Laura Cooper: [0:04] OK, this is an interview for the Nordic American Voices oral history project. Today is October 9th, 2010, and I'll be interviewing Per Odegaard, which in Norwegian is pronounced:

Per Odegaard: [0:21] It's Per Odegaard.

Laura: [0:22] Thank you. We're at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Ballard, in the city of Seattle, Washington, and my name is Laura Cooper. OK, Per, if you could talk to us about your background and how you ended up running the Vansee.

Per: [0:45] OK. I was born in Norway, [inaudible 0:51] Norway, in 1946, and my father, along with a partner, owned the Vansee. The partner was Sven Nyhammer. I started fishing with my father in 1967, and then the opportunity came up to buy half of the Vansee in 1969. [1:12] My father's partner got into crab fishing and he wanted out of the halibut fishing. So I bought half the boat at that time, and then my father retired in 1979. I fished with my father until '79, and then I started running the boat.

[1:33] And about three or four years after that, after my father retired, then I bought out my father's half, so now I have all of it. And interesting family story, I'll tell you some family stories about how we actually got into fishing in the United States.

[1:50] My father immigrated to the United States in 1949. He was trying to immigrate earlier, but World War II came and the country was occupied by the Nazis, so you couldn't get out. But he had two brothers and a sister living in Seattle, who'd immigrated earlier.

[2:11] His oldest sister is 18 years older than him and she immigrated in the '20s. And his brothers John and Chris, they immigrated to the US in the 1930s. How they got into the halibut fishing ‑‑ and this story is told to me as true [laughs] . You've got to take it for what it's worth ‑‑ my uncle Chris was running a steam donkey in the logging operation in Silverdale. He was the donkey operator, so he'd come up in the world of logging at the time. They were horse logging.

[2:50] When John came, my Uncle John, Chris got him a job logging there. And I guess the first day, they asked him if he could operate a horse, and he said, oh yeah, we had horses on the farm in Norway. Horses are no problem.

[3:08] I think he got through the first day. I think it was the second day when he tumbled a horse and the log he was towing off a cliff, and killed the horse, and got fired. So he went up to Chris, who was operating a steam donkey, and says Chris, did you hear what happened?

[3:28] And Chris says yeah, I heard you killed that horse. And he says yeah, dumbest horse I'd ever seen, man. Didn't understand a word of Norwegian. And Chris says, yeah, well, it was America. [laughs]

[3:42] And then John goes well, what do you think I should do? And Chris says well, why don't you head up to Ballard? I hear there's a lot of Norwegians up there, maybe get a job fishing or something.

[3:54] And so John did, and got a job on the Grant, the schooner Grant, with the present Jack Knudsen's dad, Old Jack, Jack Senior, and broke in halibut fishing there. And from there my uncle went on to own a series of halibut boats and tuna boats, along with his brother‑in‑law, and he owned part of the Vansee as an investment.

[4:24] He owned half the Vansee as investment with a guy named Ed Flones. Then when my father immigrated, he started fishing with his brother, fishing halibut with his brother John in the summers, and then in the winters he'd go down to Monterey and fish sardines. Real John Steinbeck "Cannery Row" stuff.

[4:49] Well, anyways, I'm jumping around a bit here, but at that time the immigration, it wasn't unusual, especially for my dad, I think he was 35 years old at the time, where the father would come over first for a couple years and give it a try, see if he could make it.

[5:07] He was worried, because he wasn't that young a guy anymore. And so he came over and fished with his brother for two years, and the sardine fishing and stuff, to see if he could make it, and he felt he could. So then he sent for my mom and I, who were still living in Norway on the farm there.

[5:26] It was a farm where my grandparents stayed. It was a rather large house, I think it was like 27 rooms, pretty big house. My uncle and my cousins, and my aunt and cousins lived in one part of the house, my grandparents lived upstairs in our half of the house [laughs] , and we lived in our portion of the house.

[5:55] So, anyways, to jump around some more. [laughs] At that time my father came back and got my mom and I. We came over. And he continued fishing with his uncle for a number of years until 1960.

