9. Whales Are Very Much My Thing
Whales Are Very Much My Thing
LILLIAN
When Matt comes to pick me up, he’s flabbergasted at the size of my backpack. “You staying overnight or something?”
I heft the thing into the cab. “Just have all my equipment. Sample kits. Hip waders.”
“You came prepared.”
“Of course. It’s my job. What did you expect?”
Matt taps his fingers on the steering wheel of his truck and tilts his head to the side. “Fair.”
Once I’m settled in my seat, Matt nods to the cupholder in the center console. “I, uh, got you a coffee from the Half-Hitch.”
“Oh . . .” I don’t have it in me to burst his bubble by telling him that coffee is a once-in-a-blue-moon sort of thing for me. But the desire to not drink it is overridden by the thoughtful gesture. “Thank you so much.”
“Brought some creamers and sugar packets because I wasn’t sure—” He reaches into his jacket pocket.
“Black is just fine,” I say, even though sugar and cream would make the taste ten times more tenable.
Matt makes me feel a bit . . . out of sorts, I suppose.
Like only half of my brain cells know how to function, because the other half is solely focused on him, his dark beard, and the huge muscles I know are hiding under his jacket.
I’m pleasantly surprised when we get to Matt’s boat and it’s a little itty-bitty thing, especially compared to the Rorqual.
However, even other boats in the bay seem bigger than Matt’s.
Many of them, what I’ve learned are called seiners, are piled high with nets and equipment, emblematic of lawns back in Michigan stuffed full of lawn ornaments.
But Matt’s isn’t very long, thirty-two feet, he tells me, with a silvery metal bottom. At the bow, written on the hull is the name of the boat: The Bristol Belle.
I’ve never liked how boats are treated as if they’re inherently female. But when I see a boat so well cared for, I have to imagine the men who ride it take it as a great honor that she keeps them safe on the seas.
“It’s a gillnetter,” Matt explains when I ask about it. “The nets we use catch the fish by the gills.”
I inwardly wince at the thought. Those poor fish. It’s important I place the values of Naknek and its people above anything now, especially if I want access to Matt’s boat in the future.
Matt helps me onto the stern with an outstretched hand. I get to feel his palms again, the calluses and the warmth. “Watch your step,” he mumbles.
It’s early on the Naknek River, but not too early.
Since the salmon season is reeling to a close, some of the boats are sitting at the dock, while others have already headed out for their final catches of the season.
This means I haven’t been seen getting onto Matt’s boat.
At least as far as I know. I push the thought aside.
Because it’s a foggy, damp day, Matt decides we should stay in the cabin as he drives us up to the Kvichak River. It’s like being back in the cockpit of his plane yesterday, the two of us side by side in our chairs, him helming the . . . helm.
“So, uh . . . how does this all work? Your samples and things, I mean,” Matt says as he settles into his captain’s chair.
I push aside thoughts of how sexy he is, taking control of his boat.
Nothing better than a capable man. “Yeah, so, there are a few pieces of it. It boils down to samples from the river and then the fish themselves. First, I'll gather water from different spots to check for things like oxygen levels, temperature, and pH. These give clues about the overall health of their environment. I’ll also take some sediment from the riverbed to see if there are any metals or chemicals settled there that could be affecting the salmon.”
“And samples from the fish?” Matt asks with a raised brow.
I try to laugh, uneasy about telling a pro fisherman that I, a complete and utter novice, need to figure out how to catch a coho. “Yeah, you’re going to need to give me some tips on how to fish,” I say.
“I thought you were trying to protect the salmon, not fish them.” There’s a distinct, subtle smile on his face, like he’s got me cornered.
“No, I am, I just . . . you know, getting to see them up close and take stock of their health is important to my study. And I can take some non-invasive samples. Fin clippings, scale scraping.”
Matt goes quiet as he does a couple of things on the control panel before taking hold of the wheel and directing his boat away from the dock. “I can do that for you. Get you a look at the fish, I mean.”
“Oh, you don’t have to?—”
“Be easier than making you into a quality fisher.” His thoughtful eyes flick to me, then back to the river. “And we can release ‘em back or eat them. They won’t go to waste.”
It would certainly save me a lot of pain over the situation. “I could add some money onto the fee, so you wouldn’t be losing out on a catch. I just can’t in good conscience?—”
“Don’t worry about it. Good practice. I haven’t done much slow fishing in a while anyway. One at a time with a rod, you know?” Matt replies with a genuine smile. The thought actually excites him.
