This summer I worked down at the fish plant here in Marshall. My job was very basic. All I had to do was unload fish from the fishermen's boats into large metal totes. It was very hard work but I manged to pull through the fishing season.

My first day on the job was June 15, and I was pretty nervous. There were only four people working when I started out. They were Mike Papp, Joey Coffee, and I. Nick Duny was our supervisor. And working the tenders were, Vassily Sergie and Patrick Peteroff on the

Kathleen, Joe Oney and Terry Thompson on the Kimberly Ann, and Alvin Owletuck Sr. and James Oney on the Agnes 0. The first opening was a six hour opening, and it lasted from 6 P.M. to 12 A.M. I was glad because I wouldn't have to go home at curfew.

That night I had to be down at the fish plant by 10:30 P.M. We went down to the dock and got it all set by parking the boomtruck, which had a crane on it near the docking site. We stacked and prepared both yellow and metal totes around the the boomtruck. The metal totes were the ones the fish would go in, and the yellow ones were for backup.

The fishermen started coming in at 11:15. I got a little nervous when three boats pulled in. Then I knew it was going to be hard work. The whole night felt like a day. The process was slow and tiring because we had only three workers that night, myself, Joey and Mike. Nick helped out a little but he operated the crane. During that time I glanced down at the fishermen a few times, and I could tell they were restless and tired too and wanted to go home. When the night was finally over I was dead beat, and I went home and fell right asleep.

The next day I went to work pretty tired. Joey, Nick, and I were the only ones that afternoon. All we did was clean the totes we used. Later on that evening Mike came to work, and we organized and cleaned the kitchen and some of the other vans. We also cleaned up around the plant when there was no fishing.

A day before the second opening, Tom Soolook, Chris and Joe Fitka were hired. Joe Oney was in Pitka's Point when the second opening opened. Since Terry Thompson needed a partner, he and Nick decided to pick me for a deck hand aboard the tender, KimberlyAnn. I felt as if I was promoted. Terry who had been the deck hand became the captain. It was a thrill to work on a tender boat, but I had heard it was hard work.

The second opening was a 12 hour opening, and I knew it was going to be hard work. It was to be from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M. After work I went home and got ready to tender. When the boat was prepared, we left at 10:30 P.M. and we anchored at our spot outside the mouth of Polty's Slough at 11:15 P.M. We prepared the boat for the fishermen to come and sell us their fish and then we rested up till morning. Our first seller was Camille and Allen Boliver. Nine boats sold 12,000 lbs. of fish to us. I was kind of happy because it meant more money for me. When we finally got up to the dock at the fish plant we had to park and wait for the fishermen to sell their fish. I think that was the best opening for the fishermen because they had a lot of fish. When we got there, there was a]ready a long line of boats, so we helped out by taking some of the fish from some boats. That also helped add to our own total pounds of fish. We had a total of about 13,200 lbs. of fish when they were done selling. After a little break we got the boats Kimberly Ann and Kathleen loaded with iced fish and ready to go down to the major fish plant Boreal below St. Mary's where the fish had to be packed up and sent to Anchorage.

In the Kimberly Ann there was myself Joe-Joe and Terry. In the Kathleen there was just Patrick and Mike. It took us 12 1/2 hours to go down and another 4 hours waiting for a barge to refuel Boreal's gas tanks. With hardly any sleep for me, it seemed like a whole day and a half was three days. On our way back up to Marshall we blew both engines near Pitka's Point. We had to pick up Joe Oney anyway so we landed. It took Joe and Terry about another hour and a half to fix just one engine, so we had to come up with just one engine which took us about eight hours. We got up here a day and a half after we started down.

I didn't go to work for two days after we came up, and then we mostly cleaned and organized or did whatever Nick wanted us to do.

The third opening was the last one. This time I didn't have to work on a tender and go down to Boreal again. After that Boreal trip I didn't want to go down there again for awhile. The opening was another 6 hours long. It lasted until the early morning of the 4th of July. After that one I was relieved that I would finally be getting payed and I wouldn't have to suffer with the fish anymore.

And that was my hectic summer job.