“Great, wasn’t it?” Hank was feeling mellow. “I could seine salmon for the rest of my life and be happy.”
Swede gave his dry laugh. “This was before power blocks, when you broke your back each set. Canneries treated you like shit, sold you meat with maggots, paid a couple cents a fish, dropped the price if they pleased.”
Hank was unimpressed. Td still have gone seining.”
“Well, with the Depression, if you found a berth maybe you would. Being romantic is a luxury for the well-off.”
“So you went into the Army, came home, got a job in a cannery, and worked your way to the top.”
Swede slowly prepared his cigar. His lean face, even in the dark barroom light, had a controlled lack of expression. “No, I took my GI Bill and went to college in Seattle. Business Administration. Did it through the summers, and had my degree in two and a half years. I figured that would deliver me from the fish boats. Then I was romantic enough to go fishing again, just to get the cobwebs out of my system.”
Hank declared that such a decision called for a new round, and ordered it.
“I’ll tell you what interested me. Ever hear of Lowell Wakefield? A couple of years after the war, he outfitted a special ship to see if he could make a fishery of king crab up in the Bering Sea. Lowell planned to catch the crabs and process them on board. What the hell, I said, here’s something new, so I signed aboard. We built that crab fishery from scratch. It wasn’t pots back then; we dragged weighted nets down in the mud. Started to experiment with the pots later. You kid fishermen pull your square pots with a hydraulic block and never think that all the gear was developed for you by men still living, half of whom went broke in the process. You’ve probably never fished king crab.”
“Only in the year before the earthquake. I helped Jones Henry put over those old circular pots.”
“Well. You’ve fished pots that don’t exist any more; you’re already part of the history. That’s how fast it’s changing. It gets to me sometimes, the changes I’ve seen.” He raised the fresh shot glass. “Here’s to may I never have to work on another fish boat again.”
“Suits me. Here’s to fuck the canneries.”
Swede ordered another round. “Crawford, I could tell you things. I remember the first time we figured how to home on radar buoys to find our pots. And how we worked out by trial and error the best way to separate crab legs from their shells, and then to run them through the line without spoiling their flavor. We were pioneers, and as a matter of fact, it was exciting.”
Hank watched Swede with new respect. “When I first met you back in sixty-three, it seemed to me you’d run that salmon cannery for a hundred years, the way you had everybody hopping.”
“Well, I’d been there about ten years, and manager nine of them. The company that owned it then stole me away from Wakefield with a promise that I’d be boss pretty quick, and gave a bonus that a man with a young family wasn’t going to refuse. You know I left a year or so after the earthquake and started my own cannery?” Hank registered appropriate surprise and interest. “Up through nineteen sixty-six there was so much king crab around here it filled the pots wherever they dumped them. The boats were lined up to sell their crab. I decided I was ready to be my own pioneer, since I’d been a part of figuring out the processes myself. But I came in at the tag end, just as the bottom dropped out in sixty-eight. The big canneries barely stayed on top. Most were diversified with salmon and shrimp so they toughed it. To get any boats to deliver me enough crab to stay in business, I paid more than I was able to recover. For a while after it fell apart, my wife and I were both back working on one of Wakefield’s picking lines to pay the rent, alongside some of the people I’d hired, while the bankruptcy people assessed my building and machinery. That was only two years ago.”
Hank lifted his glass unsteadily. “Here’s to your balls.”
Swede rose and clapped Hank heavily on the shoulder. “Walk me back to the cannery.”
Sandra, in Swede’s outer office, looked up with surprise and a smile on seeing them together. “Seattle’s been trying to get you,” she told Swede, and he disappeared into his office with instructions for Hank to wait. The disadvantage of having his girlfriend working close by was apparent at once. There he was, when he wanted to be privately with his thoughts, standing mildly boozed under her scrutiny.
“Well, what does he want?”
Hank grinned, trying to make it enigmatic. “Jus’ old friends bullshitting.”
