[00:00:05] Laura Cooper: This is an interview for the Nordic American Voices Oral History Project. Today is April 16th, 2011, and I'll be interviewing Philip Jacobson. We are at the Nordic Heritage Museum in, uh, Ballard or Seattle, Washington. Um, and my name is Laura Cooper, and conducting the interview with me is Lise Orville

[00:00:35] Lise Orville: Could you please state your full name?

[00:00:38] Philip Jacobsen: Philip Donald Jacobson.

[00:00:41] Lise Orville: Thank you. Uh, we would like to start by asking you about your background and your family's background and where they came from.

[00:00:52] Philip Jacobsen: Okay. My dad was, uh, born in Helgeland, which is a small little village about 50 miles south of Bodo, and, uh, his parents died very young, and he was...

[00:01:11] the kids were sent out to different families, and he was raised by the Mattisons in Helgeland, and, uh, he left Norway at the age of 18. And my mother was from Lofoten Islands, and there were, uh, two families. Her mother married, and they were m- family of the Neslings, and then the husband died, and then, uh, she remarried to a man named Sundt, and, um, I think there were eight children in the two families.

[00:01:51] And, uh, she, uh, came over when she was 15 by herself. Her brother had a ticket to America, and he fell in love and decided to get married, and he s- asked if somebody wanted the ticket, and my mother grabbed it, or so the story goes, and came to this country by herself.

[00:02:13] Lise Orville: Where did she go to when

[00:02:15] Philip Jacobsen: she came? Well, she came to Seattle, and, uh, s- some of her brothers were over here, so she had some roots, and she worked for, uh, Manning's, that had a restaurant, Manning's Restaurant, and she worked in their home.

[00:02:32] And she got, uh, she's $12 a month, room and board, and she says she was there a month, and she was able to buy a new dress.

[00:02:44] Laura Cooper: And the Manning's restaurant is where the Denny's restaurant was.

[00:02:48] Philip Jacobsen: That's true. Right? And I think there were others, too- Yes ... besides that.

[00:02:53] Laura Cooper: So they were a restaurant family.

[00:02:54] Philip Jacobsen: Right.

[00:02:55] Laura Cooper: Yeah.

[00:02:55] Lise Orville: Yeah. So how did she meet your dad?

[00:02:59] Philip Jacobsen: Well, I think the Norwegians, you know, kinda mingled together in Ballard, and dances were a big thing, and I think they probably met at one of those gatherings and the dances. And they, uh, they got married and lived at Green Lake, and, and this friend of his, Ness, I can't remember his name, had a...

[00:03:28] Was living in Medina or the Bellevue area. And so they traded houses, and somebody threw in a 1918 car. I don't know which one it was, and that's how he, uh, ended up in the Bellevue area, where I was raised and lived all my life.

[00:03:49] Lise Orville: Do you have brothers or sisters?

[00:03:51] Philip Jacobsen: Well, I had two sisters. Yeah. They're both deceased.

[00:03:58] Lise Orville: So how did you start out fishing?

[00:04:01] Philip Jacobsen: Well, I, uh, went out, it was, uh, when I was between my junior and senior year in high school, and the boat came in and they needed a man, and so they took me, and I was about 15 or 16. Wow. And, and I was sick, and I, uh, wasn't much good, and I swore I'd never do that again. And I didn't till I was about 22.

[00:04:27] Do

[00:04:29] Lise Orville: you remember what the boat was?

[00:04:31] Philip Jacobsen: Well, it was the Paragon.

[00:04:32] Lise Orville: Oh.

[00:04:36] Laura Cooper: And how did your dad get that boat?

[00:04:38] Philip Jacobsen: Well, it, uh, I think his, uh, brother-in-law, who was here earlier, and he had a schooner called the Seattle, and so he owned half the boat. And Sundin DeVere's, which was an outfitting store located at Colman Dock, the ferry dock at that time was like Seattle Ship, and Pacific Fishing and Trading and those stores, and they owned a quarter, and my dad owned a quarter And, uh, he, the, uh, when they first, I don't know exactly, about three years, I think, they actually still fished with dories.

[00:05:21] Lise Orville: Hmm.

[00:05:22] Philip Jacobsen: They'd send the dories over the side, and two men to a dory, I think. And then they finally converted to setting the gear and fishing from the, fr- from the ship rather than the dories. But when, when my dad first came over, they had big steamers, and they, uh, they fished all with the dories. And he, that was his first job when he came to this country, was fishing in one of those dories.

[00:05:54] And, uh, they say, you know, probably know Sig Hage is, uh, one of the, married to one of the Samuelsons. And the, the story goes, and I think it's probably true, is that he was the last man to go over the side in the dory in 1936, and dories were, uh, declared illegal after that time. They weren't allowed to use them, but, uh

[00:06:21] Laura Cooper: Why were they declared illegal?

[00:06:23] Philip Jacobsen: Well, because they were, uh, they'd go away from the ship, and they, of course, they didn't have the navigational aids they have now, and they could ... I don't know if, I don't think many men were lost, but it was possible. And somebody thought, I know one old-timer told me, he says it, he said, "Oh, yankee," said, "They, uh, they declared dories illegal, and they're allowed to, to have these big crab boats with pots stacked to the sky."

[00:06:52] Laura Cooper: Yeah.

[00:06:53] Philip Jacobsen: Right.

[00:06:56] Laura Cooper: So, um, do you remember how the Par- what the Paragon looked like and what it was made out of?

[00:07:02] Philip Jacobsen: Well, it was one of the typical halibut schooners, and it was one of the larger ones. It was 85 feet long, and most of the typical schooners that are left that we know were around 72, 74 feet. And, but, uh, the Republic and the Paragon, a few of them, were some of the bigger schooners that went back close to 100,000 pounds of fish, which you saw in the article.

[00:07:33] And, uh, they had a big trip when the reporter was along about-

[00:07:40] Lise Orville: How, how many men were on the ship?

[00:07:44] Philip Jacobsen: Well, it's varied from, through the years from time to time, but, uh, the men, which was eas- during the, uh, Depression, in the early '30s, and there were, uh, quite a few boats and men, and jobs were hard to come by, and- Yeah

[00:08:01] they set up a system. You were allowed 3,500 pounds for each man that fished on the boat, up to 11 men. Oh. So the most you could bring in was 39,500 pounds, and then they checked that men go, when they unloaded, make sure you weren't cheating, and if you had so much over, then you had to ... And you laid up 10 days in between trips, and it provided an income for 11 families.

[00:08:33] And, and this was purely between the boat owners, and the union, and the crewmen, and that they set this system up, and it's really a remarkable thing they did without any government intervention at all. It was strictly, mainly been, you know, practically 100% Norwegians, immigrants that, uh ...

[00:08:54] Lise Orville: Mostly from the Ballard area.

[00:08:56] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah, right. And a few renegades, like my dad, moved to the east side, and he kept, there was a little shipyard, which is now Carillon Point, that he kept the boat at. And Berger Peterson on the Martindale had his boat there, too.

[00:09:16] Lise Orville: Oh.

[00:09:17] Philip Jacobsen: And then when the war came, it got to be a fairly big three-shift shipyard.

[00:09:23] Yeah. And there wasn't room for a little fishing boat anymore, so ... Yeah.

[00:09:29] Lise Orville: So what, what would be a typical trip? When would they leave?

[00:09:34] Philip Jacobsen: Well, the, uh, season was- Hoped and I think around the 15th of February, maybe the 15th of March, I think. And, and they would leave and then with the, can, the article go up usually to Ketchikan and get ice and bait and go out and fish for roughly 10 days.

[00:09:58] Of course, in that time there was no refrigeration. It was all icing. And, uh, about as long as you could fish and bring the fish to Seattle, it was 10 days and In the course of that period of time, they could only bring 39,500 pounds that they usually, you know, got that amount and, and came down and so it, uh The, uh, women like my mother, you know, were very...

[00:10:32] My dad was a, uh, real gentleman farmer. Had about four and a half acres in the Bellevue area, and he'd hire someone to come in with a plow and plow up a acre or a half acre for us, and we planted this, you know, the garden, and tilled it and watered it and reaped it and canned it . And then he, I don't think he ever did a damn thing.

[00:10:56] He just- I talked about it out to sea, I think. My mom and I did most of the work.

[00:11:06] Laura Cooper: So, so that boat would run up to Ketchikan and back to Seattle in the 10 days?

[00:11:14] Philip Jacobsen: No, no, it would r- yeah, no. It would run to Ketchikan, which takes about three days or a little better.

[00:11:19] Laura Cooper: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:19] Philip Jacobsen: And then you would leave of to, for the fishing grounds, which was quite, um, you know, a wide variance or depend upon where you fished, but about four days, and then you'd fish for 10 days.

[00:11:32] Laura Cooper: Okay.

[00:11:33] Philip Jacobsen: And then you'd run for about seven days, what they call the outside, which is outside of Vancouver Island- Oh ... and come in the Strait of Juan de Fuca quite often, and-

[00:11:42] Laura Cooper: Oh, you came down the outside?

[00:11:44] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah.

[00:11:45] Laura Cooper: Oh.

[00:11:46] Philip Jacobsen: Quite often that,

[00:11:47] Laura Cooper: uh- That's big weather, isn't it?

[00:11:48] Philip Jacobsen: Well, you know, it's all, there are some storms and some good weather.

[00:11:52] And of course at that time, you know, we didn't have, as I say, the navigational aids that they do now, and they'd run so long, and then they had a lead line that they'd put, and as long as they had 100 fathoms, they could run an hour, and then that way they'd find Vancouver Island and set a course down. And they wanted, they didn't have the boat right for the Strait of Juan de Fuca c- because you might miss it and end up down off the Oregon coast or something, you know-

[00:12:24] very easily with a, 'cause you didn't know where you were exactly.

