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Adventure Girl: King Salmon, Alaska
Author: Monica McCabe
Original Publication Date in Love Notes: November 2007 So
you get divorced. It’s not the end of the world. Unless you get a job offer so
far north that you can almost see that proverbial edge.
That place would be King Salmon, Alaska. Home of Bristol Bay and the jump
start of the Aleutian Island chain. A population of five-hundred souls in the
winter, by summer it climbs to near nine-thousand thanks to an abundance of
salmon and the fishing industry. Most of the transients stay in boats off-shore
since there’s only one hotel / restaurant / bar in town - the King Ko Inn.
Pic is from:
http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc30672.php
It was the mid-eighties and accounting was, and still is, my game. As fate
would have it, King Ko needed a bookkeeper. “We will pay your way up here and
provide room and board,” they promised. “All you have to do is agree to stay one
year.” I should have known that was too sweet a deal, but at that point I’d
never seen an episode of Northern Exposure. If I had, I might have thought
twice. As it was, the offer tickled my adventure-seeking bone. Lots of money to
be saved, lots of wilderness to explore, wild animals, gold panning, and best of
all, the aurora borealis. I needed a change of scenery. What could be better?
Without so much as a blink, I packed everything into storage and next thing I
knew, me and my cat Lily were winging the polar express. In December. Now let me
tell you, no one willingly flies to Alaska in December. I look back now and
realize I was out of my mind. But at the time I felt on the brink of something
fresh and exciting.
And I found it all right. The turbulent kind, and it started before I even
landed at the Anchorage airport. The flight had been bumpy, heavy weather was
moving in and mine was the last plane to land before the storm shut the airport
down. Still, I wasn’t too worried. I had a good book, Lily was with me, and the
snack bar looked well stocked. I claimed a corner seat and patiently waited as
the snow swirled outside the windows.
Ten long hours later I boarded a small six-seat prop plane and headed for
King Salmon. Three days later my luggage caught up with me. That meant my first
lesson on life in the Alaskan bush was the small general store. When all
supplies are flown in, they are priced accordingly! A gallon of milk set you
back seven dollars, a loaf of bread three and half. And clothing? Unless you
were looking for a pair of gloves or muffler, you were out of luck. In those
pre-internet days you either ordered from a catalog or you flew to the nearest
large (by large I mean pop. 5,000 or more) village to shop. In this case it was
Dillingham, 70 miles away. And you HAD to fly. There were no roads. Since I
wasn’t about to board another plane, I borrowed some clothes and settled into my
hotel room.
It took me all of five days to realize that Lily couldn’t stay. Sweet thing
that she was, the trials of Alaska in winter weren’t for her. Plus, King Ko
frowned on pets in their hotel rooms. So I booked her a flight to my mom’s in
southern Nevada and waved goodbye to my only friend. No worries though, I soon
made friends with the intrepid mouse in my room. I met him one night when he
woke me by nibbling on my fingertips. After the initial heart attack, I realized
he was just hungry. It was thirty below zero after all, and the food supply was
likely thin. So we made a truce, I’d leave him crumbled crackers each night and
he left my fingers alone. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Time began to pass and I quickly learned three things. The only TV was in the
bar and the reception was sketchy. It was only daylight a couple hours a day.
And can you imagine eating at the same restaurant morning, noon, and night for
an entire year?
To relieve the monotony I began waiting tables at the restaurant after my
bookkeeping chores were done. As the days moved toward spring and daylight began
stretching out, I started to explore the territory. First, King Salmon isn’t
right on the coast. It sits twelve miles up the wide Naknek river. There’s only
one paved road and it led to a town appropriately called Naknek, and it sits
right on Bristol Bay. If you could beg, borrow, or steal a car, that’s as far as
you can go.
Both towns were excruciatingly compact, but Naknek boasted a tiny one room
fabric shop and a dentist that flew in twice a year. King Salmon’s claim to fame
was the airport, the general store, and the King Ko Inn.
And from May to October, both towns and the bay were overrun with fishing
boats, floating canneries, harvesters, slimers, packers, deckhands, riggers,
clean-up crew, machine operators, and anyone out to make big money for
summertime work. All of the jobs are hard, dirty, and smelly, but thousands
flock in for the monetary reward.
That influx made for the most memorable and eventful summer of my life. I’ll
start posting my tales of drug busts, downed cargo planes, and flying tigers.
I’ll also introduce a host of unique characters that shared that year with me.
So check back every couple of weeks or so for a new story. I hope they
inspire you to live out exciting adventures of your own!
Next article: The Flying Tigers
***
Monica McCabe writes adventure columns for her website,
www.monicamccabe.net, and has
graciously allowed us to duplicate some of them here. Got a
request of an adventurous location? Contact her through her website and
let her know!
Love Notes, the official monthly newsletter of Music City Romance
Writers, is provided to paying members free of charge. If you are an MCRW member and would like to submit an article to
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for more information. If you would like to reprint one of these articles in your
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