“Yes, I see. Get some coffee. Swede drinks people under the table and you’d never know he’s had any. He’s good at keeping control.” Hank nodded wisely and went to the coffee room. Swede’s door stood open when he returned. If Swede wanted to reinstate him as picker foreman, why not? Nothing better to do until the cast came off.
Swede was a different man behind his desk. His lean face was tense and irritable. “Goddam Seattle office dictates my prices, then holds my ass responsible. Yes, Crawford, what is it you want?”
“Not a damn thing.” Hank started to leave.
“Okay, sit down and pay attention. You know I manage three plants for Seaflower Seafoods, the big one here in town, and then two salmon canneries in summer, the old one west of here and one down at the far south of the island. My south manager isn’t coming back this year, he told me last week. Joe Cutch runs this one. If I could find another Cutch I’d take him. Second choice is somebody with enough education to read, who’s not afraid to work, whom I can trust. The question in my mind is, can I trust you?”
“Run the whole cannery?”
“The day-to-day part of it. I’ll be back and forth.”
Hank whistled, impressed. But, as he thought about it: “You know me, Swede. I want to fish. You’d train me, then figure I’d screwed you when a berth came along.” He patted his cast. “I’d guarantee to stay for this whole season.”
“That’s all I had in mind trusting you for. Assuming you hacked it, you’d get a one-to two-thousand bonus, depending on the season’s pack, and salary of three hundred a week. Long days, and bullshit from everybody. Don’t think being in charge is anything but that. You’ll have your own house. Now, I know you and my clerk out there are shacking up—no, let me finish—and since I need a clerk down there I don’t mind sending her.
Hank gazed over Swede’s shoulder, through the window that looked over the loading dock. Should he take Swede’s first offer, or would Sandy tell him too late that he should have bargained for more? The thought of all the responsibility appealed, cannery or not. “Okay, boss, no fish boats again until September.”
“You’re on the payroll. Supplies get delivered soon, We’ll fly down tomorrow.” They shook hands.
CHAPTER 19
Trial by Cannery
THE names of south Kodiak Island—Olga Bay, Akhiok Village, Cape Alitak, Deadman Bay—have the same origins in Russian-Aleut and early disaster as those in the north and west of the island—Whale Pass, Kupreanof Straight, Terror Bay, Uganik Bay—where Hank had once canned salmon for Swede Scorden and fished for Jones Henry. But there the similarity ended. The eighty air miles south from Kodiak town took him from a country of mountains forested in near-tropical density, which often ended at the water in bluffs, to a country of bare smooth mountains, scrub marshland, and spits of gray gravel. Beyond the shore, the low bald islands of the Trinities rose glumly on the horizon. The same mists that played over the high northern trees hovered here like witches’ breath. Thick spruce landscapes had molded Hank’s concept of the wilderness, places restless and challenging. This by comparison was land’s end, a place to dampen the spirit, a far extension of the earth.
Not that Hank was depressed. The plane circled to land by the piers built over the water. “Hey,” he shouted from his seat by the pilot, “I’d forgotten how big these canneries are.” The complex of long white buildings stretched nearly a quarter mile, bordered by gravel shoreline. It was laid out in a T formation. The living areas formed the crosspiece in a ban
d paralleling the beach and the work areas made up the stem with massive sheds built on pilings into the water. The chowhall, machine shop, and other service facilities were clustered where the two sections joined. Off to one corner lay about twenty seine boats on trestles, painted identical colors. “We own them,” Swede said. “Skippers lease them and agree to deliver to us. That’s how you assure a steady flow of fish”
The plane landed in a bay and cruised in on its pontoons. With low tide, the pier rose fifteen feet. Above them a dog yapped. The watchman called to warn of a loose ladder and to tell Swede that Kodiak wanted to talk to him. His face was weathered and unwashed, and his whiskers were stained with snuff juice. Hank expected him to say colorful things, but he was shy and gave only monosyllabic answers. They all walked together down the wide boardwalk from the pier, past the cannery sheds to the office at the juncture of buildings.