Then he bought a Svein Nighammer and my father bought my uncle’s [inaudible 6: [6:11] 38] half of the Vansee with Ed Flones as a skipper. He had the other half. Then that went for a couple years. Then my dad and Svein bought out Ed Flones with my dad running the boat until I bought out Svein .

Laura: [6:36] How big is the Vansee? What does it look like? What kind of... What do you fish for?

Per: [6:42] The Vansee is what we call a halibut schooner - house aft. She's 87 feet long. I think the largest schooner that's left. We fish for halibut and black cod. We long line for those two species.

Laura: [7:00] Are you still fishing?

Per: [7:02] Yes, I'm still fishing. This is the first year I took half the year off. I brought my brother‑in‑ law in to running the boat. He ran it half the year and I ran it the other half. Kind of take the easier parts. [laughs} So...

Laura: [7:24] What's happened to the Vansee over time? What's the history of the Vansee in terms of its structure?

Per: [7:32] Well, like I said, the Vansee was built in 1913 and during that time it's had at least five different engines that I know of. So it's been repowered at least five times. Since I've owned it, since my father and I owned it, we've replaced the fuel tanks, put on a new pilot house, new baiting house. [8:01] You're always remodeling to some degree. You're always rebuilding. You're replacing a plank when it needs it. You're renailing the boat. I mean it's a wooden boat so there's a lot of maintenance. But it is replaceable, too.

Laura: [8:24] Is any of it original, do you think?

Per: [8:25] Oh yeah. Yeah, there's quite a bit of the original boat. The frames, which most people call ribs, but they really are frames. [laughter]

Per: [8:35] And some of the planking keel, think most of the planking underwater is fairly original. It's the planking above water that doesn't seem to last as long as what's underwater. For whatever reason. It gets wet and dry, wet and dry type things for most deterioration.

Laura: [8:55] And what type of wood is it made out of?

Per: [8:57] It's made out of Douglas Fir, so old growth Douglas Fir ,of course. But then again, the boat is almost 100 years old, so if you, whatever trees you cut down to make the boat, if you planted them again you could have 100 year old tree to start on a new one.

Laura: [9:17] Yeah.

Interviewer 2: [9:18] How has the technology of fishing changed since you've..

Per: [9:22] Well, the Vansee, all these schooners, they were built to fish, they didn't fish from the boat itself. They carried dories. The Vansee carried six dories, two men to the dory, and the 15 men total on the boat. [9:41] You had the cook, the skipper and the engineer who didn't leave the boat. They didn't go out in the dories, they stayed aboard to round up the dories. And do the work that was necessary to haul these dories, get them in and get the guys back aboard and everything.

[10:00] But they quit dory fishing, I think the last ones were the '30s. Extremely dangerous way to fish. You'd lose dories, they couldn't find the boat back if it got foggy, it was tough weather.

Laura: [10:14] Why did you have to fish from a dory instead of from the main boat?

Per: [10:18] Well, they didn't have the technology of what we call a gurdy, which is the machinery that hauls the line in, and they hadn't figured out technology actually setting from the stern of the boat, setting the, deploying the gear, the setting of the gear. [10:34] And that technology came later, with the mechanical gurdy, and the setting chute. They used to, before the setting chute they used to use what they call setting sticks. Have you heard of these?

Laura: [10:47] No.

Per: [10:48] Oh, OK. Before they invented the chute, they had used what they call a setting stick. And you'd, as the gear went out, you'd have the stick and you'd flip each hook, so they wouldn't snag on anything. And if you've seen now the goose neck chute that we used to set gear out of?

Laura: [11:06] Yes.

Per: [11:07] OK, that was a later invention. The first ones were made out of wood, and then they lined them with tin, and then from there they actually made a metal chute.

Laura: [11:17] So when they were in the dories, were they hand hauling that gear in?

Per: [11:21] They hand hauled, they had a little hand crank. Matter of fact, you have one here. You have a dory and a hand crank, a little hand gurdy in the museum here.

Laura: [11:30] So they weren't literally pulling with their hands.

Per: [11:33] No. They had this uh, I'll show it to you.

Laura: [11:38] OK.

Per: [11:38] You take a turn around and it's got a crank you crank like this. And you have two men to a Dory. Usually the greenhorn was the guy who had to do the cranking.

