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After reading my last post and giving my blog site a little revamp I decided to post a little update/reflection on what’s been going on with me, why I haven’t posted in over a year, and how the inspiration to write came back to me. I ended my last post by saying I will be posting more often “unless life gets in the way.” Yeah, life definitely got in the way. After my dad’s radiation treatment, he had bad side effects which led to an emergency tracheostomy. That’s how the new year started for my family. It’s been insane. Now, I’m not going to list every single thing that happened to me this year, but I will tell you how I feel now that I made it this far. Reflecting is fun because it makes me realize how much far I’ve actually come.

I have gone through the hardest thing with my family since my sister died. We got the terrible news that the cancer came back in my dad’s throat in September. It didn’t take long for his appointments to be made for an intense surgery on the 25^th of October. Dad would require a complete laryngectomy, meaning the loss of his vocal cords and voice. The surgery had to be in Seattle and we didn’t know if I was going to be able to go until a couple days before we were supposed to leave. So off we were flying to Seattle in one day from Nelson Lagoon, to Anchorage, to Seattle. Everything seemed to go by super fast that first week. The day of dad’s 12-hour surgery was one of the longest days my mom and I have ever had. Thankfully everything went well and dad started his recovery. We had to learn how to do wound care for him and all kinds of new things after the surgery.

I am so proud of my dad for his mindset and how he handled all of this. It’s not very nice to go through radiation and then get an emergency tracheostomy and then get told your cancer is back and get a complete laryngectomy all in one year. But he did it. He put his mind to it and just got it done. It’s not like he had a choice, but he has gone through a lot more than people know, so to see him now after all of this makes my heart full. I cannot express fully how thankful I am for this outcome. He can’t talk right now. It’s an interesting thing to mourn someone’s voice. My dad had a distinct voice and just a great laugh. At first I was sad about him not having his voice anymore, but that quickly changed because he’s still here and he’s doing much better than he was before we left for Seattle. He’s so self-sufficient and has been working hard since we got home. From taking care of the road uptown to taking care of his own wounds. He’s recovering pretty darn well and I am just so proud of him. I still pray for him every day. Dad deserves to be happy and healthy he doesn’t need to deal with anymore bullshit.

This trip really made me think about things that I haven’t thought about before. This was an experience between me and my parents that you never think you’re going to have to go through. It’s something that was so unexpected and the feeling before everything goes down and then the feeling of when it’s all over is really crazy to experience. When we first got the news it was heartbreaking. Kind of made me feel like giving up honestly. Makes you think what is the point of life when nothing but shitty things keep happening. But you can’t let life get to you like that cus that’s just what it is, life. We have to roll with the goddamn punches and deal with it. We can’t let the bad times outweigh the good no matter how hard it is. My brain quickly went from distraught and pissed off to positive thoughts like “we can do this.” After everything was over and we made it back home it kind of didn’t feel real. I kept telling mom and dad “we did it!” And of course we couldn’t have done it without the support of our friends and family. So many people helped us. So many people prayed for my dad. We were lucky to have some family and people we know who took care of us in Seattle too. So in the beginning it felt like we weren’t going to be able to handle it. It felt so terrible before we left. And now that it’s all over and dad is doing good I am so thankful for everything.

To continue on with my reflecting of this year I have to talk about my 2^nd favorite highlight of the year, the first is my dad’s successful surgery. This year was the official beginning of what I like to call my fitness journey. I really put my mind to it and since April 2022 I have lost 16 pounds and I am super proud of myself for it. I actually made it to my goal weight and now I want to focus on building some muscle. It took a combination of things for me to lose the weight and I am going to make another post to talk about my personal experience.

It’s the end of the year and things seem to be getting busier. I am involved in a lot of different things for work at the environmental department right now, so that has me busy. It gets very busy for me around this time anyway because we have our community events to put together along with everything else that goes into holiday season. I hope you enjoyed this post and if you feel like commenting your thoughts or maybe a reflection of your own from this year, please do!