[00:12:29] Laura Cooper: Yeah.

[00:12:29] Lise Orville: So all you had was

[00:12:32] Philip Jacobsen: the compass in those days? Or- The compass, and a clock, and a lead line was- ... the navigational aids. Oh. So they were remarkable, you know. Uh, going up the inside, there was no radars or anything, you know. Went by the lights, and- Oh

[00:12:46] it got foggy in some of the narrow channels, you'd blow the whis- out, and blow the whistle. And my dad was quite good at knowing, get the echo back, how far he was off the shore. And I mean, there were Captain Cook type sailors in those days that - Navigating by- You didn't sit in a chair and look at the radar.

[00:13:07] Laura Cooper: Navigating by sound.

[00:13:09] Lise Orville: Wow.

[00:13:11] Laura Cooper: Wow.

[00:13:12] Lise Orville: When did that all change, during the Second World War?

[00:13:15] Philip Jacobsen: Well, the, uh, shortly after the Second World War, they got, uh, they got, radar came shortly. The first time I ever went to Bering Sea, we didn't have radar, and, uh, you know, like we'd come in, we had to come into Sand Point, a little village in s- out on the Shumagin Islands.

[00:13:38] And so if it was night and stuff, we'd throw out a mark buoy, like when fishing, and wait until daylight, and then see where you were and come in. You wouldn't run in at night because you didn't know where, exactly where you were. So it, uh, spent some... You know, my dad was, uh, on charter, headed with the Halibut Commission.

[00:14:03] Ah. And they were dragging for little baby fish, I think. And Dr. Van Cleave, who later became head of the School of Fisheries, he was kinda gung ho. And my dad, there was a little, thought a storm was coming up, and he says, "Well, we better go in and anchor up." And he said, "No, we'll make one more set and then we'll go in."

[00:14:25] Well, they made one more set, and it got dark, and it was really blowing. And the fisheries guy said, "Now we'll go in and anchor up." And my dad says, "No, now we'll stay out here."

[00:14:38] Laura Cooper: Yeah. Now, did that boat fish for, um, halibut exclusively or other kinds of fisheries as well?

[00:14:46] Philip Jacobsen: No, it pretty much fished for halibut exclusively at that time. And then, uh, in the late '40s, Erling Jacobson, no relative, but same name, bought the boat, and he put on drag gear, and they'd drag off the coast with it for bottom fish.

[00:15:05] Lise Orville: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:07] Philip Jacobsen: And, uh, and it wasn't too long after that that it burned up off the Cape and- Mm. But he, uh-

[00:15:17] He made one trip, and my dad was, came back and for a little while, and hired my dad to run the boat. And, and that's the first trip I made after my high school experience.

[00:15:32] Laura Cooper: And w- did your father encourage you to go into fisheries, or not, or?

[00:15:36] Philip Jacobsen: He never did encourage me. It's like a lot of them, they did and such, but my dad never did, and he, uh, I was a, an athlete of, in that day, of some renown in Bellevue High School, and, uh, but, but my dad was usually gone. My mother became a, uh, avid basketball fan.

[00:15:58] She would, uh- Mm ... come to most of the games. And, but, uh, see, I played football for almost two years before she even knew it, but- ... she didn't think that was too good a game to get into.

[00:16:12] Lise Orville: So she learned to speak English

[00:16:15] Philip Jacobsen: eventually. Oh, yeah. She, s- they, uh, and they, uh, they spoke very little Norwegian around the house, you know? Mm-hmm. That time, a lot of the immigrants, they w- really wanted to be Americans, and they kind of, you know, when they were among themselves, they might throw in a few words.

[00:16:31] And my mother's dad, uh, lived with, uh, came over when he was between 65 and 70, and- Mm ... lived till he was 96, and he'd stay at different homes at times, so he was with us quite a bit. And he had the language all his own, about half and half, and that's kind of the Norwegian I learned.

[00:16:55] Laura Cooper: Now, was he a fisherman in the Lofotens, or did he-

[00:16:59] Philip Jacobsen: Well, I don't, uh, I d- I don't really know what he did There was a, codfish was a big industry up there

[00:17:10] Laura Cooper: Mm-hmm

[00:17:11] Philip Jacobsen: I know they, uh, my mom told a story.

[00:17:14] They, beginning of the codfish season, they had a big dance and a big party when the fleet kind of, the blessing of the fleet type of celebration, and she wasn't allowed to go. But she'd sneak out, and then her brother would, th- They'd take her shoes away from her. Her brother, brother would find them and throw them out the window, and she'd go

[00:17:39] Lise Orville: Jake, I brought the hooks that you showed us the other day

[00:17:43] Philip Jacobsen: Okay. Right. You

[00:17:44] Lise Orville: can, uh- And maybe, maybe you could say something about them

[00:17:48] Philip Jacobsen: Well, to begin with, wait They had the theory that

[00:18:01] Didn't wanna have a knot or anything, so we actually got twine and ran it through pine tar and, and treated it, and then actually sewed those, the hooks on. You see, they don't have an eye like the, the hooks- Oh ... and the nylon gear that you're used to.

[00:18:19] Laura Cooper: Mm. You bet. So the ganyon, what do you think that ganyon's made of?

[00:18:24] Is it-

[00:18:25] Philip Jacobsen: Well, it's a hemp. It'd last about three trips.

[00:18:29] Laura Cooper: Oh, that's all?

[00:18:30] Philip Jacobsen: Hmm. That's all, yeah, and then we'd change them, you know, and everybody, especially when there were 11 men, you had marks on the eye of the skates, and everybody had X number of skates, and they, you didn't just everybody do them. You had your own gear that you took care of.

[00:18:49] Laura Cooper: Oh, so everybody was responsible for-

[00:18:52] Philip Jacobsen: Responsible for their-

[00:18:53] Laura Cooper: Little chunk of gear ...

[00:18:54] Philip Jacobsen: yeah. And then, of course, then when you fished, you'd throw it all in, used it, uh, like you were y- you know. And, uh, but this hook, and then, you know, the, you probably didn't know the old circle hook that they came out with. And we were on charter with the Seymour and the Chelsea for 26 days, four sets a day, and we set a quarter of a mile apart and alternated.

[00:19:23] The gear had this hook and the old s- J-hook that they called, and this hook out-fished this one two to one without fail.

[00:19:33] Laura Cooper: So I thought they brought in the circle hooks as a conservation measure. Oh. But you're saying they caught more.

[00:19:39] Philip Jacobsen: Oh.

[00:19:39] Laura Cooper: They... So it, it's not a conservation measure at all, it's a measure to catch more fish.

[00:19:43] Philip Jacobsen: Right.

[00:19:44] Laura Cooper: Okay, I got that totally backwards. So you were-

[00:19:48] Philip Jacobsen: Maybe they, uh, I can see where they might say conservation, 'cause q- quite possibly the reason you caught more fish is more fish didn't get off. They s- This hook is this hook, so it kinda served a dual purpose I'm sure.

[00:20:04] Laura Cooper: Right, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:20:06] Philip Jacobsen: Right.

[00:20:06] Laura Cooper: So you were on the boat that did the test of those two different kinds of

[00:20:11] Philip Jacobsen: hooks? Yeah, and you can get the, all those, uh, results from the International Pacific Halibut Commission.

[00:20:17] Laura Cooper: Mm-hmm. I

[00:20:17] Philip Jacobsen: think it was around '85, but I mean, I know they've got the records of all those, uh, of those trips when we were together with the Seymour.

[00:20:29] Laura Cooper: That's so... He was on the, he was on the test ship. That was a massive gear shift for halibut.

[00:20:35] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah.

[00:20:35] Laura Cooper: Yeah.

[00:20:36] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah. Oh, yes. It, uh, you know, with all the navigational aids and everything, you still have to get the fish on this hook. That's- ... the end result ... Yeah ... of what's gonna bring the money, and it's getting the fish to bite this hook.

[00:20:52] And whether they bite it and then more of them stayed on it, I'm sure.

[00:20:56] Laura Cooper: Yes. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:20:59] Philip Jacobsen: Oh, yeah.

[00:21:00] Laura Cooper: So- If

[00:21:01] Lise Orville: they came off this hook, they, and went back in the ocean, they would be damaged. And

[00:21:07] Philip Jacobsen: when we were, uh-

[00:21:08] Lise Orville: Yeah ...

[00:21:09] Philip Jacobsen: we had several charters, you know, with the Eclipse and the Chelsea with the Halibut Commission tagging and doing grid patterns and everything.

[00:21:18] And, uh, they, uh, this hook, they would quite often swallow it and get caught in the stomach or anything. With this one, quite often just went through the lip.

[00:21:32] Lise Orville: Mm-hmm. Oh.

[00:21:33] Philip Jacobsen: Which you probably saw that too. Yeah, that's what I

[00:21:35] Laura Cooper: remember.

[00:21:36] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah. And of course, these, you know, if they go down deeper, then they're, they're lost.

[00:21:40] You can't, the little ones you can't shake off either, it's...

[00:21:43] Laura Cooper: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:46] Philip Jacobsen: So it's, uh, it was quite an innovation. I know I-

[00:21:49] Lise Orville: Mm-hmm ...

[00:21:49] Philip Jacobsen: people were talking about these circle hooks, and I told Adolf, "We could better put them on a couple skates and see if they're as good as they say." And he said, "Ah, no fish is gonna bite on that hook."

[00:22:00] Oh. So

[00:22:03] Laura Cooper: how did you end up on, uh, on the Eclipse?