Laura: [11:49] And how big were the Halibut that would come up in those days?

Per: [11:52] Well, actually, you were paid by the fish in those days, not by the pound. So, if you got a really big one, you would often just let him go, because they were too much of a hassle to get aboard and took too much room in the Dory. And you know, a great big fish thrashing around, you don't want that in your 17 foot Dory. So you tried to avoid the big ones the best you could. [laughter]

Laura: [12:20] That's a different way of thinking about it.

Per: [12:21] What?

Laura: [12:23] That's a different way of thinking about it.

Per: [12:24] Yeah.

Laura: [12:26] And so you fished Halibut and what other kind? What else would the Vansee fish for?

Per: [12:31] Well, right now we fish Black Cod and Halibut. We also tried salting Grey Cod once. That didn't quite pan out. And we've trolled Tuna. We've done some tuna trolling off of Washington, Oregon and California coast.

Laura: [12:49] And previous to your fishing?

Per: [12:52] No, my Dad used to like going Tuna trolling in the fall after Halibut season, and so we did that just about every year. Not the last few years that he was running it, but before then he liked to go to that. We did that. We didn't make much money. A little bit, you know, which was all right. You know this was 1960 and heck you're in California. This wasn't all bad, you know. For a young guy, you know. [laughs]

Laura: [13:23] Yeah for sure. And so, when you fish now, can you tell us a little bit about historically and now, how long would the boat go away from the home port for?

Per: [13:35] Well, the normal season has almost always been approximately six to seven months that you're gone. That's been pretty much normal. When I started we'd make a Bering Sea trip early in the year. [13:54] That could be March or April, and the regular Halibut season and the first opening of area three would be in May, normally. And you'd usually get that wrapped up by September or October. And then if you're trolling tuna that would be the end of September/October into November, maybe first November you're usually back home again.

Laura: [14:22] Back home for boat work?

Per: [14:24] Yeah.

Laura: [14:24] Yeah.

Per: [14:26] To work on the boat, yeah.

Laura: [14:28] And how did you store your fish on that boat?

Per: [14:30] Iced. When we're fishing Halibut or Black Cod we take about 11 tons of ice. It's granulated ice, and then we have coils. Refrigeration coils that hold the ice. We tried to hold the fish hold at 32 to 33 degrees, just hovering on where you don't freeze the fish so they can still be a fresh fish, and that keeps the ice from melting.

Laura: [14:57] And how long can you stay out that way?

Per: [14:59] Well, in the old days we used to stay out 20 days, 21 days. But those fish had to be frozen. And then, you know, frozen fish, once you thawed them out you had to use them right away. [15:16] Nowadays, if you delivered to Homer, six days would probably be the max you'd want to bring a fish in for a fresh fish, if you're delivering to Homer or Seward. Fish that's being frozen, like our Bering Sea fish from a route there.

[15:34] Most fish that ends up in Dutch Harbor or King Cove and there you have to freeze it. You might have ten to twelve days on that fish, but on Halibut the bacteria count is really quite low and once you what we call dress the fish.

[15:57] You know, you remove the head and the guts, and scrape out the belly cavity and then you fill that belly cavity with ice which lays against the backbone and lowers that lowers the core temperature of the fish rather well. Then you layer ice in the fish hold. Then it lasts a long time.

Laura: [16:16] Mm‑hmm. And how big is your crew normally?

Per: [16:22] Our normal crew is six people. Myself and five others.

Abby: [16:28] Have you all worked on that boat together for quite a long time?

Per: [16:32] Yeah. We have really stable crews. The guy who's been there longest is Pete Eriksson. I think I'm going to say 30 years. It seems like a long time, but I think it's pretty close to 30 years. [16:52] Steve Torkelson, he's been there 20 years, anyway. We just hired a young guy. 30 years old, that's a young guy. [laughs] . When I was 30 I didn't think it was so young.

[laughter]

Per: [17:15] So he's our newest. My brother‑in‑law, he's been there 13, 14 years. And so, yeah, it's... I've had people in the last few years. I've had a couple. No, I've had three over the years retire. All guys into their 60's. So it's... [17:41] Halibut fishing is different than say crab fishing or dragging. It's not such a brute strength type work. It's more endurance. It's more of a marathon. You don't have to lift 100 pounds or 200 pounds or anything like that. But you have to be able to lift like 40 pounds a lot.

