel you would turn
tail and run back to where you
came from, like hell bent for
election.”
“Who are you anyway who
pretend to know so much and
undertake to advise us about
things we ought to know more
about than you?” he asked.
“I am a fisherman located up
the strait at a place unkind peo
ple call ‘Hardstretch’,” I an
swered.
“You must be the guy the trap
gang from Squaw Harbor are
talking about. They claim you
are a fish pirate and have
slaughtered tens of thousands
of us,” he said.
“That may be so,” I replied,
“but I am treating you far bet
ter than the cannery does,
which gets the fish from this
trap; they slaughter you, put
you into tin cans, boil you and
send you all over the world to be
eaten by all kinds of people;
even Chinamen will eat you. It
seems to me the worst disgrace
possible that can befall a re
spectable salmon—to be put into
a tin can, boiled, then eaten by
a Chinaman. I am treating you
far better than that; I put you
into barrels, put white salt and
brine on you and send you down
to the States to be eaten by good
looking white people, like my
self.”
“You call yourself a good
looking man,” he said. “You look
like an old crab to me, and I
think you are as bad as you look.
The fact is, you are a self-con
fessed fish pirate, and I will
have you in the Unga jail before
I am through with you. You
claim to be a fisherman, and as
far as I can judge you are alive;
if you have been a law-abiding
fisherman you would have been
starved to death long ago. Can
you name a single place along
the coast and around these is
lands where you can get a salm
on with the fishing gear you are
allowed to use and not go to jail
if you are caught taking it?”
I was by this time boiling with
wrath over his insults; to be
called a fish pirate and to be
likened to an old crab by a lousy
old fish was hard to stomach.
Old crab, indeed! I have always
prided myself on my personal
appearance; in the morning the
first thing I do after I get out
of bed is to dip my fingers into
the water in the washbasin and
rub it on my nose and chin. I
even let a lock of my hair grow
long enough to reach across the
bald spot on the top of my head,
and I always considered myself
a favorite among the young
flappers in my neighborhood.
The lousy old shrub; if I could
get my clutches on him I would
take him home—to Hardstretch;
gaff, pugh, slash and horns
woggle him and make him res
pect an old Sourdough fisherman