It excites me too. The image of him on the rocky shore casting into the water and waiting for a bite. Probably so adept and talented at the job that it’s second nature. Makes my heartbeat quicken just a bit.
“Be about an hour out to Kvichak,” he explains as he maneuvers the boat to the mouth of the Naknek River and into Bristol Bay.
Gillnetters don’t move very fast. I don’t know what I expected.
Still, though, it’s fast enough to make the town of Naknek roll by.
It might be a gray and damp day, but there’s something so beautiful about it.
In LA, you so rarely get anything but sun.
Sun, sun, sun. It’s a different kind of exhausting.
I miss the seasons sometimes. And while Alaska has its own forms of repetition, being here is cleansing.
Other than the drama of getting my work done and the side-eyes I get from most of Naknek, I feel welcomed by the landscape. By the environment.
That’s got to count for something, right?
Once we’re out on the bay, we join a peppering of other boats on the placid water. It’s so quiet out here, partly because Matt and I don’t seem to know what to say to one another. We sip our coffee, he points out something on the shore, and I make a note of it.
This is work. For both of us. I’m doing my research. He’s my boat for hire. The situation doesn’t call for niceties.
And yet, I’d like to share them.
“Uh.” Matt captures my attention, but as soon as my eyes are on him, he clams up.
Is he . . . nervous? “Yes?”
“We sometimes see whales around here, if that’s your thing,” he replies, words catching in the back of his throat.
“Whales are very much my thing,” I say. “I just finished up a project tracking pods of grays.”
Matt nods and his voice opens up with excitement to share more with me. “Yeah, you can see those from time to time this time of year.”
I beam. “Guess I should keep my eyes peeled.”
Turns out Matt has lots of facts about the wildlife here, which shouldn’t surprise me.
It’s his willingness to share that warms my heart.
He points out an eagle he spots overhead.
“Angry fuckers if you run into them during a catch.” Later he points toward an untouched, undeveloped shore where something lumbers. “Bears, too.”
I squint to make out the bearish shape. From such a distance, it almost feels like I’m at the zoo rather than in the wild. It takes a few moments for me to realize just how stupendous it is to see a bear that is truly free and wild. “Grizzly?”
Matt shakes his head. “Brown bears. Grizzlies are a type of brown bear, but you don’t see them by the water. Grizzlies live inland.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Where there’s salmon, there’s bears. But there’s enough to go around.” Matt smiles but seems to stop short of adding something.
I can fill in the blank though. For now.
“This is the river that connects with Iliamna Lake, right?” I ask as we enter the Kvichak’s wide, expansive mouth.
“You got it.”
“And Lake Clark from there?”
“Are you trying to impress me?” Matt asks with a glint in his eyes and a lopsided smile.
“I—n-no, I was just?—”
Matt chuckles.
“I was just reading up on the Pebble Mine proposal and . . . you must be happy about the veto.” The proposal to mine a significant mineral deposit nearby caused consternation for years until the Environmental Protection Agency effectively banned any mining activities in the area.
Even the Supreme Court overruled the state’s request to be relieved of the EPA’s embargo.
“It’s been a relief, but we never get too comfortable. You know, that’s why so many of the fishermen are wary of you.”
I nearly lurch out of my seat. “I have nothing to do with?—”
“What I mean is, we see threats from development all the time. We fight it. The fishermen, well, most are local, and they take offense when they’re pinned as the problem.”
I sigh. “I didn’t pin them as a problem.”
“I know you didn’t. Yet.”
Matt stops the boat long enough at the mouth of the river for me to get a sample of water. I make a mental note of how great it would be to get a riverbed sample from the mouth too, but that would require my diving suit, and I didn’t bring it. I was afraid I might be asking for too much.
We go farther down the Kvichak, until Matt points out a beach of gray stones and pebbles that looks suitable for my work. We get in the skiff and putter over to the shore, my whole bag in tow, which is almost like a third passenger.
I step out of the skiff, water coming up to my calves in my rubbery hip waders. “Might take me a bit since I have to test for a few things in real-time here. But once I have the sample and it’s packed in my cooler, I’ll be ready.”
Matthew pulls the skiff up to the shore. “No rush. I’m actually going to go check on a spawning site while you work.”