[00:22:08] Philip Jacobsen: Well, the, the first year I went out with my dad, and then I was going to school. It was fisheries at the University of Washington. Oh. And, uh, I had a, a job with the Halibut Commission at the end of the fishing season to go at, uh, as an observer in the... They were on a tagging operation, and so I went there working for the Halibut Commission, and-

[00:22:34] Lise Orville: Oh

[00:22:35] Philip Jacobsen: then I would, I dressed most the fish and worked around and became good friends with Adolf, and-

[00:22:42] Lise Orville: This was Adolf Samuelson.

[00:22:44] Philip Jacobsen: Right. So then next year I asked him for a job, and he gave me one, and I was with him for 40 years.

[00:22:50] Lise Orville: Wow. Yeah. And you were with his brother-

[00:22:54] Philip Jacobsen: Oh, yeah, his brother was- ...

[00:22:55] Lise Orville: Charles

[00:22:55] Philip Jacobsen: Samuelson

[00:22:55] once in a while, Harold would get a little hungry and go on another boat just to g- for a change of pace.

[00:23:03] Lise Orville: Did the two brothers own these two boats?

[00:23:06] Philip Jacobsen: Well, they inherited the... Well, they inherited the Eclipse. Mm-hmm. But, uh, you know, then Adolf thought more that Harold should do more work when the boat was in town, and Harold wanted to travel and do things with his family, so he sold out his interest in it.

[00:23:24] Oh. And he just fished with that, for Adolf, like I did.

[00:23:27] Lise Orville: Oh.

[00:23:28] Philip Jacobsen: But he, uh, he didn't wanna... You know, Adolf was, worked on that boat all winter and down in Ingerum and everywhere, and, which is not, didn't make the best association for a married life, when you've been gone all summer and then you're working down on the boat all winter.

[00:23:48] Lise Orville: Right. And what about the Chelsea?

[00:23:51] Philip Jacobsen: Well, see, uh, then when, uh, Adolf's son, who was broke in, got to the point where he wanted his own boat, Adolf bought the Chelsea and gave Dale the Eclipse.

[00:24:10] So that's, uh That came about

[00:24:14] Laura Cooper: And the Chelsea's another one of the old boats

[00:24:17] Philip Jacobsen: One of the old schooners, right

[00:24:18] Laura Cooper: As is the Eclipse

[00:24:20] Philip Jacobsen: Yes

[00:24:20] Laura Cooper: Yes

[00:24:21] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah, it's, uh, f- fella up in Homer bought it, up by... Laurie knew him quite well

[00:24:27] Laura Cooper: Yeah?

[00:24:28] Philip Jacobsen: I think it was sold again, and I don't know where it is now. I think it's still up in Alaska somewhere, but-

[00:24:33] Lise Orville: Yeah?

[00:24:34] And what about the other one, the-

[00:24:38] Philip Jacobsen: Well, it, uh, the grandson ended up running that, and it, uh, kinda went to hell, and he sold it for almost nothing, and I don't know where it went. I think somebody bought it, thought it was gonna use it for a Pleasure is- Converted ... boated, but I don't know. Somebody said it was anchored up in Tacoma, but I've never seen- Oh

[00:25:02] or heard where it is. Yeah.

[00:25:05] Lise Orville: When you were on the fishing boats, did you do all the jobs?

[00:25:09] Philip Jacobsen: Well, pretty much, yeah. At the ... We, uh, I ended up, Dale, his son, was, m- had a man he wanted to take on out to sea, and so he hired him as the cook. And so we left Ketchikan and got on the outside, and he was, uh, the table was set beautifully.

[00:25:31] Everything was ready, and the man was laying on the floor. And Johnny, my good friend, who had a little drinking problem, was just leaving town in the winter. And he says, he says, "Jake, I think the man is dead." I says, "No, he isn't dead. He's just, he's just sick." So Adolph says, "Well, this isn't working." Says, "We gotta have a cook."

[00:25:55] I says, "Yeah, that's right." And I says, "Johnny's a good cook."

[00:25:58] Lise Orville: Mm. "

[00:25:58] Philip Jacobsen: No," he says, "He gets so independent when he's cooking." So he went through them all, and he ended up with me finally.

[00:26:05] Lise Orville: Ah,

[00:26:05] Philip Jacobsen: so you- And I didn't know anything about it, but- But, uh, quite often we'd, uh, fish during the day, and then if we were running, changing grounds or anything, then I'd run the boat at night when everybody was sleeping, and, and have breakfast, and lay down a little bit, and go on deck.

[00:26:24] And, you know, I'd cook it. The cook, when there were 11 men, he'd bake bread, and, you know, he's pretty much a cook. That was it.

[00:26:32] Laura Cooper: The cook was a very important job on those boats.

[00:26:34] Philip Jacobsen: Right. But then it got to be where the cook did everything. I mean, he wasn't just cooking. You got to learn to, you know, like pot roasts and things.

[00:26:43] They'd fix things that were, uh, forgiving, that you didn't have to serve right at 18 minutes, the, the roast is done, or anything like that.

[00:26:54] Lise Orville: Definitely. How did you learn to cook all this stuff? Had you had any-

[00:26:58] Philip Jacobsen: I just ... No, I just kinda ... You know, I had to do it, and I just kinda experimented and did it. And of course in the situation, Adolph was de- defending me, you know.

[00:27:11] And then you'd ring the bell and go up in the pilot house and relieve Adolph, so you didn't have to listen to anything.

[00:27:25] Lise Orville: When did you stop fishing?

[00:27:27] Philip Jacobsen: Well, I stopped fishing in '92 when I was 65, and I wasn't really ready to quit. I still wanted to fish, but my wife was beginning to have signs of Alzheimer's, which she had, and so I changed my occupation to a caregiver at that point.

[00:27:47] Laura Cooper: Mm-hmm. And was she, um, from this area?

[00:27:53] Philip Jacobsen: She was from Bellevue.

[00:27:54] Laura Cooper: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:55] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah, I knew her and her family almost forever, and they've, uh- To be, have a good, you, you have, have to have a good woman.

[00:28:07] Lise Orville: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:07] Philip Jacobsen: Like, you know Harold's wife Peggy?

[00:28:09] Lise Orville: Yes. You

[00:28:09] Philip Jacobsen: met her. I mean, it takes a-

[00:28:11] Lise Orville: She was wonderful ...

[00:28:12] Philip Jacobsen: a special kind of woman to be a, to be a fisherman's wife.

[00:28:17] Laura Cooper: It does. Definitely.

[00:28:18] Lise Orville: Yeah. So when you brought the fish down, the iced fish to Seattle, you would sell it and then go right back up again?

[00:28:29] Philip Jacobsen: Well, depending. We had, uh, sometimes there were layup periods, which we tried to establish. You know, the old-timers established it in, in the early '30s. And, uh, then of course, when the World War II came along, then they opened it wide up again. They took as much fish as they could get, which you see the Paragon had 100,000 a deck load on that one trip there that

[00:28:57] Laura Cooper: Now, did they, did they self-regulate that way so they would have time at home, or so that they were conserving the stocks?

[00:29:06] Philip Jacobsen: Well, mainly conserving the stocks. I mean, it was, there was a fringe benefit to having the time at home too. And, and quite often, you know, we'd sell in Kodiak or Ketchikan or one of those places and then fly home. It was still reasonable

[00:29:24] Laura Cooper: And do you remember what happened to the price of halibut over those years?

[00:29:27] Philip Jacobsen: Well, it, uh... I went into QFC the other day, and halibut filets were selling for 24.99 a pound. Wow. And I remember bringing fish to Seattle and selling it for 13 cents a pound.

[00:29:41] Laura Cooper: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:43] Philip Jacobsen: I mean, we wouldn't even... Well, we wouldn't even pay for the fuel with the cost of fuel now.

[00:29:49] Laura Cooper: No. Yeah.

[00:29:51] Lise Orville: Is that because there are fewer halibut on the-

[00:29:55] Philip Jacobsen: No, they've done a really good job.

[00:29:57] Lise Orville: Yeah? The

[00:29:58] Philip Jacobsen: International Pacific Halibut Commission, an organization of both the Canadians and the Americans, and they've done a pretty good job of getting along and regulating the amount of fish that's caught every year.

[00:30:13] And you probably know more about this than I do. They say the fish is a lot smaller now.

[00:30:17] Laura Cooper: Yep. They say the fish is smaller, and I don't... I'm not up on the biology of that, but I do, I think, that the International Pacific Halibut Commission is the oldest international fisheries treaty in the world.

[00:30:32] Philip Jacobsen: Right.

[00:30:32] Laura Cooper: Do you, do you think so?

[00:30:33] Philip Jacobsen: Well, it's possibly. Do you think-

[00:30:35] Laura Cooper: Yeah. And it's been going since the 1890s.

[00:30:39] Philip Jacobsen: Well, I thought it was started in the 1930s.

[00:30:43] Laura Cooper: Oh, I think it might be earlier than that, but I don't, I don't know. No. You might remember better.

[00:30:47] Philip Jacobsen: Well, they've, uh, they're in the, I guess they're in Ballard now or over by Fisherman's Dock.

[00:30:57] For a long time, they were in the oceanography building-

[00:31:00] Laura Cooper: Mm-hmm ...

[00:31:00] Philip Jacobsen: at the University of Washington, but their contract there expired, and they threw 'em out.

[00:31:05] Laura Cooper: Oh, I didn't know that.

[00:31:06] Philip Jacobsen: That's a lot of kind of harsh words, but they left anyway. Anyway. But they're, uh, somewhere over there around Bob Halverson.

[00:31:15] Laura Cooper: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:15] Philip Jacobsen: Somewhere around his offices. So they... I mean, a lot of information can be found from those people.

[00:31:24] Laura Cooper: Oh, yeah.