The radio room was part of the office, located within a hive of small rooms. Swede showed Hank how to use the equipment as he called Kodiak; Joe dutch’s voice announced that a cargo ship with their season’s supplies would be delivering next afternoon. Also, the Seattle office wanted Swede to fly down on tomorrow’s plane from Anchorage for an emergency conference of area managers.
Swede cursed the arbitrariness of Seattle. “Hank doesn’t have the experience with bills of lading and storage. Fly down yourself tomorrow with a crew of four.”
“Right, Swede, but the number two retort just busted. Whole line’s backed up, with Shalimar half unloaded, Delta waiting, and Miss Lucy due at three in the morning.”
“Yeah, you stay there, Joe. I’ll be back tonight. Have Sandy make my Seattle reservations. Then set up that gang to fly down. Send Sandy along with the forms; she understands them.” He glanced at Hank with half a smile.
When he had finished on the radio, Swede swung absently in his swivel chair. “Before regular planes, a canneryman could forget the fucking home office.”
“Tell Seattle you’re too busy to come.”
“No, with rumors of a shakeup, I’d best be there.”
They inspected the length of the cannery complex, rain stinging their faces. The dog first challenged every step, then accompanied them with contented sniffings. The long chain of white buildings that provided the living quarters started at one end of a spit with the individual house that would be Hank’s. It was raised on blocks, with steps and a porch, and three rooms inside. From there, boardwalks traversed a series of two-story dormitories with covered porches. Each room slept two or four. They contained chairs stacked in a comer, metal beds with mattesses, a table or two, and a curtained rack for clothes. Toward the center of the complex, the boardwalk widened to connect all the central facilities— a fire-engine house, big equipment sheds, the store and offices, a messhall with tables and benches, and a galley with oversized pots and stoves. The final long bunkhouse ran beside the row of beached seiners, and the end of its porch looked out over the misty rocks of the harbor.
“Every bit of the place needs paint,” said Swede. ‘When the maintenance crew comes, make sure that’s what they do whenever it stops raining.”
“Right.” Hank carried a notebook, grown soggy from the rain, which he opened to make a notation.
The shedlike cannery buildings were cavernous. They seemed vaster without people, with the untended machinery gleaming dully in the dark. There was fish odor everywhere, neither spoiled nor fresh but deeply residual, steeped into the boards and concrete. Hank recognized the basic layout from the other salmon cannery long ago, but the fact that he would be responsible gave this one a different dimension. Swede took him through it station by station as he explained the progression of processes.
“Know the names of all these machines before you talk to the mechanics, especially old Pete, or they’ll ignore you.”
There was the fish elevator to bring the salmon from the tenders, the bins to store them, the sorting belts and sluice troughs to convey them by species to the indexers for heading, and then the Iron Chinks. Swede pointed out some of the major blades, brushes, and water hoses of the high, complicated machines. “In the old days before my time, they shipped up Chinamen to do the butcher work, and now the Iron Chink takes no more than a second for all the guts, scales, fins. Sometimes the Chinks break down, and the foreman has to set up a hand line. Then you’ll see what those machines are worth, you’ll kiss the ass of the man who keeps them running. It’s Pete Erikson in this cannery, be coming up in a week or so. He’s an old fart now, and he snits easy. Not your worry to choose the people to feed the indexer and Chink, but whoever they are he’ll take offense. Change the crew whenever he bitches. Kids on starting pay come and go all the time, but we hold on to Pete. Larry Petrovich is foreman there, part Aleut, good man. He handles it every year. These foremen work together season after season, so you stay clear unless they come to you.”
They followed the roller belts to the sliming tables, where people with brushes, knives, and hoses cleaned the fish carcasses coming from the Chink. Next came the filler machines, with chutes feeding into them from the ceiling. The chutes brought down flattened cans that were opened automatically, while parallel blades sliced the fish and put the pieces into the cans. “You have your two sizes of cans, one-pound tails and half-pound flats, and you decide ahead what you plan to pack that day. Everything, everything’s got to be planned ahead. Last January I made out my final supply order for the whole summer. That includes I don’t know what-all: nails, lumber, salt, cans, all the spares we might need, food for 140 people for two months, all the diesel for our twenty seiners and the others that fish for us ... You run short, it takes a month to get anything up here from Seattle.”
