Karl Lennox took a knife to the freshly-caught salmon’s belly, starting at the back. When he cut through the fish’s spine to remove the head, it made a distinctive crunch.
“You have to have a nice sharp knife [to] cut through the spine there, that’s the hardest part,” he explained as the salmon laid on top of his cooler at Kenai Beach on Tuesday, the white plastic covered in blood.
Next, Lennox rinsed the gutted fish in the water, leaving the severed head for the seagulls. He did that again and again as his teenage kids continued to pull salmon from the water.
Around him, Alaskans were immersed in the same routine: catch fish, clean fish, repeat. That’s how the busy dipnetting season goes in Kenai. For some, the yearly tradition is a chance to fill their freezers for the winter and not worry about the price of salmon. But for others, it represents something deeper about community, time with family and what it means to be an Alaskan.
“It’s so enjoyable,” Martha Outwater Parker said. “It not only gives you sustenance for your body, but it also, to me, it nourishes the spirit as well, because it takes you out in the beautiful country that was created for us.”
Parker’s daughter, four grandkids, a nephew and niece in-law were out in the water Tuesday, in their waders, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Alaskans, all holding big nets. She stayed on land, her job was to hit each fish on the head to quickly kill it so the fish wouldn’t suffer.
“I’m the bonker, I walk around with a club,” Parker explained, laughing. “They had me running around quite a bit the other day when we were down here. Running around just bonking fish because they were catching them right and left.”
Parker is from Nome and came here to visit family. It’s her first time dipnetting, but she said fishing in general has always been a crucial part of her life.
“If I don’t eat my food – I call it my food – nothing will taste right,” she said. “Even when I go around visiting, I bring a piece of muktuk or some dried fish of any type that I made from our country, and take it with me. Otherwise, I would feel lost.”
In the middle of her thought, Parker was interrupted by her niece coming out of the water with a fish in her net.
“Oh, we just got another, we just got a fish in here!” she said.
Down in the water, Martha’s daughter, Brenna Mae McGuffey, held her net, waiting to feel the tug of landing a salmon. She was surprised that the strangers on the beach next to her celebrated with her family every time they caught a fish.
“I always thought, ‘Oh, that must be kind of so uncomfortable with people elbow-to-elbow,’ but I wanted to try it anyways,” she said. “It’s been so cool, it’s not uncomfortable at all. Just talking to people, I love it.”
McGuffey said the fishing was pretty good, but in past days it was even better. This season has been so good that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game opened the personal-use dipnet fishery here to 24-hours a day. The department does this in years when sockeye numbers are particularly high, in order to control the population.
That’s another thing that was on McGuffey’s mind as she stood in the water: how the fish are doing. While plenty of sockeye are returning, other species like king salmon have dwindled, a consequence of human-caused climate change.
“We actually commercial fished on the Yukon River for kings back in the day, back when they could,” McGuffey said. “It was amazing. I remember that like it was yesterday. So, I can’t wait for that to come back for them. You know, they’re having such a hard time in that area, and have been for a long time.”
Only Alaska residents can dipnet, which Krystalynn Nasisaq Scott said is important, since it adds to the sense of community.
“I like talking to people,” she said. “I think we’ve been able to help a few people out, whether it be moving their stuff on the incoming tide or teaching them how to cut a fish. It’s nice to welcome new Alaskans.”
Her 12-year-old son Isaiah Scott has been dipnetting since he was 6. Today, he helped initiate a new Alaska family, by teaching them how to gut a fish.
“We just helped them,” he said. “Even though they didn’t really ask. But still.”
He gestured just a few feet down the beach, where the new family had set up camp.
Ellen Gerz said they were happy for the assist.
“Our friends there that we met were super nice and helped,” she said.
Gerz and her husband and two young daughters have lived in Alaska for exactly one year, which qualified them as residents just before the end of dipnetting season.
“I feel like other places I lived, there was never things that everybody did,” she said. “As we’ve moved here, I see like, oh, everybody goes dipnetting. It’s not optional.”
The family said that they’re not ready to call themselves “true Alaskans” yet – that designation will only come with several more years of living here. But they do feel a bit more Alaskan now that they caught their first salmon with a dipnet.
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