[00:31:25] Philip Jacobsen: And they're very good, you know? We

[00:31:32] Laura Cooper: I was gonna ask you whether your hands are so big, I know you have very big hands, from fishing or from playing basketball. Did you start-

[00:31:40] Philip Jacobsen: Well, it, uh, I think they just grew. It, uh, my dad had big hands, but they weren't long like mine. They were about twice as thick. I can still feel him grab me by the back of the neck.

[00:31:56] Yeah, they are big hands. Hmm. I used to be able to hold the ball with one hand. I don't think I could do it anymore.

[00:32:04] Laura Cooper: And were your dad's hands so big from hauling gear by hand?

[00:32:08] Philip Jacobsen: I think a lot of that- Oh ... was, uh, when he first came over and worked in the, on the dory days, they had, had a little hand gurdy in the dories that they'd bring the gear up with.

[00:32:19] So it was, uh ... And they would say, you know, when they get so much, and then he'd get back on the ship, and he'd, uh, spend his sleep time baiting somebody else's gear for another dory. Oh. So he was a, he was a hard-working man when-

[00:32:36] Lise Orville: Yeah. I'm, I'm amazed that they could bring those huge halibut into these dories.

[00:32:45] Philip Jacobsen: Well, yeah, they, uh, they-

[00:32:50] Well, they're, they're Norwegians. I guess that's the only reason.

[00:32:59] Laura Cooper: Do you remember, do you remember the biggest fish you ever caught?

[00:33:03] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah.

[00:33:04] Laura Cooper: Ooh. It was, uh- Remember how much it weighed? Well, it weighed

[00:33:07] Philip Jacobsen: 380 pounds, head off, clean.

[00:33:12] Laura Cooper: Head off?

[00:33:13] Philip Jacobsen: Right.

[00:33:13] Laura Cooper: Wow, the head's a lot of weight.

[00:33:14] Philip Jacobsen: So I f- You know, I suppose it was, uh, 420 pounds.

[00:33:18] Uh-huh.

[00:33:18] Laura Cooper: Ooh. That's a big fish. Wow.

[00:33:22] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah, it's, uh-

[00:33:25] Laura Cooper: I've never seen one that big.

[00:33:27] Philip Jacobsen: No, there was, uh ... It's funny. We were out in a place called Bowers Bank. It's in the Bering Sea out from, uh, Adak. And it was just like there was nothing but big fish. I mean, there was 200-pounders for no count. There not many, but that was when we were on charter, too.

[00:33:48] And we went back to that place and got very few fish ever.

[00:33:52] Laura Cooper: Did you keep trying to go

[00:33:53] Philip Jacobsen: back and find them again? It's alm- it's almost it's almost like they went there to ... just like an old folks' home.

[00:34:01] Lise Orville: What, what do you mean when you say you were on charter?

[00:34:04] Philip Jacobsen: Well, we'd go to the ... Work for the Halibut Commission.

[00:34:09] Oh. And the boat would get so much a day, and the men would get so much a day and, and then a bonus for each pound of fish you got. And they even paid us for the ones they threw back overboard, the fish so long presumably weighed so much it-

[00:34:27] Laura Cooper: So they did research and

[00:34:29] Philip Jacobsen: they

[00:34:29] Laura Cooper: got to fish at the same time.

[00:34:31] Philip Jacobsen: Right.

[00:34:31] Laura Cooper: Yeah

[00:34:34] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah, we found fish up at, uh, St. Matthew's Island on one of those charters, which is about 250 miles from Nome. You know, we got 10,000 pound sets, which on this type of gear here, which we know is unheard of

[00:34:51] Laura Cooper: You were fishing far out

[00:34:54] Philip Jacobsen: Oh, yeah. We went, we were within 30 miles of, uh, Cape Navarin, which is on the Russian coast there.

[00:35:03] Oh. And, and, uh, Harold Locken, I don't know if you've heard that name, he used to ... He told us we couldn't go closer than 30 miles from, from Russian. But, you know, he had that old radio phone which didn't get anywhere. We, you know, we couldn't talk to anybody. So even Adolf said, "This is kind of spooky." He said

[00:35:24] Lise Orville: You just kept going.

[00:35:27] Philip Jacobsen: Well, yeah, until we got, you know ... And we got a few fish up there, too. It, it wasn't big fishing, but we got fish there.

[00:35:35] Lise Orville: Wow. And then how long did it take to get back to ...

[00:35:40] Philip Jacobsen: I don't remember. We were- Maybe four days or so, if I remember

[00:35:52] Laura Cooper: Did you ever get into big weather?

[00:35:55] Philip Jacobsen: Well, yeah, you had some coming down off the coast of, uh, the Queen Charlottes. One night it was, came up southwest, and it was ... And the wind, it came, one wave came right over the stern and filled it up, the boat up from rail to rail. Yeah. And, you know, the gear was going overboard, and so we was so busy, you know, we, uh- And it took, uh, two or three more like that when we were in the process.

[00:36:30] I remember we were back on the stern, and picked me up and set me right in the, in the little room. It was a restroom supposedly. And, uh, the ones that were in the, by the baiting bench and the little cover over it, I mean, they were covered with water, just hanging on, just completely covered with water and-

[00:36:50] Laura Cooper: So they could have been swept overboard.

[00:36:52] Philip Jacobsen: Right, very easily. But, you know, we were so busy that, uh, there w- it, the boat had to lay on its side so bad. There was a rack, you know, for bowls and things with, inside of so they wouldn't fall out, and one came out and it roll- it went across the ceiling. It didn't drop. It went in the bunk on the other side of the boat.

[00:37:21] So you know that boat was laying pretty flat. It's

[00:37:27] Laura Cooper: Yeah. Whoa. But you never lost anyone.

[00:37:29] Philip Jacobsen: Never lost anyone. Never- Kept everything going pretty well and- Great ... finally came down and-

[00:37:39] Laura Cooper: Were you ever involved in any rescues or distress things?

[00:37:43] Philip Jacobsen: Uh, well no, uh, not really. I was, uh, I was on a, uh, king crab boat one time. I was going down, was running the boat, and it was, uh, there was a, uh, I think it was a Korean boat with 96 men, a processor, that caught fire.

[00:38:04] Oh. And they said they needed help, and I was one of the closest ones, and I had to run right into it. But, but, well, when I got about halfway there, the, uh, they said the other Korean boat close by had come by and saved them all. So, but, uh, someone says, "Oh, yeah, the Mar Pacifico is a big boat. It'd take care of a lot of men."

[00:38:32] Well, uh, we would've had to put them in the fish hole.

[00:38:43] Lise Orville: So you fished all summer till-

[00:38:50] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah, well, it, it varied, you know. Seasons got shorter. That's why we went on a lot of these charters. We'd fish the hell of a season, then we'd go on charter. And, you know, Adolf, he was, uh, he used to bid them quite low for the boat, and he got the men so they m- had a decent income.

[00:39:11] And he, he said, "You know, I get mine by learning all this, all these spots and all these things about the crabs," and he loved to be out there fishing, so. And, uh, he'd put a finger on a chart anywhere from southeastern out to Adak or a little bit west of that even there. Uh, we've got gear within five miles of that

[00:39:41] Laura Cooper: Far out

[00:39:42] Philip Jacobsen: And they said now that I was talking to fella from the, uh, Halibut Commission when they had Fisherman's Day in the fall.

[00:39:50] Laura Cooper: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:51] Philip Jacobsen: He had a little booth there, and he said now they've got ... They run all those charters every year, all those gears of years that we ... They have so many boats that they do it all each year to see how the fishing is comparable.

[00:40:09] Laura Cooper: Oh, wow. Did you, uh, ever see anything extraordinary at sea when you were out there in terms of natural phenomena or sea life?

[00:40:23] Philip Jacobsen: Well, you know, at, uh- Of course, you get the, uh... You know, these people all love the orcas, but, uh, black cod, you know, they'll come and they'll eat every fish. Where you have to stop hauling them.

[00:40:40] They're, uh... And one halibut trip, they had a 36-hour opening, and 18 hours we had the biggest kind of fishing, and then they were so close when they'd spout, you'd get wet.

[00:40:53] Laura Cooper: Really?

[00:40:53] Philip Jacobsen: And they... I think we got a couple hundred pounds the next 18 hours. They ate every fish, or took every fish off.

[00:41:01] Laura Cooper: Just strip the, strip the gear.

[00:41:03] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah.

[00:41:04] Lise Orville: Yeah. How about sea lions?

[00:41:08] Philip Jacobsen: Oh, yeah. They, uh, they come along, too, but they're, uh, they leave you something, you know. But these orcas are, they, they take everything.

[00:41:17] Lise Orville: Huh.

[00:41:18] Philip Jacobsen: And they say they don't really eat them. They say they eat so many, and they g- get sick and throw it up and start in again. Now, I don't know if that's true or not, but I've heard that.

[00:41:30] Lise Orville: Hmm.

[00:41:30] Philip Jacobsen: So when I hear all these, "Save the whales," I don't get too excited about it. Do

[00:41:36] Lise Orville: you wanna put it on pause and I'll go get some more coffee for you, you-

[00:41:41] Philip Jacobsen: Does to go in the basement. She says because I can't cook lefse on the, on the electric stove. She's, needed a big grill.

[00:41:51] Laura Cooper: So she, yeah, she kept the old stove as

[00:41:53] Philip Jacobsen: well.

[00:41:53] Kept the old stove in the basement.

[00:41:56] Laura Cooper: And did she keep cooking the lefse?

[00:41:58] Philip Jacobsen: Oh, yes, and...

[00:42:00] Laura Cooper: I've heard it's kind of difficult.