This year has been one of the most difficult years I have had in a long time. We started off with one of our good friends telling us he was going to die. Literally on New Year’s Eve. So that is how our year started. Shortly after, 2 more people passed away. A few months after that, Grampa Sherman passed away, very unexpectedly. That one was very hard to process and accept. That was something that none of us were prepared for. I mean, I was having a beer with him like 3 days before he died. His life wasn’t over, he had plans and stuff he wanted to do. After dealing with all of that, we found out my dad had cancer cells growing in his throat that he would need to get treatment for. Right after HIS dad died, my dad had to deal with the fact that he was going to have to go get radiation. If it wasn’t for us being such a close knit and supportive family idk how he would have done it. So, I went thru the whole summer basically mourning my grandfather’s death while trying to process what my dad was going to have to do, while trying to fish and make enough money for our family to have groceries for the winter.

            Now it’s November and everything is over. My dad got his treatment, fishing ended, mine and my mom’s birthdays have passed. My Christmas tree is up and as I sit here soaking in its warm, comforting light I have to reflect on this year. It’s like I have to check in with myself to make sure I am okay after going thru everything I went through this year. Because, how do you process life? We have to endure so much and still be expected to work and be social and do chores. It’s ridiculous. I started my blog because I want to have an outlet and a place to share my thoughts with people and instead of just telling stories all the time, I want to have real conversations or I guess share what I am thinking about in the hopes that my words resonate with whoever is reading this thing. Because we all go through too much and we are expected to just deal with it because it’s life. And it’s true, life does go on, and it’s not always bad. Sometimes I can feel like everybody is getting a little too sensitive in this day and age, but when I really reflect on everything I realize we need to be more sensitive with ourselves and other people because we don’t know what everyone is going through. And, we can’t expect people to be okay all the time. That’s the reason why I haven’t made a blog post in so long. I started this for myself to get more serious with my writing and I know I have a lot of improvements to make. One is getting on a steady weekly schedule. Since I wasn’t writing and posting, I started feeling a sense of failure. Like wow Angie, you started this blog and now look at you. That made it even harder to make a post because I was so uninspired to write anything. This is a learning curve for me and I will be posting more often from now on, unless life gets in the way.

This story is from 2018 I think.

I have fished in this river my whole life. The boat is mine, the permit is mine, the site is mine. I am the captain. Darren is fishing with me. We are up river for low water, as usual, and the fucking wind is coming up. It is gusting like a bitch out there. We don’t know if we should just bag it and go home, but my parents are pressuring us to stay up there. Dad said it sounds worse than it actually is. Darren and I are like, yeah okay. We set the net and we wait to pick up. By the time we’re done picking up low water the wind is howling. The Rose Bud (our house boat that we used to tie up to all the time) is dancing around like big cork anchored in the water. The south east wind is blowing the boat cockeyed and towards the sand bar that the other end of the net is anchored at. This is going to be a rough one. I need to pull the anchor up at the end of the net and get out of there before the wind blows me onto the bar, it’s no time to mess around. We get the hook and snag the tag line on the anchor, Darren pulls it in as I reel the anchor up. As soon as Darren sees that the anchor and line is clear from the prop, I gun it. It’s all about precision and carefulness. We have to make sure the line is clear and I have to make sure the throttle is down before I put the boat in gear. The wind is gusting and we are backwards in the wind and tide. The river is mad, spraying over top of our heads with each wave. I punch it and we make it out of there before we hit the bar. But we’re not done yet.

Darren wants to get his skiff from the Rose Bud, so I need to figure out how I am going to pull up to it while it’s bouncing around. I am idling up to it and trying to make the perfect landing, but the wind and tide is pushing on the boat so hard I am literally just sitting in one spot, even though the boat is in gear. I rev it up and go forward and the Rose Bud turns as I am trying to pull up to it. I am trying to get away from it and maneuver the boat away while at the same time trying to set it up so I can still get us tied up so Darren can get his skiff. Instead, I ram into the Rose Bud and break the back window with the anchor on the bow of the boat. WOW! I am ready to cry, what a massive fail. I am pissed. Different game plan, Darren isn’t going to leave his skiff sitting up here. I have to pull up to the skiff and let him jump in it, like my dad did with me. OOOOOH, it’s my first time doing this. I am scared of ramming Darren’s skiff and I am scared of not lining it up right and hurting him when he tries to jump in. I pull up to it as calmly as possible while the wind whips, the waves crash, and the Rose Bud just keeps on dancing. I manage to get it perfect and Darren jumps into the skiff, starts the motor, and unties the skiff from the Rose Bud and drives it up beside me so he can tie it off and get back on the boat and hang it off the stern.

