First of all, I had to wait until all the fish came, so I could can fish. I had to cut chums first because there were a lot of them. I made regular dry fish and some half-dried ones for winter. After they dried I put them away in buckets and then started making strips out of king salmon. These took longer to dry because I wanted to most of the oil to drip from these before I put them away. As I cut fish I watched a whole bunch of kids swim in the river.

Then after I was done with fishing Carmen and I had to go into Anchorage for ear surgery. When we went over we had to stay with my sister, Francine. She drove us back and forth for our surgery appointments, and she was there watching while they were cutting my ear. I have a tape of how it all went. We came home after two days of surgery.

It was still nice and hot out so we went over to the sand bar a couple of times. There we watched a whole bunch of kids swimming.

Then berry picking season came and we went up to Wilson to pick blue berries. But there were hardly any there, so we went up to Willow Creek, and there we found a lot. When you go picking with your family you can fill your buckets fast, and my family and I picked over 6 gallons of blue berries!

Just the other day I learned how to can salmon. I went up to my sister-in-laws and she and her husband showed me and my husband how to do it. The timing has to be just right and the heat has to be just right. After the cooling time is up you wait for the pressure to go down to 0. Then 10 minutes later you can open the preassure cooker up and very carefully take the jars out because it's very hot. Then put them on a cloth to cool off and wait until you hear a little pop from the jars and that means they are good and sealed.

Now all I have to do is wait for the black berries. Probably the first of next month they will be ripe. And that'll be my summer.

By Nancy Fitka

Interviewed by Robert Pitka