I’ve posted in detail about how we fish before, so I don’t think I’ll repeat myself today. That post is worth reading if you want a comprehensive play-by-play of how we go about getting the fish out of the water. And it has the added bonus of containing a photo that never fails to make Robbi laugh, one in which I miraculously cause fish to levitate by raising my arms. Here it is, in case you are in a rush.

But without going into too much detail, I thought I’d post a few photos from the beach, some of which have been lovingly enhanced by our friends at Instagram.

As has also been well-documented, going fishing starts with getting dressed.

Here’s Robbi on the beach, hauling in a raft of (not much) fish. Iggy was no help at all.

But Bob stepped in to give her a hand while the kids looked on.

Once the fish were on shore, they loaded them into the cart on the back of the four-wheeler.

And drove on over to the buyers’ truck.

The crane lifted the bag of fish and weighed it.

Then Robbi drove away while Bob picked up our receipt.

Basically, we sell the fish, they write down on a sheet of paper how many pounds we sold, and we get paid at the end of the season. Unless the company goes bankrupt, which means we get nothing. It has happened before.

While Robbi and Bob fished, the kids played in the sand.

And splashed in the surf.

Kato was intrigued by the buoy.

He was small against the wide stretch of beach.

Small but smiling. Small but undaunted.

Wet and cold, he decided to walk home.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was three miles away.

He didn’t get very far before he decided to come back and investigate his buoy, a round red outlier against the beach.

Inspired by an unknown force, Kato headed back into the water to join his sister, still splashing away in her bright yellow boots.

If nothing else, Alaska is a fun place to be a kid.

To aid our fishing efforts in Alaska, we have six pickup trucks and three four-wheelers. We also have several old, dead trucks that sit in the bushes rusting away to nothing because there’s nothing else to do with them.

We use the trucks to pull the lines and set the nets and we use the four wheelers to get around and for other miscellaneous fishing tasks that don’t require the power of a truck. Picking up nets for example, or hauling totes of fish around. Our sites are three miles up the beach and the vehicles are old and inefficient (or constantly leaking fuel, in the case of some). Which means that we have to gas them up frequently.

Here’s how we do it. Our “gas station” consists of 50-gallon oil drums, one of which will be tapped with a hand pump at any given time. One person works the pump and the other person holds the funnel while listening to see when the tank sounds full. All the fuel gauges are broken.

Kato was intensely curious. After a few minutes, either Bob or I realized that it probably wasn’t a great idea to have his developing brain sucking up the vapors. Regardless, he was not happy to be plucked from the truck bed.

So there you have it. Yet one more small example of how things just work differently up there.

In case you’re wondering, Kato consoled himself by preparing the next vehicle in the gas station queue.

Today Robbi went to Egigik (the small fishing village across the river, which will be the topic of another post) to do some laundry and called me from a pay phone while the clothes were tumbling.

I got to talk to Alden, who apparently asks where I am about six times a day. She knows the answer: “in the Maryland house,” but the question seems to please her.

This is what I imagine she’s doing right now.

Later, Robbi sent me an email from the cannery. In it, she included a message generated by Alden when prompted with the question, “What do you want to say to Papa?”

Here is my message from Alden: “I got a whistle for the cars. You know where it goes? There was an elephant. My man George saw an elephant! Bye bye, Papa!”

This is how I imagine she looked as she said it.

I can picture it perfectly.