We finally do that and start heading down river. I take the “back trail” which goes straight to Uncle Herb’s spot before I turn out towards the narrows. I am stressed out and all I can think of is how shitty a ride this is going to be. I know what happens in the narrows during a south east and its never good. Usually when the wind is with the tide, it’s calmer than against the tide. It seems to me that with every south east, it only gets worse with the tide coming in. We make it to the narrows and sure enough, the skiff starts sinking back there. If it was up to me, I would have left Darren’s skiff up there. We already had the banana tied to the back and having two skiffs back there only heightens the risk of sinking because of how the waves splash in between and over the skiffs. Dad taught me how to maneuver in this kind of weather. He taught me how to go into the waves instead of being angled in them, even though there are bars, there’s a way to do it that’s a little less of a pain in the ass. You drive into the wave and then away from the wave and back towards. Basically I am zig zagging all the way down river. It doesn’t matter, it’s so ugly out that the skiff is back there sinking. Darren tells me to just keep going straight so he can get back there and bail the skiff out. He tells me not to turn sideways into the swell until he’s back in the boat. I’m steady going straight, going straight. I know the bar is coming up quick, we’re losing feet. 4 ft., 3ft., 2ft., 0. I hit the sand bar right outside of Big Hill and I have to turn. I can hear Darren back there yelling at me and I yell back “WE’RE ON THE BAR!” He quickly gets back into the boat and we finish our treacherous ride downriver. We park across the river by cannery island because the island helps shelter the boats from the south east wind. Now we have to go across the river in the skiff. WAHOO. Both of us get our life vests on and get in the skiff. Darren expertly takes us across the river with the waves, but we still have to go into the waves to get to our parking spot. The skiff was bouncing away and I can feel us do a jump and go airborne for a second. I’ve never jumped a skiff before, haha. FINALLY, we make it safely to the beach. We pull the skiff up and go home.

This story was one of my learning experiences fishing and captaining my boat. I drove the whole way and I was responsible for keeping us safe. There’s a lot more stories where this came from.

           

My Grampa Sherman passed away on May 2^nd 2021. He was 10 days away from turning 79. I miss him every day. This man is an absolute legend. I could tell you hundreds of stories about him. I’m going to tell you one today that is one of my favorite memories with him.

            Back in the good old days when we’d actually get a winter here the whole town would go for snow machine rides whenever they had the chance. If it wasn’t for hunting, it was for ice fishing, if it wasn’t for that, it was just for the fun of it. Grampa Sherman built this badass snowsled out of an airplane engine and people would take a bunch of kids down to the ice fishing lake in that. Everyone else would be out on their snow machines. Well one day when I was a little kid, I can’t remember how old I was but I was young, everybody went for a ride and nobody told me or offered to take me. Grampa Sherman was going to go down to the Fox Den (a cabin he built while people were putting in the waterline so they’d have somewhere warm and safe to go, more on that for another post). Grampa went to the Fox Den every single day of the year rain, shine or blow. Anyway, he told me I could go for a ride with him. I’m like heck yeah of course. I just wanted to get out cus I was the only kid left behind in the village (dicks) and I didn’t care if it was just one ride to the Den with Grampa. I went to his house all geared up, like a puff ball, I could barely move. Got on Grampa’s Yamaha Venture 600 and off we went. There’s a lil snow machine/truck trail we follow from here to the duck lakes in between town and the Fox Den. Part of the ride is spent on the river. Now Grampa Sherman isn’t like a cute old Grampa going slowly along the river bend. This mother fucker got us onto the river and blasted us WIDE OPEN on the snow machine. I was holding on for dear life back there. I had to use the handles on the back seat cus Grampa was so round I couldn’t hold onto him. If you’ve never been on a snow machine ride like that, you have no idea how sore your arms get from just holding on. And my grandfather is just rallying us to the Fox Den. It took us maybe 5-10 minutes to get there, no joke.