[00:42:02] Philip Jacobsen: Well, I don't, uh, remember. I know my dad used to help. And then they, uh, they had the cupboards in the kitchen with screens so it was open to the outside to kind of a semi-refrigeration, and they would, it w- the lefse was hard, and they'd stack it like cordwood.

[00:42:21] And then when you served it, you put it between, uh, fl- flour sacks, and, and wet flour sacks, and thawed it out. And then put the, uh, sugar and butter and cinnamon on it and...

[00:42:41] Laura Cooper: Oh, interesting. Now, your dad was... Is Boda on... It's, I know it's in the north. Is it on the water?

[00:42:49] Philip Jacobsen: It's on the water, yes.

[00:42:51] Laura Cooper: So had, do you know if he had fished up there before?

[00:42:54] Philip Jacobsen: He went fishing when he was 12. And I don't know if he went, uh... And they, uh, said they took most of his wages for, uh- He had to give them most of his wages. He wasn't living with his parents, he was living with another family. So he, uh, he really wanted to change his lifestyle, and I think he probably went through the third grade

[00:43:29] Laura Cooper: That was pretty typical, wasn't it?

[00:43:31] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah, yeah

[00:43:36] Laura Cooper: And then how did he get the money to come over?

[00:43:41] Philip Jacobsen: Well, I don't really know

[00:44:00] But he was, uh He was, he was quite a man, Ray Landon. He was head of the, uh, Fishing Vessel Owners Association at one time.

[00:44:10] Lise Orville: Oh, yeah.

[00:44:11] Philip Jacobsen: The president for a year or two. You know, he, he used to come up with a story. He says, "If you want anything passed, you wait until 11:00 to bring it up." And he says, "Then they'll vote for anything just to get out of there."

[00:44:28] Laura Cooper: Good strategy.

[00:44:29] Philip Jacobsen: Right.

[00:44:36] Laura Cooper: So did you, um, did you and your sisters end up growing, growing up eating all traditional foods? Or did your mother adapt to-

[00:44:45] Philip Jacobsen: Well, she adapt- we ate, uh, you know, we had a lot of salt codfish.

[00:44:50] Laura Cooper: Oh, you did?

[00:44:51] Philip Jacobsen: And, um, the, uh, used to, uh, the, uh, liver and the, um, guts as we called them were, uh, you know, quite a byproduct f- f- for a while there during the war and shortly afterwards.

[00:45:07] They had a, uh, co-op. It was right at the foot of the Ballard Bridge, and, uh, they would, uh ... And then they'd get a check, oh, just around Christmastime every year when they sold it and everything. And, uh, I think the, uh- That article in there, they talked about the, uh, the liver value of that trip was about $300 a man.

[00:45:42] You know, it wasn't, uh, small potatoes. It was really a big thing.

[00:45:48] Laura Cooper: Yeah.

[00:45:48] Philip Jacobsen: Then they started to get synthetic vitamins and, and then, uh, a lot of people made money, a lot of people lost money. Some of the skippers had bought up all the shares of the, uh, liver, had figured the c- price would come back up, and it just spiraled down to-

[00:46:07] Laura Cooper: Oh, they actually had a little stock market for that?

[00:46:10] Just, or a little market, shared, shared market?

[00:46:13] Philip Jacobsen: Yeah. They owned a co-op, and they had, you know, depending on you, uh, if you unloaded the fish in downtown Seattle, then you came around to the co-op and dropped your liver off to-

[00:46:29] Laura Cooper: Now, how were they getting those cod livers if, if, were the ... Was that bycatch from the halibut trips, or did they sometimes get cod- No, no, that'd be

[00:46:36] Philip Jacobsen: the, the halibut liver.

[00:46:38] Laura Cooper: Oh, the halibut liver.

[00:46:39] Philip Jacobsen: Right.

[00:46:40] Laura Cooper: Not the bu- not the cod liver.

[00:46:42] Philip Jacobsen: No.

[00:46:42] Laura Cooper: Oh, okay.

[00:46:44] Philip Jacobsen: I mean, they used a lot of the different types of liver, but, uh, yeah. Oh, thank you, Lisa.

[00:46:50] Lise Orville: You're so welcome.

[00:46:52] Philip Jacobsen: Well, we gotta share that. That's-

[00:46:55] Lise Orville: You've gotta grab more since I did your orders.

[00:46:58] Philip Jacobsen: Well, in 1951, when I was, uh, still going to the University of Washington, it was in the summer, I was

[00:47:07] took off spring quarter, and then I made three trips with my dad, and then the season was over, and-

[00:47:14] Lise Orville: Yeah ...

[00:47:15] Philip Jacobsen: and then I, uh, went on the Eclipse as, uh, Gordon

[00:47:24] Speaker 4: Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. Um, when did you meet the Samuelsons? Well, in '51 then, on that trip with the... They were, uh, Adolph was running the boat, and Harold was on it, and- And, uh, and, you know, and Sig Hege was a brother-in-law, married Evelyn and So at, uh, I was talking to, uh, Laurie the other day, and Agnes I never did know.

[00:48:03] Speaker 6: I mean, I heard about her, but I never knew her husband. And, and the sister that lived in the Bay Area, I don't think I ever met her either. All the Samuelson- Right ... sisters, siblings. Yeah. And, uh, Lester, who was the oldest boy, and he worked for the Army Corps of Engineers. Oh. He didn't like fishing. He didn't, didn't want any part of that.

[00:48:31] But, you know, in the small locks, how they got those, you put the rope right around, and it goes up and down with the locks. Well, he designed that. Really? Oh. Wow. That's different from the big locks. Yeah, you don't, uh, you don't have to... Especially, I think we'd, even with the, with the Chelsea, we threw a line up on the dock, you know, up on the concrete.

[00:49:01] But, uh, the small boats go through the small locks without ever throwing a line up. They can just use those little cleats that there, that go up and down with the water and- Right, that are like a little cleat ladder going up- Right ... the side of the lock, so you can- Yeah. So you, I bet you've been through those Ballard Locks more times than you can count.

[00:49:24] Oh, yes. And, you know, and, uh, when you're busy, the a- the way you sell the fish, we went down to, at Pier 59, which is where the museum is now. There was a, an exchange there. All the fish buyers would come in, and they'd bid on the fish. And then somebody'd get it, and then you'd go and to that person and unload.

[00:49:49] Then you'd come through the locks, and there might be 50 pleasure boats waiting to get through. And they'd say, "The Chelsea, come ahead." They did? Oh, yeah. Oh. The working boats. Never knew that. Excellent. Working boats had preference.

[00:50:10] Speaker 5: So who did you sell the fish to? Well, it, uh, it wasn't like the waterfront is now. There were several, uh, there was Wiz and San Juan and Booth and Washington and McCallum. There were a lot of small, and not so small, fish companies down through the waterfront there. Mm-hmm. And they've all gone. I don't think, I think you have to go clear to Spokane Street now to, uh, get the, uh, Goldstar that buys halibut.

[00:50:42] Speaker 6: And a lot of it is sold in Bellingham. Mm-hmm, that's right. Um, w- do you remember if there were any fish buyers, uh, over in Ballard? There was. I think Washington came over in Ballard Um, just, uh, on the other side of the Ballard Bridge, not the Fisherman Dock, but it's like if you went under the Ballard Bridge there, there was this...

[00:51:12] I think there still is a dock there that, uh, that unloaded fish there. But you had a preference for going downtown? Well, you went wherever it was the highest. Right Like Adolf, he had a great sense of humor, and one day we got a pretty good price for our fish, higher than we'd, we'd been getting. And he says, "Somebody must have lied about their golf score yesterday."

[00:51:45] Speaker 5: So how did you know who had the highest? Well, they bid right on the board. I mean, they'd- Oh ... well, they'd go like 17 cents, and- Mm-hmm ... then say 17 and a quarter, a little higher for chickens, and, uh, which was, you know, for a while we took 5 to 10 pounds. Oh, you did? And then it became 10 pounds. A chicken is an immature halibut, or a too small- Too small

[00:52:10] Speaker 6: too small halibut. Actually- Yeah ... it's almost a better eating. Yeah. Did they have the law that the, uh, halibut had to be over 30 inches back then? Yeah. It was, uh, I thought it was 26, but it, it was ... Wait. You're probably right. It, it's, uh, it was amount, it was a limit. We had little marks on the hatch where we dressed them.

[00:52:39] From the head to the middle of the tail I think it was. And ... So it was a weight, a weight minimum and a size minimum? Yeah. Mm-hmm. I mean, it, uh, if, if it was big enough, even if it wasn't 10 pounds, it'd be legal. Mm-hmm. 'Cause we couldn't, didn't have a new way or didn't set up any way to weigh each fish. You know, we just measured them.

[00:53:04] And, and they were f- you know, fairly reasonable unless you, uh, had a lot- Right ... that were too small. Did you ever get inspected? Well, people would come around and look, yeah.

[00:53:23] Speaker 4: Now, when you would go down to those fish buying companies in the old days, did people give you the prices over the radio, or did you have to tie up and then jump off and look at that board and say, "Oh, we gotta go to so-and-so"? No, to begin with, we tied up there, and then, uh When, uh

[00:53:47] Speaker 6: Alaska was a territory before it was a state. You had these Norwegians that weren't citizens, and they finally had an agreement that theoretically you weren't, they weren't allowed to go off the boat until they'd been cleared through immigration. Oh. But they kinda had an unwritten rule that as long as they showed up, but if someone went out and had too many beers and didn't show up, it could cause quite a bit of trouble.

[00:54:17] Speaker 4: You mean you could be a Norwegian in Alaska because it was just a territory? A n- a non-American Norwegian in Alaska, or you mean there were just Norwegians who got up there somehow? Well, uh- Or on boats ... when they, when we left here, when we came back inside, in, back to the States, we had to go through immigration.