[laughter]

Laura: [18:03] Over and over.

Per: [18:04] Yeah. [laughs]

Laura: [18:07] What about weather? What kind of weather have you been in in that boat?

Per: [18:11] Oh well, we all like calm weather but obviously it's a boat that's been around for 97 some years, it's seen some weather. The worst storm I've ever been in was we were trying to get out of Bering Sea. We had a full load of halibut. We'd been up in the Pribiloff Islands fishing. And it was the tail end of a tropical typhoon that came through Bering Sea. That truly was a 100 mile an hour blow where...50 foot seas. And we were trying to get through the Unimak Pass and we just weren't going to make it that far. So we spent 24 hours basically jogging into it. [inaudible 18:59] going up the mountain and then down the mountain and then up the mountain [laughs] and then down the mountain [inaudible 19:14] .

But then after 24 hours it seemed to kind of back off enough and the tide had changed. [inaudible 19: [19:03] 24] inched our way up the Unimak Pass. And it just backed up enough so we got through the pass and then once we got into the Pacific it was, the whole world had changed. All of a sudden the blue skies...

[laughter]

Per: [19:23] ...and birds are chirping. Whew, paradise, you know. [laughs] Yeah, that's funny how it can change so fast.

Laura: [19:36] Have you ever been involved in any situation where you had to assist other vessels or you had to be assisted?

Per: [19:43] We had to be towed once. We had an engine breakdown. The blower engine went. And we were towed in by the Coast Guard, once. My dad was there and we had a grounding once. [19:59] We went aground and had to be towed off. It didn't do any structural damage or anything, but it was just before high tide, so we wanted to get towed off before we got to low tide. We didn't want to sit there very long.

And that's the only two. About two years ago we went to assist another vessel. We were quite a ways away. That was the Bering Sea, quite a ways out. But they managed to get the problem straightened out before we got there, so we didn't have to tow them. Oh, but we towed the Attu once, that's right, too. They got some web in the wheel.

Laura: [20:36] Mm hmm.

Per: [20:37] Yeah, I remember that. It was [inaudible 20:38] , it was a long time ago though.

Laura: [20:42] Does the old halibut fleet tend to fish together, in the same area at the same time, or?

Per: [20:47] No, we're pretty independent. Once we're leave the locks we all head different directions. Right now we are a little closer together, because of, they're all on the edges. The grounds are such that you see other boats a lot. But we don't fish together as a fleet or anything. I would say no, not at all. [laughs]

Laura: [21:16] And were you ever a high liner boat? What were your big catches?

Per: [21:23] We had some pretty good years where we did quite well. Right at the qualifying years for IFQ’s we did quite well. It was another luck of the draw thing. When you're born can make a heck of a difference in whether you're ever read that book ?[21:47] I was kind of the right age at the right time for the qualifying years for halibut. I had been running the boat for a little bit. I was still in my mid‑30s. Everybody on the crew was in their mid‑30s. We all had at least 10 years' experience or so. You're still young enough that you've got something to prove, you're trying to prove it. We worked real hard at it.

[22:18] It worked out well. I wouldn't have had that energy level now that I had during those qualifying years. That was kind of luck of when you were born.

Laura: [22:29] Yeah, that's great.

Per: [22:32] So yeah, we had some good years.

Laura: [22:35] What about maritime organizations? Are you...

Per: [22:39] I'm a member of the Fishing Vessel Owners Association, but other than that, no.

Laura: [22:43] Masters, Mates and Pilots, or Norwegian Commercial Club?

Per: [22:48] Sons of Norway.

Laura: [22:49] Sons of Norway.

Per: [22:50] I go to the Commercial Club, Fisherman's Night Dinner. [laughs] My dad was a member of the Commercial Club , dad and uncle and stuff, but I never joined. I probably should. I'd like to join the Puget Sound Historical Society.

Laura: [23:10] That'd be great.

Per: [23:10] Sounds like kind of a neat thing.

