Fish Camp

It's funny, but I'm still not done talking about that one week I was in Alaska. Which tells me I need to make sure I'm updating my blog regularly.

So one morning I spent a couple of hours at a fish camp. A fish camp is where a family cuts the fish they have caught and they hang it up to dry. Each family has their own site and it could be within walking distance or you may need to reach it by a boat. Fish camps are right on the water's edge.

I didn't take any pictures when I went to the the camp. Really, you should be invited to a fish camp, & not just show up. Out of respect, I chose not to bring my camera. I didn't want to act like a tourist. Plus, one of my colleagues was taking pictures for his family who was coming up & that was totally acceptable. So there are pictures, just none that I took.

Fish camp was a huge deal when I was there because the salmon were running. Every family has an allotment of fish they can catch & hang to dry. They also smoke them too. They use the dried smoked meat during the winter time and they had to be finished hanging the fish by a certain time. They hang there for several months.

So I was invited to spend some time at a family's fish camp. I went along with another teacher. I didn't know what to expect, and I certainly did not expect to be cutting any fish. I watched the women cut the fish and we talked about the tradition and where they had learned to do that. We were told of the various seasons and what we could expect to see the upcoming year. We were showed how they use every part of the fish except for the guts. The guts were thrown back into the river (from where it came) to feed the smaller fish. The fish head is actually put into the ground with some other stuff and allowed to ferment (rot). The fish head actually cooks from the heat of the rotting stuff and is then made into a local dish called stink fish. The name comes from the effect of eating the meal....basically what happens to you afterwards. Hmmmmmm.....

So I'm watching her (the matriarch of the family) cut fish after fish. And then she turns to me and says, "You ready to try this?" My response was: "Sure!!"

So she puts a shirt over my clothes and hands me her traditional knife. I'm not sure how you spell it but here's my guess: ulaq (pronounced ew-lock). And I began. I cut off the fish's head (along the gills) then I sliced open it's body. I ripped out the guts & scraped out the blood. Then I cut the fish into two parts. The top part was the fillet part & that was hung to dry, then I cut the back bone meat to hang in a different way. It was tricky & my fish didn't look like the other woman's fish, but I did alright. A man behind me said "Just do that 500 more times & you'll be an expert!"

I have to admit, it was kinda fun cutting up the fish. Afterwards, my hands were covered in salmon blood, but oh well! Even though I was hacking up what used to be alive, I felt peaceful and connected to the village. I even felt at one with the earth, knowing that people were going to benefit from what I was doing.

And really, it was just cool.

I found it funny that a vegetarian would enjoy cutting up a fish. But truthfully, I'm not really a vegetarian anymore. It's too hard to maintain that lifestyle when you are in the middle of the Alaskan tundra. I still haven't eaten cow or pig but I have had salmon & chicken. And I'm sure moose and caribou are coming up for me to try. But I'm okay with that. The animals are treated with respect & aren't suffering, which is why I initially became a vegetarian to begin with.

So that's my adventure of the fish camp. Below is a picture of the ulaqs (????) Enjoy! (And feel free to leave some comments)