[00:54:43] Speaker 6: I, I mean, any boat. Theoretically, we weren't even supposed to go home. Like, we came in at 10 o'clock at night. Right. We wouldn't s- Mm-hmm ... supposed to go home until the customs man had been on board in the morning. But they had an unwritten rule that it was okay to go home as long as you were there in the morning.

[00:55:08] Speaker 7: Mm-hmm. And sometimes if we was, timing was such that we'd stop at Niah Bay or Port Angeles and clear in one of those places, so we were clear when we got to Seattle. And that was because Alaska was a territory? Yeah. And not a state. That, that was the rule. I see. If you came from a territory, you had to clear before you were allowed- Oh

[00:55:30] Speaker 6: to leave the boat. Yeah. When did it become a state? '58 or '59, I think. Hmm. And, and if you run down through the in- inside passage, do you have to clear customs 'cause you're coming through Canadian waters? Not as long as you don't tie up. Hmm. Or even if you anchor up, you're supposed to clear. Okay. Hmm. If you touch waters.

[00:55:59] But you can travel from Seattle to Ketchikan without clearing as long as you keep going or, or don't stop. Yeah. 'Cause I don't ever remember clearing with you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That must be why. Did you have to have passports? No. No, I think they checked a driver's license or- Yeah. But if a person was a, uh, was not a citizen, they, uh, they were more particular.

[00:56:30] I think they had to have some proof of ... Hmm.

[00:56:36] You know, during the, uh, prohibition, of course, we, uh, sold a fair amount of fish in Prince Rupert in the early da- years. And, uh, then of course you could, or they could, that was before my time, they could get booze and- Yeah ... and different things, you know, that, and during the war, that they weren't, couldn't get here, like butter and things like that.

[00:57:01] And so I remember the, uh- The customs man in, uh, Ketchikan came by and, and, uh, Marcus Ness had owned the New Washington, or I guess he didn't own it ever, but, uh, they, uh, asked if he had any booze, and he thought the custom man just wanted some booze. And he says, "Yeah." He says, "I got lots of it." And, you know, he never got to be a citizen.

[00:57:29] It was kind of a shame that, uh- Oh. Oh, that's sad ... he had to have someone else's name on the ship's papers and everything. Yeah. Yeah. But he just thought he'd be a nice guy.

[00:57:50] Speaker 5: Do you miss those days? Oh, what the- Fishing ... kind of, it's, you know, but I, uh. Mm-hmm. I mean, I think my wife knew she was, something was going- Mm-hmm ... haywire before I did She, you know, she took care of the house and the yard and the child and the church, and she couldn't do it anymore Yeah. Yeah. Oh. And did she pass away since?

[00:58:19] Speaker 6: Yeah, but she was, spent seven and a half years in a nursing home before And I fed her lunch almost every day. Oh. Which is, it's easier to go with something to do rather than just go and stare. Yeah. Yeah. Did she recognize you? No. No. No, there ... She always looked good. Yeah. But she was no recognition that. Oh.

[00:58:43] That she learned ... She could s- you know, open her mouth and swallow. Yeah. And when she forgot that, it was, it was over. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So hard. Have you stayed connected to the fishing industry through organizations or social events- Not really ... or anything? Once in a while I go around the docks, but there's very few of my age group left.

[00:59:11] Yeah. And, and I, as I say, I talk to someone where I learn the fish are smaller than they used to be. Mm-hmm. But I haven't, uh, haven't stayed too active with it. Yeah. Just the Samuelson kids. Oh, yeah. Right. And they're good. They call me up every once in a while. Mm-hmm. Go out to lunch and- Yeah ... and I got one crab fisherman that, uh, we go out and play golf once in a while.

[00:59:40] Try to play golf. Oh. We play nine holes and ride. Yes. Yeah. Did you crab at the end? You said you ran a- Oh, I did. Yeah. Yeah? I've ... Not a lot, but I did king crab a little bit, and I, uh, then fish shrimp a little. And sometimes if the season got short, we- Mm-hmm ... fish tuna off the coast in the fall for six weeks or so, and- Mm-hmm.

[01:00:12] Speaker 5: How different was crab fishing? Oh, I didn't like it. It, uh, it was a tough fishery. Mm-hmm. I, uh, you know, like Adolph said, you know, halibut fishing is tough and mewling and a lot of hard work and long hours, but he said, "Most of us will die home in bed." Mm-hmm. But not- Well, no, and it, uh, seems like it's gotten better in crabbing.

[01:00:41] Speaker 6: But they were ... When you had some of those short seasons and things, there was, was it Com State Kodiak, there was an emergency call almost every day on those crab boats. Mm-hmm. From, and what was the reason? Oh, various things. You know, we l- one time we, uh, we did lose a man overboard on a crab boat. Did they get him?

[01:01:08] No. Didn't get him back. Thank God the skipper was good, and he maneuvered the boat, and they, they saw him. They, I think they, uh, they were two crews were getting gears for a couple boats, and I was cooking, and I was in the bunk sleeping at the time. But, uh, they said they hit him in the hand with a life preserver, but he was too hypothermic to grab it.

[01:01:32] Mm-hmm. And one fellow tied a rope around himself and jumped overboard, and he went down right in front of him. Oh, yeah. It's, uh, not fun. No, no. Me fell off a stack of crab butts and, you know, near-

[01:01:50] Speaker 4: Did they, when, when you were fishing in the early years, did they talk about how long people would last in the water, or what your strategies were if you fell overboard, or? They really didn't. Uh, there was, uh

[01:02:13] Speaker 6: Then there was, um, another old timer story. The fella was fishing king crab, and he used to fish halibut. And, and I says, "How does it fishing under that big fancy crab boat?" And he says, "Well, yankees just forgot one thing." I said, "What's that?" He said, "Seamen ship." Oh. They'd got the big boats and think they could do anything with them, you know?

[01:02:34] Speaker 5: Yeah. How big were the crab boats? Well, they were 100 feet and better, and steel. But, you know, the g- deck is huge on a crab boat, whereas on a schooner you could always grab something, I mean. Right. But you get those big pots and one get loose, you know, it's a lethal weapon flying around out there with the- Yeah, they weigh.

[01:02:57] Speaker 4: What do they weigh? 2,000 pounds or 1,000 pounds? I haven't one of those. 800 or something. Yeah. But they're big, yeah. Yeah. They're very heavy

[01:03:07] Speaker 5: What do you think of The Deadliest Catch? Well, I don't watch it too much. No.

[01:03:21] Speaker 4: Well, can you think of anything else you'd like to tell us?

[01:03:27] Speaker 6: Well, not, uh, not really. It was a, uh, it was a, uh, good and interesting life, and, uh, I mean, I liked to fish. And, and like Peggy says, Harold liked to make the money, but he didn't really like fishing. That's the difference between you and Jake, is he actually enjoyed it. It was kind of like a ball game, you know?

[01:03:50] Mm-hmm. You had friends you were competing against, and so, uh, but it was, it was fun, and I enjoyed it, but, uh, I don't regret it, any- anything, and... What did you do when you came home after the season? Well, for a long time, I, uh, drove an oil truck in the wintertime. Okay. When it was strictly, uh, halibut and then I had the winters off, and so I was home, you know, lived a pretty much normal life, but 8:00 to 4:30 during the wintertime.

[01:04:29] And then, of course, when we started crabbing and shrimping, and then I was gone more and stopped driving oil truck. But, uh-

[01:04:43] I had to laugh. Good friend, Lonnie Pryor, that ended up playing baseball for the Seattle Rainiers baseball team, and he played on three World Series. He played baseball, and he says, "Yeah." I said, "You and I, in those days, we'd fish and play baseball, and then we'd look for a job in the wintertime. Now they'd think you're crazy if you're gonna work in the wintertime."

[01:05:09] Speaker 4: Yeah. Because people don't. Right. No, that's their time off. Right.

[01:05:21] Speaker 6: And it was the same way with baseball players. You know, they made a fair income, but they didn't make enough to survive the whole year on what they made. They had to work something. Like Lonnie was a janitor at the Catholic school there for years in the wintertime. And kids loved him, and they

[01:05:45] Speaker 5: Did you ever meet old Adolph Samuelson? No. No. I never did meet him. He was, uh, he passed away just about the time I met Adolph and Harold. I did meet his wife for a... She was alive for a year or two after

[01:06:09] Speaker 6: And of course, these Norwegian women in those days, you know, they were, at least some of them were very astute how they handled these m- men. You know, they were so macho and stuff. My dad, among other things, thought it'd be nice to have a milk cow. Of course, he was gonna tie the boat or throw the lines off, and then she would be left with a cow that needed milking twice a day.

[01:06:37] But she knew there was no use in arguing with him, so she went down and waved goodbye to him, and then she sold the cow.

[01:06:53] But no, no words, no harsh say the, the, like we didn't milk that cow twice a day do you or anything. Waited till he left town and That's great. Good strategy. Right. Good, good marital strategy. Right.

[01:07:11] Speaker 5: Did you eat a lot of halibut while you were fishing? Oh, yeah, a fair amount. It, uh- Yeah? It, uh, you know, and I've gotten, w- had those five gallon cans we used to keep the liver in when it was... And boy, that garge was full. You know, we ate a lot of co- salt codfish. Uh-huh. And I always think it was either too salty, or not salty enough, or just right.

[01:07:35] Speaker 6: But I hated salt codfish. But now, you know, but they put it in chilled seawater. It's a wonderful product. Fresh codfish on the market, it's, uh- Yeah. Yeah ... it's a great, great product. Yeah, that was just a trash fish when you started fishing, right? Yeah, and we, of course, we cut it up for bait to, to, you know.