Laura: [23:13] And what about your Nordic roots? Can you talk a little bit more about your parents and what traditions they brought over or I guess I should say, what traditions you brought over since you were born in Norway.

Per: [23:28] I was pretty young when I came over. Like a said I was born in Norway and Christmas is a big Norwegian... you know, that's the time to get really Norwegian [laughs] because my mom would spend weeks making cookies and stuff. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was always traditional Norwegian food, everything from Lutefisk, which is something that no one but my parents seemed to like - Vlacheka Spikacule. Are you familiar with these?

[24:23] That was Norwegian Christmas. The rest of the year, when I was growing up, we'd speak half Norwegian, half English. Whatever we thought of first. Whatever expressed it best. [laughs]

Laura: [24:41] And you grew up in Ballard?

Per: [24:42] Yeah, I grew up in Ballard.

Laura: [24:44] Where?

Per: [24:45] On 63rd and 30th, just a few blocks from here. We went to Adam's Elementary and then James Monroe Junior High School then Ballard high school in Ballard. And then my parents bought another house on 75th and 28th and lived there until they died.

Laura: [25:09] So very Ballard.

Per: [25:11] Yeah I bought my first house in Ballard, the first house I bought.

Laura: [25:18] What drew you to fishing? Or was it because your dad did ?

Per: [25:22] Well, yeah, that was part of it. My mother didn't want me to fish. I was going into the U.W, but I worked in the cannery for two summers, up in Cook’s inlet . Then I guess my dad didn't want me to fish that much, I finally, convinced him to take me fishing my third summer there, my junior year. [26:00] And I did OK, wasn't big money, but we did pretty good. Actually, I was doing as well as some of the associate professors at school. So I started thinking this isn't so bad, and it was a different era.

[26:17] This would have been 1967, '68, '69 you know? This was kind of a hippy, groovy thing to do. Wooden boats and it was during that era, that it was easy to fall into it thinking that you were kind of neat.

[26:37] And, some people make these life decisions and plan them out have this target goal they go for. Some people kind of fall into their lives to work and it kind of happens you know, and I more or less fell into it. [laughs]

Laura: [26:56] But you must like it, if you stuck with it.

Per: [26:58] Oh yeah! Yeah. Obviously, it has afforded me a certain lifestyle that not many people have. It's afforded a lot of independence. Opportunities to do a lot of things during the off time that most people don't have. [27:16] Most people look forward to a couple weeks of vacation. I think the independence is a big part of it. It's a real big part of it. Obviously, thinking back on it, I think there was more that I could've done with my off time but, I think we all probably think that.

[27:37] I have a 16‑year‑old son and I'd like him to experience it. At least have a crack at it, to see what he thinks. It does offer you a lifestyle that in this day and age is not readily available.

Laura: [27:56] That is so true. So are you hoping that your son will take over the boat at some point?

Per: [28:05] I think it'd be kind of cool if he did but it's nothing I am going to push or anything. That's got to be up to him.

Laura: [28:11] Right. Wow. Can you think of other things that, happened to you at sea, that you would like to tell us? Incredible things that you saw?

Per: [28:25] Well, yeah. [laughs] One time, nobody believes me, but I've heard that it does happen, and it was just getting dark, just twilight, and we saw a.massive whale migration. Just about every species of whale you can think of. I mean thousands. I mean literally thousands, including killer whales, sperm whales, gray whales. [28:54] I'm sure there's some wright whales in there, too. But there's so many. It was massive, just the entire ocean horizon as far as you could see and there were literally thousands of whales. That occasionally happens, I understand.

Laura: [29:09] They move together?

Per: [29:10] Porpoises. Yeah.

Laura: [29:10] Wow.

Per: [29:12] It was like an African herd of animals moving. Yeah, I mean at sea.

Laura: [29:15] Where was that?

Per: [29:20] We were off the Shumagin Islands. I think there probably headed to Unimak Pass going through the Bering Sea. And I've only seen that once in my life. Sun fish. Interesting stuff. But a lot of the stuff to see it you have to spend enough time in the ocean where it pops up because it's not every day, you know? [laughs] [29:56] We've all seen storms and stuff. But regardless of what you see on "Deadliest Catch" we don't like drama. We want it boring, want it smooth. [laughs] Things kind of rolling along. None of that drama stuff. That's nothing but trouble. You don't want that. [laughs]

Laura: [30:16] Have you ever had whales come up and eat your long lines?