“Just of empty cans you must need thousands.”
“Thousands? That ship’s bringing seventeen million cans.”
“Come on.”
“We’ll process about a hundred thirty thousand pinks a day— that’s five thousand fish an hour for each of two lines, or about twenty-five thousand one-pound tails an hour, more than three hundred thousand cans in a twelve-hour day. Figure it yourself for an eight-week season.” He waved toward the filler machines. “One of those opens and fills a hundred twenty-five cans a minute. Ever seen one can get jammed the wrong way and the whole line back up? You’ve got to have mechanics nearby all the time. Another thing you need to keep moving is water, fresh water, everywhere. Those salmon need as much water to travel through the line in pieces as they ever did swimming live. That means tubes and lines, stuff that breaks. When you locate a seafood cannery in the first place, no use thinking further on a site if it lacks a heavy water flow. Except for a piece of shore to build on, water’s everything. You need deep enough harbor for the boats and tenders, and you want tides strong enough to take off a million fishheads plus a hundred forty people’s daily shit. Well, we have sewage treatment now by law, and inspectors who can shut down your plant. That’ll be one of your jobs. Inspectors fly in when they please, and you’ve got to take time from whatever you’re doing.”
“Do we have anything to hide?”
“Hide? No, but they’ll treat you like you do. If something breaks while they’re watching they’ll likely cite you for it. Okay, the open cans full of fish pass through the weighing machine here, and any that are underweight divert automatically to the patching table. You’ll find the older women have the best patience to be patchers. It takes some judgment, so they can’t just daydream and move their hands like they might do on other jobs. A one-pound tall has to contain fifteen and a half ounces of salmon, as it promises on the label. The patchers stick in another piece of fish to round out the weight, and they’re supposed to make sure no bones or skin shows up top. But you’ve got to impress on them they’re to put in just enough extra, no more.”
“What difference if the customer got another ounce?”
Swede took Hank’s pad and figured for him that three-tenths of an ounce overweight on each can amounted to a thousand pounds of salmon a day. “And
that’s dressed meat. Remember the cannery buys whole fish, and pays for the heads and guts.”
They continued down the line to the clinchers that put a code number on the can and a lid that remained slightly loose. The cans then passed through the exhaust box or vacuum sealer, which pulled vacuum and made the final seal. In the final operation, the cans were stacked on big mobile trays called coolers and rolled into the cooking machines, called retorts. “They cook by steam, under pressure, about eighty minutes at two hundred forty degrees. That kills all the bacteria. In the old days, you had to boil the cans in water for six to seven hours, and that meant you couldn’t turn out but a quarter of the present volume. Without the Iron Chinks and the retorts to speed things you’d have no industry on a modern scale. Those two machines were developed over forty years ago, and nothing’s changed much in salmon canning since then.” Swede pointed to a separate area of tables and hoses. “That’s a change, in a way. Remember how salmon eggs used to be for the seagulls? Well, the Japs love them in brine so heavy it bums your mouth. The supervisor for the egg line’s a Jap from the company that buys the stuff. He runs it by himself. They put it in boxes with Jap lettering, and a Jap cargo ship collects it.”
“Better watch it, the Japs’ll soon own your cannery.”
“Not likely. Look, up there, water through the ceiling. Make a note and we’ll trace it when we get upstairs. I’ll spend the rest of the day showing you where the stores go. Remember, what they bring tomorrow sees us through the summer. Check it down to the last bag of cement.”
The next days made Hank feel that he had never left the Navy. His authority fell into place at once. Although the laborers sent from Kodiak were all guys he had shoveled with, even taken orders from, he saw to it that they did what he told them. He himself pitched in as best he could with an arm in a cast, then withdrew easily back to the level of boss. Even Sandra accepted his new role. She stood checking inventory, ready at once to appear at a new location if he called.
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