[01:08:05] Well, when you fished, did you around Kodiak or different places or...? I, I've never been to Kodiak, no. I was out- Oh ... at the Aleutian chain. Oh, were you? In Sand Point, King Cove. Yeah. 'Cause we tendered for salmon, and then it was in the days of the very short long line openings. Oh, that was one day. Yeah. Oh, yeah, they were wild.

[01:08:26] Speaker 4: They were wild. Yeah. But I loved it. Yeah. But, uh, so we'd just do the tendering, and then if there was a long line opening, we would stop that and long line, and then go back to tendering. Okay. What years were that? Um, '90, '91, '92. Okay. So right at the end of your fishing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was Hazel Reed still at Sand Point?

[01:08:50] I don't know. Yeah, the gal in the office that'd been there forever and... Could be. There was- Yeah ... there was a guy. Oh, God, I'm forgetting his name. He had been there forever. He was the radio guy. Okay. Hazel used to be on the radio a lot earlier, and Bobby Galvin used to run the... I think he was in charge of the dry dock there for a while at the end.

[01:09:16] But- Mm-hmm. Damn it ... he was, he was a Native. He was foreman at the plant at one time Years before that, but uh And then I, turns out a cousin of mine ran the Peter Pan plant, the salmon plant, and I didn't know he was a cousin of mine until very recently. Oh. Davis, Davis... I'm blanking on his first name. Where was that?

[01:09:43] Sand Point. He, he, he raised his kids up there. I think he was the only non-native family there in the '60s and '70s. Yeah. During the off-season. So, but they were an Alaskan branch of the, of that family. Okay.

[01:10:06] So I never spent a lot of time in Dutch Harbor or Kodiak. They, they sound like they were too wild anyway. Right. I had a wife's cousin that went to work in the plant in Dutch Harbor, and, and said, "You can't go to the Elbow Room in Dutch Harbor until Uncle Jake takes you there." Well, of course, that's just like waving a flag.

[01:10:30] Speaker 6: It's the first place you went to, you know? Very, very famous, famous bar. It, apparently it's gone now. Oh, is it? Yep. Mm. Just in the last couple years. Okay.

[01:10:47] Speaker 4: Yeah. There probably weren't a lot of women fishing like Laura when you were out there. No, there were, uh, too many of them. We were running a shrimp boat one time out of Dutch Harbor, and we went to a spot, and we fished two days and one night, and then we'd come back to town. And one man got sick, and I said, "Well, we gotta find one man to shovel shrimp anyway."

[01:11:14] Speaker 6: And this gal that had worked unloading the boats, she says, "Well, take me, Jake." And I said, "Well, all right." And God, she, you know, didn't run the winches or anything, but she stood there shoveling shrimp right with the best of them. And then, uh, got back to town, and every, the gang was saying how tired they were, and boy, that's a tough trip and that.

[01:11:37] I says, "Come on up here." And they went, "Why?" Says, "Come here." And I says, "Look in the hole." And there's the gal that'd been loading the boat was unloading it. And they were saying how, how worn out they were.

[01:11:50] Speaker 4: There you go.

[01:11:57] Yeah, no, there weren't very many women. Even when I was fishing, there weren't very many women. I think there are a few more now. Yeah. Well, now with the quotas and everything, they don't have to be as tough as

[01:12:12] Speaker 6: You know what tough for Norwegian is? S-T-U-P-I-D, tough.

[01:12:27] Speaker 5: I like that. What was the other thing you called Norwegians, square heads? Oh, yeah. Well, that's fairly common, yeah. I see.

[01:12:40] Have you ever been back to Norway, Gene? Well, I was there in '49. Oh. Went back with my folks and It's, uh, you know, it's, they were still pulling themselves out from World War II and the- Yeah ... occupation. A lot of things were still rationed and everything, but, uh, it was interesting. It was great people. Had a wonderful time back there Remember there was, they had, I think, 7,000 troops in Germany as part of the occupation troops.

[01:13:21] Speaker 6: And I made the mistake of telling one girl, I says, "The boys'll come back with little frauleins here pretty soon." She got right smart back, and she says, "Just let them try to bring one of them back here." Yeah. You know, Quisling and that time, it's, it was pretty vivid in their minds at that time. Yeah, that was only four years.

[01:13:42] Right. Yeah. Did your parents, um, maintain contact with their families through the war? Yeah, they did write some- Yeah ... back and forth. And, uh, I know my mother w- got one letter from her sister, says, s- you know, I think the mail was- Censored ... censored, and says, "There's only one place I'd rather be. That's a place outside of Seattle called Washelli."

[01:14:16] That was their way of putting, telling how things really were. Yeah. Mm. That's interesting. Right. Did your relatives ever come over here to visit? No. Had one. It would be my cousin's child, uh, t- cousin's son. All my cousins were gone. I don't have any left now. But he was, uh, he was... Yeah, I had one, uh, girl cousin that was town of Mosjen, which is north of Trondheim, kind of between Trondheim and Bodo.

[01:15:01] But the Germans came in there and moved into my, uh, be my aunt and uncle's home, you know. They had to feed them and take care of them. And so this girl figured there wasn't any life for her, and she walked into Sweden in the middle of winter in a snowstorm. Wow. Spent the, the war in Sweden. How old was she?

[01:15:22] She was, uh, 18.

[01:15:30] Speaker 5: And then she went back after? Yeah. Yeah

[01:15:39] Speaker 6: So at, uh... Oh, yeah, it, uh... Well, I was there when I was 21. I had a great time, but, uh, had a lot of fun

[01:15:54] Yeah, when we were outside of, we went into Bergen first, you know. We went over on the boat, which they had the old first class, second class, and steerage class on the boat and everything. And then we came into Bergen and came out to, it was like a small s- halibut schooner with a pilot coming out to board the boat.

[01:16:13] And my, my folks hadn't been home in 42 years, and they sang the Norwegian national anthem, and I almost get tears in my eyes now, I think

[01:16:26] Speaker 4: Did you go up to the Lofotens on that trip? Yeah, we, uh... I didn't go to the town where my mother was from. We d- Hyrderuten, have you heard of that? Uh, we rode, took that from Bodo clear up to North Cape. Oh, yeah. Wow. And this made a stop in Lofoten

[01:16:55] Speaker 6: Stopped in Tromsø, which is a town north of Bodø. Mm-hmm. And when the German battleship was sunk there in the harbor- Yeah ... called the Tirpitz.

[01:17:10] My young cousin and I were, we were out drinking or something, and we say, "Tirpitz," that means bottoms up. That

[01:17:28] Speaker 7: is great.

[01:17:34] Speaker 5: Could you understand Norwegian? You probably could. Well, well enough to get by. Yeah. And I had my grandfather living with us, so I knew- Oh ... quite a few words. I didn't speak well, but I, uh, I flew from, uh, I left early and came back to school, and my folks and my, my one sister stayed there till almost Christmas.

[01:17:55] Speaker 7: Mm-hmm. So, I got on the plane to fly to Denmark, and, uh, so I was doing real well and, you know, talking Norwegian, and I thought I had it all figured out, and the gal asked me if I wanted to read the, wanted a newspaper. And I told her I couldn't read Norwegian. She was surprised. Oh. Or she said she was. Mm-hmm.

[01:18:20] Speaker 6: So I got to Copenhagen and I asked for a room in my broken Norwegian, and the man answered me in perfect English.

[01:18:31] Speaker 5: Mm-hmm. Darn. So then I came back to reality. Yeah. Good. Good. So, what, you studied, um, fish and so forth at the university? Yeah, I went to the School of Fisheries, uh- Uh-huh. You could go there as a freshman, or...? Well, I, uh, I went. I started, I went to the university out of high school, and, uh, I had a, uh, basketball scholarship.

[01:19:01] Speaker 6: Mm-hmm. In the days when we got $75 a month and worked 50 hours. You took your schedule and went down to the janitor and- Mm-hmm ... worked out a program where you could work 50 hours and, uh, and the, uh, coach was Heck Edmondson, who was just kinda like a high school coach. Mm-hmm. And Tubby Graves was baseball and assistant football coach and assistant basketball coach.

[01:19:28] It was, uh, you know, so far different than it was now. It, uh... So I was taking PE at that time. I was gonna be a coach. Oh. And then, I mean, of course after I turned 18, I got my draft notice immediately. Of course, the shooting war was over, so. Mm-hmm. But I remember Heck Edmondson. They, they just named the pavilion after him.

[01:19:52] But I, uh, I said, "Look what I got here, Heck." And he looked at it and he says, "Well, better men than you have gotten drafted."

[01:20:05] I said, "Okay."

[01:20:09] Speaker 5: So how did you switch over to the fishery? Well, I, uh, spent two years in the Navy and then I got a job. Oh. My dad got me a job going to Co- Cordova for salmon tendering one year, and then I Went to Washington State and, and coach, assistant coach had conned me into coming over there. Heck, had retired and so I got over there, and the assistant coach had gone back to Everett High School.

[01:20:46] Speaker 6: So then I went up for a semester, and then I went to Norway with my folks, and then I came back and Started in the fisheries

[01:20:58] Nadel's theory was that says you make more money catching them than hatching them.

[01:21:08] Speaker 5: Adolph was a character Right. Well, my wife used to have sayings of his. She called them Adolph-isms. Oh. Well, that's probably a true statement, too. Right.

[01:21:32] So shall we ask you any more questions, or- Well, I can't think of anything offhand. It's, uh, I, uh, I think you people are doing a wonderful job here. I think you are a wonderful narrator. Thank you. Yes. It's been very easy. I've just kinda sat here and expounded and And these are a gold mine. This is like- Well, I thought, in my- Yeah.