            So, here’s Grampa and I at the Den by ourselves. The stove is already going so it’s nice and toasty in there. Grampa sits in his seat and has me put a tape in the tape player to listen to his tunes. He cracks open a beer. Then all of a sudden my Uncle Ern shows up in his truck. The crazy bastard took his Toyota pickup and drove along the sea beach to the Den in the middle of winter. The Sea Beach is full of ice and big ice chunks and frozen like 5 miles out into the sea so he had a smooth ride. Not only that, he brought us a surprise. I step outside onto the cute little front porch of the Den to greet uncle. He gets out of the truck and he’s like “baby, come and look what uncle found.” I go to look in the bed of his truck and there’s a big, beautiful live king crab sitting there with it’s eyes googling around. My uncle found it on the beach on his way down. Him and I went back out to the beach to clean the crab while Grampa got the water on. That was the first time I ever cleaned a whole crab. I felt bad for it. I just saw it moving around, it’s weird little eyes watching me. I wonder if it knew it was gunna die. Maybe that’s why it was sitting on the beach. Maybe it was giving itself up to us. We went back to the Den and boiled those legs up.

We cross the river at the den when we go ice fishing so, here comes all the assholes from across the river. All my friends and cousins and aunties and uncles pour it on wide open across the river and over the frozen swamp. Everybody pulls in like “oh boy we had so much fun ice fishing.” I’m like, “yeah I had fun too,” as I’m mowing down a king crab leg in my hand. Everyone was like “where did you get crab?!” Like, oh, Uncle Ern found it on the beach. They literally did not believe us, haha. It was so much fun and so cool. Literally one of my most favorite memories snow machining and with my Grampa.

            I am a commercial salmon fisherman. So that means I work all winter and fish all summer. That means I don’t really get a break. Prepandemic, my breaks were work trips. A paid trip out to Anchorage is the closest thing I had to a vacation until I went on a real one in 2019 to Cabo San Lucas. Now that was a good time. It was the first time I had ever been out of the country. The first time Darren had been out of state! We went with three of our friends for only 4 short days. It was the time of our life. We went snorkeling, had a catamaran boat ride, watched a show at our resort, bought Cuban cigars, and on the last day partied at Cabo Wabo, giggling marlin, Mango Deck, the Tiki bar, and ended at Squid Roe. We did all the partying on the last day and flew back to the US with a real fancy hangover. Worth it. By the way, coming back to the US after being on vacation is like coming back to hell after spending time in heaven. One minute you’re in happy Cabo with all the smiling people and good vibes. Then you get back to miserable US with scowling faces and cranky bitches. I was like omg, take me back. I still feel that way and I cannot wait to go back to Mexico. Someday.

            Anyways. This summer, our fishing season has been less than mediocre. It has been, for lack of another description, SHITTY. Our fishery in Nelson Lagoon has been being depleted for about 20 years. We fight with the board of fish and outside fishermen all the time. It’s exhausting. I will write another post about that on its own cus I don’t want to get into it right now. The fishing has been so bad this “slack season” (slack season is the time between the sockeye salmon run and the coho salmon run). We usually keep fishing and at least make a set a day while we’re open, but it has not been worth it. Darren and I have taken the last two weeks off from fishing and it has been so much fun! I kept saying the last two weeks “I’m on vacation.” And that’s exactly how it’s been feeling.