Per: [30:23] Yeah. Killer whales are by far the most aggressive. I mean they're the worst. They never used to be a problem. We never had killer whale trouble when I first started. And I don't know if the population has exactly exploded but it's really grown. [30:43] And they've gotten more and more aggressive as there's gotten to be so many of them. I mean they have documented pictures of killer whales feeding on otters and so forth and stuff that they'd never eaten before.

[31:02] And sperm whales, we really don't have much problem with sperm whales. When I started fishing the Russians were still whaling or they just kind of quit whaling. And to see a sperm whale was a big deal. Everybody would come out on deck and be like, "Whoa, there she blows," type thing.

[31:20] But now, sperm whales, man, they're around us all the time. I mean there will be eight around you when you're hauling gear. You always have at least one or two, always.

Laura: [31:31] Oh, I didn't know that.

Per: [31:32] Yeah the sperm whale population is quite healthy. And, like I said, when I started it was a big deal to see a whale.

Laura: [31:43] That's good to know.

Per: [31:44] Now you're telling guys, "Hey, there's a whale. Oh yeah.". [laughter]

Laura: [31:55] Which part of Alaska do you like fishing in best, or do you have a favorite part?

Per: [32:00] The Gulf of Alaska. We fish‑‑we start out actually in the southeast, out the southeast. Not by inside waters but by outside waters, move our way up to West Yakutat. Actually West Yakutat, I like that the best. A little nicer weather, closer to civilization.

Laura: [32:16] Mm‑hm.

Per: [32:18] Then we work our way around the Gulf, up outside of the Seward‑Kodiak area, and then out by Sand Point, [inaudible 32:49] , and then we go all the way up into the Bering Sea up past St. Matthew, or up by St. Matthew Island. Fish a halibut trip and then‑‑there, deliver that, then we go all the way out to fish our 4‑B halibut. We cover a lot of ground over here, cover a lot of miles. Then after we've caught our 4‑B and our Bering Sea stuff, some of it's around Dutch Harbor and some of it's all the way to the end of the chain. Then we work our way back again [inaudible 33: [32:51] 11] , and clean up our halibut in the Gulf of Alaska. Then run that down to Bellingham, the last trip normally we'll run down.

Laura: [33:18] Is that the last place to sell, on the...

Per: [33:21] Yeah, you get a lot better price when you bring your fish down, and you're coming down anyway. So it's usually 30 to occasionally 50 cents a pound greater, but normally about 30 cents a pound you'll gain on running it down. [33:36] But with the time factor, we'll only run our last one down a partial trip. You have to fish down to an amount that you get can catch really quick to run down. You want just a couple days of fishing and then run it down‑‑

Laura: [33:52] Right.

Per: [33:52] Because it takes time to bring it down.

Laura: [33:54] What does halibut sell these days to the fishermen. Range?

Per: [34:01] It's been just under $4 to the $5 range on halibut in Alaska, up to $6. Towards the end of the season it's ‑‑ the fresh fish is really is a supply and demand deal. It's really microeconomics. [34:20] When or if there's been bad weather, some people aren't out, or it's salmon season, and there's not a lot of halibut on the market the price will become come up pretty good. And if there's been a nice stretch of weather and a lot of guys have been fishing, the price will drop some.

But it's been pretty stable, especially now with IFQ's. It's our individual quota system. We can space out our fishing. We don't have these derbys.So most of the fish is‑‑darn near all the halibut's going fresh. Our black cod is frozen but that goes to Japan. That's the biggest market on black cod.

[34:57] The price on black cod is usually a function of the exchange rate on the yen. It is a driving force on that price. If we have a favorable exchange rate then it translates into, you know, a high dollar value. If the exchange rate is not so good then, of course, lower dollar value.

Laura: [35:16] Is most of the halibut consumed in the States?