[01:22:01] You know, I just- ... daughter said that they belong there, and they Yeah. Yeah. We should separate out the originals from the, uh, copies- Yeah ... of the others. They have the lead line to determine what depth they were. They take this wire, and they'd pre-do every 25 feet, they would wrap a marker on it so they know how deep they were.

[01:22:30] Speaker 6: And then they had a lead weight on it, which had a circular bottom, and they'd put butter in there. So when it hit the bottom, they could see if it was a sandy bottom or rocky, if there was hardly any, or if it was muddy, or- Oh, the butter would pick up whatever material- Yeah ... was down there? Right. That's so clever.

[01:22:54] And they were, you know, when they were going out, like if they were, you know, now they just turn on the GPS, and they virtually set the gear on the same foot that they've set it on when they had good fishing before. But- Mm-hmm ... those times, you know, they'd run around, and they'd, uh, sound up different places.

[01:23:14] They'd spend a lot of time before they set the first set to make sure they were in the same area. Maybe they were a little, you know, wind and stuff, they'd be a little off, and- So they would do a test butter, test butter sample basically of the bottom, and then remember what that was, and then they'd look for it again the next time, and try to pull up the same par- matter?

[01:23:39] Yeah, and if they were in the, in the depth, they would, if they'd get the right depth, and, uh, the, the bottom was of the same type as it was- And they'd say, "Oh, I think we're here." And then when you, uh, when you set the gear, you know, you set out a set, and then you maybe run seven minutes or so, about a mile, and then set another string.

[01:24:08] Well, you had your time and your distance, but you didn't have a machine that tells you X number of numbers, and the, the flagpole was right there. You know, you had to go seven minutes and look. Right. And if it gets foggy, and you can't find it, then you'd throw out a mark buoy and run courses. Do, do, do.

[01:24:32] Yeah. Right. Back, back to the mark buoy. So you spend a lot of time looking with oilskins and men on the bow. And whereas now it's just a man in the pilot house looking at the machine. That's right. Mm. When, what were you looking for? Did you use the same kind of, um, buoy with a flag on it as your marker?

[01:24:52] Yeah. Or- We had a bamboo pole, and, uh... And then we, uh, after a while, when we got radar, we'd, uh- We'd put a little metal thing on top of the flagpole Oh, that's clever We'd pick it up with the radar on nice days. In the middle of windy and choppy seas, you wouldn't see that. You wouldn't be able to pick up that little metal we had on top.

[01:25:21] You know, you couldn't put a big thing on the bamboo pole Too much interference from the- From the sea and- Mm-hmm But, you know, you had to, you had to work at keeping track of the gear if the tide was running or something, you know, to see where the gear was and Yeah, it makes fishing today sound positively simple.

[01:25:46] Well, oh, yeah. It, uh, compared to, you know, what it was. It, uh, you know, when we were on charters, like we'd set one set, and then we'd run 20 minutes or something and set another set. And then, uh, Adolf and a bunch with setting would go to lay down, and I'd get up, and I'd run the gear back with, uh, we had, all we had was Loran, which we thought was the end of the world.

[01:26:12] I guess now it's all GPS. But, uh- Mm ... and I would, uh, go down, and when I was running that 20 minutes or the str- string length, I'd, you know, get breakfast going so when I get back to the beginning, I'd call the bunch up and have breakfast. And then Yeah. They were talking about dead zones. If your butter hit a dead zone, what, what- Hmm

[01:26:42] Speaker 5: did that mean? That there was- Well, I can, I don't know. I can, maybe they don't- Huh ... don't have bottom. I don't know if they- Or maybe it was habitat that wasn't good habitat. Well, it wasn't g- Yeah ... maybe it was rocky or something, and it wouldn't leave any residue on the, uh, butter. Uh-huh. So the halibut couldn't- Yeah

[01:27:01] Speaker 6: survive. And that's when, like when I was talking earlier, when they set a course from Portlock Bank, as they say, or for, uh, Vancouver Island, then they had it figured out that they, uh, after they ran so far, then they would stop. They'd have to stop to get this depth, you know, use a lead line. Couldn't just turn on the fathometer either.

[01:27:28] And then if there was o- over 100 fathoms, then you were safe to run for an hour. Oh. Oh. So you had the distance offshore, and then you'd stop, and you, then when you got 100 fathoms, that meant you were within, uh, X miles of Vancouver Island. Then you could set a course down the coast. And I remember when my dad was, uh, he was, uh, you know, quite, he had some mental problems.

[01:27:56] And, uh, I had to commit him to Western State- Oh ... Mental Institution when I was 23. And I, you know, go down to the courthouse and all that. It was terrible- Oh ... thing, and he had 40 shock treatments, and he survived. And he came back, and he ran boats again. Wow. And he had a very good, normal life the rest of his life.

[01:28:20] He had some tough times with my mother, going through that, and she didn't understand it all. But- Yeah ... but he came out of it. And, uh, but we had one boat. We were ... He, he was fishing, and I made one trip with him, and he had, they had some, uh- Surplus LORAN sets from World War II, which was very primitive. You'd line up the leading edges of these humps and- Can you explain what LORAN is?

[01:28:48] Well, LORAN is a line from, uh ... You have different, uh, spots that set out signals, and then you have charts with numbers on how far you are from that, and if you get two readings, then you're able to pinpoint your position. And in those days, you know, you'd ... Now you turn a, a, no, when I was through with the, it was g- go out automatically.

[01:29:16] These l- when, uh, these old LORAN sets from World War II, you couldn't leave them on forever, they'd burn up, so. Oh. But you had to take about seven different steps, and then get a reading and chart it, and it was a lot harder. But my dad, he didn't think much of them and he had never used them or anything.

[01:29:35] And I said, "Well, let's try it." And he said, "Hey, try it if you want, but I'm not gonna fool with it." And so we came. There used to be light ships outside of Cape Flattery, and down a- off of, uh, Columbia River and Eureka, California, and San Francisco. They had light ships that people would hear. They'd blow whistles in the fog and things, and people would see this light ship, and they'd know where it was and what course to set from there to the harbor.

[01:30:05] So I said, "In about 20 minutes we're gonna run right into that Swift Sure light ship." "Yeah," he said, "That, that's..." And in 20 minutes there we were, and he said, "That's some machine, Yankee." Oh, wow. Yeah. So was a light ship ... How did a light ship work? Was it, did they anchor it somehow? Right, they anchored, and you knew where it was, what position it was when it was anchored.

[01:30:30] Speaker 4: So it's just like a lighthouse, but out at sea. Out at sea. Yeah. And it has a light on it that blinks, and- Mm ... whistle that blows in the fog. And, uh, it's run by the Coast Guard, or was run by the Coast Guard. And I think, well, they either had three weeks on, three weeks off, or six and six, I forget. But they'd go out there and stay and man the ship.

[01:30:55] Oh, they were manned light ships. Oh, yes. Mm-hmm. And then they would, uh, change crews every three or six weeks. I forget which it was now. But, uh, and then you would knew where you were when you found this light ship. Of course, when it got to be LORAN and ... I think they got rid of them before GPS, 'cause the LORAN was so good it, uh- and there was no need to have them out there when you could just turn on the machine and s- see where you were at.

[01:31:25] And were the points that the LORAN was, um, measuring or, or focusing on, were those, would that have to be, like, a radio tower, or could it be a light ship? Would a light ship send off a signal that a LORAN could pick up? No, it was on land, was, I think there was one tower over in Eastern Washington by George Washington or one of the places like that.

[01:31:50] Speaker 6: And then you'd get sp- LORAN charts- Mm-hmm ... that had these lines, like latitude and longitude lines, and, you know, you could s- you know, within 10 of each other, and you knew where you were on this line, and then you have the other line going this way. So it was essentially a way to pl- to plot your latitude and longitude- Right

[01:32:13] Speaker 4: but from different points. Yeah. Yeah. And then, of course, they got so sophisticated that, uh, you would turn the button once, deal over, and they'd give you the latitude and longitude. That's the kind I remember. Right. Good. So experience counted for a lot back then. Well, yeah. Now, well, one old-timer, he and I was talking about this LORAN, and I said, "Boy, this is really nice, isn't it, boys, having these LORAN sets?

[01:32:42] Speaker 6: You, we can, you could leave gear out and go to town, and come back and find the gear, you know, at the..." And he says, "Yeah, I, I don't know, Jake." He says, "Now anybody can do it." That's true. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a question about halibut. What, what places do they like the best, and what do they eat, and...? Well, that's, uh, if, they probably got as many theories as they have fishermen.

[01:33:10] Yeah. But that depends a lot on the time of the year. You know, like, we'd go in the, uh, deep water in, like, Seward Gully and different places in the spring of the year, and there would be. And then when the salmon start running, you get spots close to shore that are very good. And, uh- And you would, uh... They had one spot, you know.

[01:33:39] Well, one of the original, uh, head of the Halibut Commission, which I say I kind of remember him from the, the stories from the early '30s. But, uh, he said you, uh, you know, he wasn't smart enough... Well, my dad tells the story that when they got him, they kind of re- requested the government help them with the regulation, and, uh, because fishing was dropping down.

[01:34:08] Of course, Mother Nature's a big factor, and in two, three years there was all kinds of fish. And he was a smart enough man, he says, "I hope you don't think that, uh, you hired me and I brought all these fish back. There's no way that I brought back 60, 80 pound fish in, uh, overnight. They'd know I didn't do that."

[01:34:29] But there's a spot in, uh- Around Yakutat, I think, that, uh, they had sores on almost all the fish that were caught. Mm-hmm. They used to call it the hospital ground. Now, it sounds like an old wives' tale, but

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