美国国家公共电台 NPR In This Alaska Family, Life Lessons Are Passed Down On The Water

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

In southeast Alaska, the commercial king salmon 1 fishing season was temporarily shut down this spring. That's because the numbers of wild salmon returning to spawn 2 are at an all-time low, and that's worrisome news for those who make their living on the sea. I was on a reporting trip in southeast Alaska before the fishery closed, and I went out with a father-and-daughter trolling team in search of salmon.

CHARLIE WILBER: Come on. Make yourself at home.

BLOCK: Come on board the Alexa K.

C. WILBER: Yeah. How you doing? Charlie on the Alex K.

BLOCK: A 45-foot steel-hulled troller.

C. WILBER: I wondered if we could come over and get a little splash of ice.

BLOCK: We're setting out from the harbor in Sitka in southeast Alaska with Charlie Wilber and his daughter Adrienne.

ADRIENNE WILBER: Oh, there's a sea lion. See its nose coming up right there?

BLOCK: Oh, yeah.

That sea lion's got the same mission we do. We're both looking for salmon. But first, we need that ice to chill the catch.

(SOUNDBITE OF ICE BEING SPRAYED)

BLOCK: It gets sprayed down from the dock in a giant tube, enough for two big coolers.

C. WILBER: Thank you.

BLOCK: And off we go - out into Sitka Sound.

C. WILBER: We're heading out into the briny 3 deep.

BLOCK: Charlie Wilber is 69 now. He's been fishing these waters for nearly 40 years.

C. WILBER: I was raised in Omaha, Neb.

BLOCK: You were not a seafaring people in your family (laughter).

C. WILBER: Not at all, no. I never would have imagined I'd end up doing this.

BLOCK: Charlie came to Alaska fresh out of college - had a job fighting fires as a smoke jumper - went out fishing with a friend and got the bug 4, as he puts it.

A. WILBER: They were just twisted, Dad. It's fine.

BLOCK: Daughter Adrienne is 27. She's been fishing with her dad since she was about 11. And a lot of the qualities she values most, she learned right here on this boat.

A. WILBER: Persistence 5 and having a good attitude and optimism, living closely with one other person that you're not always getting along with (laughter) but still having to work with in a productive way.

C. WILBER: Mm-hm, mm-hm.

A. WILBER: Yeah, those skills I use every day.

BLOCK: All right, it's time to fish.

C. WILBER: OK, Adri (ph) Let's put them out.

BLOCK: Charlie and Adrienne lower the trolling poles, one on each side of the boat, and get busy hooking artificial lures 6 to the lines.

C. WILBER: So it's the lead spoon on the bottom, three flashers...

BLOCK: As they work, a trail of colorful gear spools 7 off behind the boat, a smorgasbord of temptation for fussy 8 fish.

(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)

BLOCK: It's the first time this spring the Wilbers have been out on the Alexa K.

C. WILBER: We're fishing.

A. WILBER: Yay.

C. WILBER: Let's start catching 9.

BLOCK: Father and daughter work in tandem 10 in instinctive 11, easy rhythm born of years spent together on this boat.

A. WILBER: I remember when I was first learning how to fish, having to go really slow and getting my gear tangled 12 up. And then Dad would have to come fix it. And oh, no, I've messed up. But it feels so good to be out here today, just that motion of hauling the gear and setting the gear.

BLOCK: Over several hours, the Wilbers reel the gear in and send it back out, time after time. But today...

C. WILBER: I got to say, the water's looking pretty blank, Adri.

BLOCK: ...The fish just aren't biting. So we have to take Adrienne's word for it.

A. WILBER: The fish are beautiful when they come out of the water. The king salmon especially have these really dark, black mouths and then silver sides and white bellies 13 and dark tops. But in that sort of darkness is also, like, these shimmers 14 of gold and shimmers of lavender.

C. WILBER: Yeah, the lavender color...

A. WILBER: ...And spots.

C. WILBER: They are gorgeous fish.

A. WILBER: Yeah, just very, very beautiful.

BLOCK: It's clear the Wilbers take real pride in the quality and sustainability of their wild catch. Alaska fishermen operate under a quota 15 system that limits the harvest. But lately, the trends are alarming. With low king salmon numbers forcing the early closure of the fishery this spring, some salmon biologists point to warming ocean temperatures as the main reason behind the decline. And out on the water, Charlie Wilber says, it's clear things are changing.

C. WILBER: The water temperatures are warmer. We've seen species of fish that don't ordinarily get up this far. I mean, we've seen sunfish. We've seen turtles. We've seen some pomfret.

A. WILBER: And there's been a bunch of squid that have come in in the last two years. Right?

C. WILBER: Yeah. It's really hard to pin it down to say, this is climate change. But things are definitely changing. So - Adrienne, I think we need to go out and...

A. WILBER: Still give it a check, Dad.

C. WILBER: ...Run through our lines here.

BLOCK: Still no fish - maybe that sea lion got them before we did - so the Wilbers lower the poles and head back to port.

C. WILBER: We were skunked.

(LAUGHTER)

A. WILBER: Next trip, Dad, next trip.

BLOCK: That's Adrienne and Charlie Wilber on the Alexa K out of Sitka, Alaska.

C. WILBER: All right, we survived another one. Everybody came home.