Per: [35:20] Yeah. Yeah. Most of it. There is a little bit shipped to Europe, not much. You know, they have other white fish. The American palate likes halibut because you can easily have a skinless, boneless white fish without any strong flavor. And it portion packs really well. [35:47] You know, you lay out a halibut, you can cut it up like lasagna. If you want six ounce portions, whatever you want to serve, you know. Also, you can cut off...if you want it to taste like butter and garlic, no problem. If you want it to taste like cheese sauce, we can do that too, you know.

[laughter]

Laura: [36:02] What's your favorite fish?

Per: [36:05] Probably halibut and black cod. It depends, you know. My favorite fried fish is snapper. Any kind of red snapper for a fried fish. Halibut, since we fish it, we probably get the most creative with that when we cook, my wife and I. And there's some really good halibut recipes. Black cod, that takes what we call a little bit more sophisticated palate. [laughter]

Per: [36:37] But there's...have you had black cod down at Ray's Boat House?

Laura: [36:41] No, we smoke ours. We have it smoked up at Jensen's.

Per: [36:44] Oh. OK.

Laura: [36:45] I only really care for it smoked. Unless it's really fresh.

Per: [36:49] OK. They have a smoked black cod down at Ray's that's really quite good and there's a place off of Monroe called Felix's Smokery. OK. So, you drive up to Monroe, and you know where the Monroe fairgrounds are?

Laura: [37:05] Mm‑hmm.

Per: [37:06] You know, as you make that, that would be a right, you know, once you get off the highway there. OK. Across the street, if you make a left, you go into this kind of industrial buildings and one of them is called Felix and they cold smoke it. And then you do it so...like Ray's, you just cut off a portion of this cold smoked black cod and put it in a frying pan with a little oil, maybe some red pepper flakes and just sear your other side, turn it over, in a cast iron : [37:22] 49] frying pan and then stick it in the oven set at about 350, warm it all the way through it. You're ready to go.

Laura: [37:46] You're making me really hungry. [laughter]

Laura: [37:49] That sounds delicious.

Per: [37:50] It is. It's really good. The pepper flakes give it just enough of a kick, you know. according to taste there. You can add as many flakes as you want.

Laura: [37:59] But you have to get it cold smoked.

Per: [38:00] Yeah.

Laura: [38:00] Get the cold smoked [inaudible 38:20] .

Abby: [38:04] And when you're on the Vansee, do you think you get more attention because you're in a historic vessel, like when you come into ports?

Per: [38:10] Yeah. Some ports, especially like Cordova. That's a real fishing town. I mean, that's not a tourist town and the cruise ship doesn't pull into Cordova. And, you know, they come down to look at these old boats, you know. I think John McHenry probably told you, the Seymour, they brought, you know, the fourth grade class, to whatever, down to tour the boat, you know.

Abby: [38:36] We were going to interview him but we haven't.

Per: [38:39] Oh. OK. He'll probably tell you that story, I'm sure. He's a good story teller. He's got that Irish, you know, gift of gab thing, you know... [laughter]

Per: [38:45] ...going on, so.

Laura: [38:48] That's good.

Abby: [38:50] Are boats, I'm sort of ignorant about fishing. Are boats...are halibut fishing boats now designed really differently than your boat or are they relatively the same?

Per: [39:00] Yeah. They're designed differently. Boats are designed around the regs now and if you're under a 60 foot boat which [limit, maybe you've heard that. You fall under a different set of regs, actually less regulations. [39:17] You know, you don't have to carry a log book. You don't have to have a National Marine Fisheries observer aboard. Which we do on 30 percent of the time we're fishing black cod which is a ground fish. The federal log book, you don't have to maintain that, which can be a pain. And there's a few other regs you get out of.

So, most of these boats are built as combination boats to fish salmon and, you know, other species crabs ,salmon stuff. So, they make these boats really wide so they pack a lot of fish, twice as much as the Vansee. They'll pack 200,000 pounds.

Laura: [40:00] Wow.

Per: [40:02] But they're under 60 feet. So, they get out these...like I said, they get out the regs and it's kind of, you know, built according to the regulations. Any new boat, if I built a new boat, I'd do the same.

Laura: [40:22] So, to be a boat owner, would you say you really have to be a business person as well as a fisherman these days?