            We have been hunting, gathering, and subsisting the last two weeks. First we had to gather alder for our smokehouse. We are smoking fish for the first time ever this year because we finally have our own smokehouse. I was busy picking strawberries and checking for salmon berries every time we take a ride down the coast. My mom and Darren picked a bunch of mossberries and mom is taking some out to my Nana, who lives in ANC. We have 20 fish in the freezer for the smokehouse. That will be 2 loads of smokefish, we’re going to get more fish, but that’s what we have so far. We were also fortunate enough to see an itxayax (caribou) and Darren got it with a perfect liver shot. No meat damaged (besides that piece of liver). That experience is so rewarding. You get to look at this beautiful animal and they look back at you and you can just feel it in your body when they’re giving themselves up. Darren got his .223 out, no scope, and just like that he got us food for our freezer. That’s one of the sexiest things a man can do in my opinion. He’s out in the tundra gutting a cherished piece of meat with his bare hands. WOOOO my husband is a hottie.

Okay, okay, moving on. These past two weeks have been so refreshing. I feel like I’ve been on vacay except I didn’t have to leave home and risk getting COVID. Not only that, but we got so much done for our winter food supplies. Even though we were mostly working on gathering food for the winter, it felt like a vacation. It is such a great feeling to pick berries from your land that naturally produces delicious, healthy and sweet fruits that you get to put away for your smoothies, jams, pies, and so on. To use your bare hands to provide meat for your family, hanging it, packaging it, putting it away. Finding alder wood, cutting it, skinning it, and letting it dry. Putting fresh fish away for your first smokehouse. It’s all a labor of love. These are things that we love to do. This is the kind of stuff we live for out here. Not only did we get all that “work” done, we had a blast while doing it. Half of my family was with us, my parents, my aunts and uncles and a couple of our friends. Darren’s sister and her boyfriend. Doing these activities with our family makes it that much better. We’d get done berry picking, head out to the sea beach and start a bonfire. We had a cookout two days ago and grilled out on the beach along with a bonfire. We brought our dogs with us yesterday while we got more fish for the smokehouse/freezer with the family. Everybody was laughing and visiting and having such a good time. That’s what I’d call a vacation. Or like my cousin said, a “staycation.” I’m very thankful for what we were able to do in the last 14 days and I’m excited for what the rest of this summer has to offer for us.

This is a question I get asked a lot from people who live in the city or towns that are bigger than mine. I am never too sure how to answer this question. After living here during the pandemic I realized that we do a lot for fun here. The things we do for fun are a lot different than what people do in the city. We do things like take 4-wheeler rides down the beach and beach comb, hunt, gather and so on. We have community events like potlucks or game nights. We take skiff rides up the river. We go “down the coast” and swim in the lakes down there. We chase bears that come into town or that we run into on the beach until they run far enough away that we can’t chase them anymore. We have house parties for birthdays and holidays. We host gatherings for boxing and football events on TV.

We have plenty of fun and luckily for us we were able to have all that fun throughout this pandemic. Our community is so small that we know who travels, how long it’s been since someone traveled, who’s been vaccinated and so on. We were able to control the threat of COVID cases and as of today we still haven’t had one positive case in our community. So while the rest of the world was social distancing and staying home, we were all able to visit each other, hold community events, and HAVE FUN while being COVID free.

Now I always wonder what these people do for fun who ask me this question. What do you do in the city? You go to the store, go to the mall. You can go to a restaurant or a bar. But really, what does one think goes on in a village? Do these people think I just sit at home all day living in the boondocks wishing I was in the city? Do they think it’s so excruciatingly boring because we don’t have a store, we don’t have any access to roads outside of town that we just live in despair out here? I really don’t know what they think. I am sure its difficult to imagine what life is like for people like us, but for me, I love it and I wouldn’t trade this life for anything.

It is definitely different to live in a village. Every village is unique. Not everybody does what we do. Nelson Lagoon is one of the smallest communities that I know of in Alaska and the stories and perspectives I will talk about in this blog only reflects my personal experience living here and should not be assumed that everybody who lives in villages around Alaska are doing the same things as us.

Welcome to my blog. I’ve always wanted to create my own blog and finally decided to do it. This blog is about what life is like living in the small village of Nelson Lagoon, Alaska. I will be telling stories, sharing my personal thoughts, and just casually writing about village life.