The Alaskan Jungle
“Follow me,” the cannery manager said. My brother and I had just found jobs at
the cannery and the manager was going to get us settled in the bunkhouse before
taking us to start work in the warehouse.
We had just arrived in Petersburg, Alaska by ferry the night before and we
were broke and desperate for work.
It was clear after a long morning walking the docks looking for jobs on
a salmon boat that with the season already in mid-swing, the cannery was our
best shot for quick employment.
Our timing was very lucky though, as when we arrived
looking for work, the cannery had just decided to drop the warehouse crew down
from a twenty-hour work shift to an eighteen-hour one and this created the need
of two more men for the warehouse crew.
We got those jobs and soon realized how nice Fate was for providing us
employment in that particular part of the cannery.
We followed the manager out of the office building at
the ocean end of the dock and started for the bunkhouse, which was in the
middle of the pier. As we left the
office, it was my turn to carry our luggage, which was comprised of one humongous
blue duffle bag. The duffle bag
weighed at least eighty pounds and it contained all of our worldly possessions. My brother, knowing it was my turn to
carry it, kind of smiled and looked at me. We had a hell of a time getting that duffle bag to the
cannery from the tent city we camped in the night before and we both complained
all morning at our own stupidity of traveling without backpacks or a more
convenient means to carry our stuff.
Anyway, so there I am, twenty-two years old, one
hundred and eighty pounds or so walking with this huge, ridiculously heavy bag
on my back. We were around other
workers and I had to save face and just bear the weight and keep going. Despite only being there a short time,
it was clear that Alaska’s a man’s world, and image is everything. I carried the bag to the bunkhouse and
by the time I got there my legs were burning and I thought I was about to pass
out. I dropped the bag as the
manager tried to figure out what beds we could get. After a couple minutes, it was determined that we would stay
at the other bunkhouse at the other end of the pier above the cafeteria. We started again and since I was closer
to the bag, I picked it up and stumbled off following the manager and my bro.
I wasn’t happy to be stuck carrying this stupidly
heavy bag, but I was strong-minded and wasn’t going to complain or anything,
especially in front of our new boss.
I just focused on my breathing and plugged away, one step at a
time. After a few more minutes, we
finally arrived at the other dorms and our room. I threw down the bag, gasped for air and looked around. My face must have been quite red by that
time, but I was proud that I made it all the way without asking for a break or
help.
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| An actual shot of the cannery I worked at |
Interestingly, that is how my Alaska adventure began,
with an extreme physical challenge that required a lot of grit, and that is how
I would characterize the entire experience. In Alaska, it’s all about demanding physical work that
pushes your mental limits and if you don’t have the mind to get through it,
you’re through. The whole
experience was this beauty of simplicity, and it followed a time-tested code
among working men that was strangely mesmerizing and alluring.
Our sleeping quarters were a dorm room with five sets
of bunk beds crammed into it. Out
of the other eight people lodging there, seven were Mexican. We chose between the two free beds, my
brother got a top bunk on the left and I got a bottom bunk on the right of the
room. Next to my room, there was a
loose piece of wall that opened to a small attic-like space and we soon
discovered that eight more Mexicans were sleeping in there.
It was a funny place to sleep and one of the old
Mexicans who everyone called “Tio Pepe” slept on the bed directly in front of
mine. Tio Pepe snored like there
was no tomorrow. This man was the
loudest snorer I have every heard, but since we were always on the brink of
exhaustion, his snoring didn’t bother anyone. The workload was so strenuous that you could sleep through Armageddon
for those precious hours of rest.
We again got lucky with our boarding arrangements, as
the only other option would have been off-site and that would have meant more
commuting time by bus and less sleep.
Looking back on it now, our arrival into Alaska’s canning sector was
surprisingly fortuitous. Things
just went our way. There are times
in life when Fate gets involved and I think that this was somehow one of those
times, but I’m afraid I’m jumping around philosophically as my reminiscence
wanders. Back to the work-
Working in the warehouse made the entire job a
fascinating physical and mental challenge. This job represented my first real test as a man, fresh out
of college and trying to carve my own niche in the world. I’d come to Alaska by complete random chance,
but it must be said that chances only surface in our lives by choices previously
made.
After college graduation, I had delayed a job offer in
New York as a journalist because I felt that the timing was off. I wanted some adventure before entering
the daily grind of adulthood. I
wanted to see the world. This Alaskan
job was my first stop along this pathway.
Working insane hours- 18 hours a day, seven days a
week - made for a hefty paycheck each month with no ways of spending the money,
which is just what I needed to save up for my next adventure (whatever that was
going be). My shift started at one
in the morning and ended at seven at night. I worked seven days a week, no days off.