Pern: [40:28] Well, yeah. The ones that are successful in the long term look at us as small business, which is what it is, and treat it accordingly. You know, watch your costs and make sure you have good help. [40:47] You want a good stable crew. That makes sense. You don't want to be breaking in new guys all the time, or people that don't get along. Like I say, you [laughs] don't want any drama. You want things to go smooth.

[laughter]

Laura: [41:02] Have you noticed over the decades, not that you've been involved in that many decades but maybe with your father's history, too, a big change in the food that people eat on boats?

Per: [41:14] Yeah, when I first started, then it was more Norwegian fare. All the cooks were Norwegian. Most of the fishermen were Norwegian. We'd have something called liver can. I'll tell you about that. It's a metal can that they used to put halibut livers in. We'd have a liver can of salted lamb going all the time. We'd have salted cod fish going all the time. [41:42] We used to eat four meals a day, a 20‑hour day, and you'd have meal of meat and a meal of fish every day. The last meal of the day was a meal of fish because that was easier to digest before you went to bed.

[41:59] The Norwegian theory on that. Now, I don't know, we're not eating as many meals a day, and we don't eat a meal of fish every day like we used to.

[42:16] Fortunately, our cook is a second generation Norwegian. So we do have a little salted cod fish once in a while, but there's no salted lamb or anything. The liver can thing, somebody will probably tell you about this. This would have been late '40s, '50s. It was something called liver co-op. I guess maybe in the early '60s, yeah, because I still remember them.

[42:39] You take the halibut livers and put them in this metal can when you dress the fish. The can's about that high, about that square. It had a round lid. It was square but it was a round lid that fit into the square top. These livers were used for vitamin A or something, some vitamin stuff.

[42:59] There was a processing plant, and used to make pretty good money on the livers. They salted... No, they just iced them down. So you used to have a bunch of these cans around, all these liver cans.

Laura: [43:14] So you still use the cans?

Per: [43:16] No. Well, we don't have them anymore. [laughter]

Per: [43:18] Plastic buckets now. [laughter]

Per: [43:22] Oh, another anecdote. Marvin will probably tell you but during world war II, the Tordenskjold and a lot of these fish, what they call shark livers, because these, the livers were used for vitamin A, because for night vision for pilots. [43:48] And it came from those before they came up with a synthetic version of it. It was really big money. These guys did really well. A matter of fact, the most real money ever made fishing was made on the Tordenskjold on trip. Talk real money.

[44:06] This is another story, he told him as true. They were fishing shark livers and one trip, they loaded the boat,. They had a really big trip of shark livers. And the crew's share was $13,000 a man and the cook on there, took his $13,000 bought a lot in Ballard and hired a carpenter and worked with him and they built a three bedroom brick house on that one trip. In today's money, to build a three bedroom house and buy the lot in Ballard... that would be...

Laura: [44:47] Hundreds of thousands

Per: [44:49] $600,000 or something... Of course, the house they built was probably a one bathroom, it would be a different house you'd build now. Still, that's the most real money I've ever heard of being made fishing, on the Tordenskjold . His stories I qualify, they're told to be as true. So when you repeat them, repeat them in the same way they were told to you as true. [laughs]

Laura: [45:14] I believe it

Per: [45:16] I believe that one, probably, is mostly true.

Laura: [45:21] I always heard, about old fishermen, that when they had to pull the nets, that their fingers, were really wide. Do you remember that from when you were young?

Per: [45:30] No

Laura: [45:31] You're not old enough

Per: [45:34] We don't use nets, we're long liners.

Laura: [45:37] No, I meant maybe from when you were a kid.

Per: [45:41] That was, Slovenians that pulled nets.

Laura: [45:44] Oh, I guess a different group

Per: [45:49] Slovenians were anybody from Yugoslavia. You get these, dour Norwegian guys, they say "these Slovenians, they drink wine, [laughs] and they laugh" [laughs] Norwegians don’t laugh much.

Laura: [46:13] Can you think of anything else you'd like to add to your record?

Per: [46:19] No, I don't think so. Afterwards, I'm sure I will [laughs] about that but, you've got a couple stories there, so

Laura: [46:27] Yeah. Fabulous. Thank You.

Per: [46:30] OK.