Mind you, not everyone in Alaskan canneries works shifts
like this. Most shifts were
shorter and full of monotony, but, as mentioned, we got lucky. Our work
varied and we rotated to different
jobs every hour or so. I think the
other sections of the cannery, like working the slime line, where a never ending train of salmon shuffle past on a
small conveyor belt that one has to continuously grab, cut, gut and then
replace the cleaned fish on the line and then start the process over again
endlessly in room of loud machinery, or the egg room, where workers sit in
front of a similar conveyor belt, but this one is of fish guts that have just
been gutted and one must pick through them for the valuable egg sacks, only
worked between twelve and fourteen hour shifts and neither of those coveted
positions had anything close to the heavy degree of physical exertion that we
had in the warehouse.
Our work was varied and physical and this made the job
highly coveted among some, while at the same time detestable to others. It was very intense and I soon learned
that this intensity could only be handled by certain people. It was an experience that tested one’s constitution and tried his character- every day. I saw multiple people fly up from the lower 48 and start
work one morning only to quit by lunchtime and fly home defeated. It was a shocking thing to behold.
Our primary task was getting the cans of freshly cooked salmon out of a long row of industrial steam ovens and onto pallets for
shipping. The cans were in these
metal containers that had little wheels and weighed a ton (literally). We’d then forklift the containers across
the warehouse to an apparatus that helped stack, pack and shrink wrap the cans
for shipping down to Washington or California for labeling and distribution. I believe the apparatus was called a
“can palletizer”.
The can palletizer, which had a big stacking electro-magnet,
is where we spent most of our time.
The square containers, in which the fish were cooked, were of thin, three inch
spaced metal bars with a loose sheet of metal on the bottom and the cans were
stacked in layers. The apparatus
was designed so a container could be pushed up to a conveyor belt, while at the
same time the center of the bottom was under a small lift. We would then use the lift to raise a
layer the cans to be just over the belt level and then use an instrument to
push or “throw” the cans onto the conveyor belt- one layer at a time.
The conveyor belt was L shaped (probably ten feet by
seven feet) and the cans would slowly be guided by a few workers to move through
the turn and start piling up. Once
a certain amount was collected properly at the end, the belt would stop, the
magnet operator would pick up the cans with the giant magnet and then lift and
move them over to another rolling belt where a pallet was lying. We’d stack the cans, layer-by-layer,
again and again until we reached a certain height. Once reached, we would cover the pallet with plastic and move
it into a shrink-wrap oven and bake it for a few minutes. Once “shrinked”, we would then move it
down the line so forklifts could come, pick it up and load it into shipping
containers on the dock.
It was repetitive work, so rhythms were created and
once in a rhythm, those cans flowed like water down a hill. It was almost hypnotizing at times and
it was very gratifying when we worked so fast that we beat the ovens, which
gave us unscheduled breaks. During
those times you could have a smoke or a coffee and snack or, if necessary, grab
a short nap.
We alternated jobs to break up the monotony, but many
shied away from driving the magnet or throwing the cans. Throwing the cans was the most physical
job (besides emptying the steam ovens).
Driving the magnet was the most important and most mentally taxing. I loved both of these tasks, but working
the magnet was my favorite. It
dictated the pace and when you’re working to get ahead of the ovens for an
unscheduled break (on the clock), efficiency is your best friend. Most of my colleagues needed to use two
hands when driving the magnet, but I figured out a way to do it with one hand,
which freed up my other hand to point out a can that had fallen over or other areas
the guys were lagging on.
Once, a guy was reaching for a can that had fallen
over in the first row and got crushed by the magnet. It was always a fear that this could happen, but when he
screamed in a desperate shriek of bone crushing pain, it caught us all off
guard and reminded us that one needed to always be extra careful when working
in such a state of sleep depravity among industrial machinery. He left on a stretcher and we never saw him again. I wasn’t driving the magnet when that
happened, but from that moment on, the shift manager controlled who worked the
magnet and my magnet time increased quite a bit.
Driving the magnet, throwing and stacking cans of fish
and emptying containers out of industrial steam cookers for 18 hours a day, 7
days a week for months on end may not sound like much to someone from the lower
48, but for a young kid fresh out of college arrogantly chasing the broad dreams
and experiences offered by life for the first time, it was magical.
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| Canned Alaskan Salmon-Yum! |
I learned a lot during those wild days on America’s
last frontier, but the best lesson was that a person is only restrained by their
lack of imagination and grit in this life. Of course, you always have to stay on top of your game and avoid getting crushed in the magnet of life, but if you chase even the wildest dreams and keep the mental and
physical fortitude necessary to stay the course, you will almost certainly
reach your goal. This lesson put
me on a varied, idiosyncratic and rich path…a path I am grateful for and have
remained on to this day.
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If you’d like to read another blog about living in Alaska,
here is one about life after the salmon season ended...another lesson learned! Enjoy!
Kito's Kave and the Art of Bar Fighting
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