Cod Processor ‘Katmai’ lost at sea near Aleutian Islands

The Katmai motors toward the Ballard Locks in Seattle in this undated photo. The cod processor sank west of Adak Island in the Aleutians October 22, 2008. (Photo courtesy of Seattle Times)

In sad news related to fishing in the Bering sea, the processor boat Katmai went missing early Wednesday morning (24 hours ago) as it traveled along the Aleutian Islands near the intersecting point of the Bering Sea and Northern Pacific Ocean. (see map below)
Initially one survivor was rescued by the coast guard and since that time, three more have been rescued.  Five crewmen are confirmed dead, and two are still unaccounted for.  There were 11 onboard in all. Keep them in your thoughts….

Read the story

 
(map and chart courtesy of Anchorage Daily News)

Wootens Remember Alaska…

By: Linda Wuebben

Photo By Linda Wuebben Millie Wooten and her son, Dick “Dutchy” Wooten, display a scrapbook chronicling their days in Alaska prior to World War II. Dutchy was the first registered white baby born in the U.S. territory of Alaska.

“Anyone who has any adventure in them would surely enjoy the Aleutian Islands,” said Millie Wooten with a sparkle of that adventure in her 90-plus-year-old eyes.

It was that spirit of adventure which led her to live in Unalaska, Alaska, in 1941 with her husband Charlie and have her first child born — the first white child born and registered in the U.S. territory of Alaska.

Wooten, a native of Crofton, Neb., lived in Unalaska with husband Charlie just before the start of World War II. Her mother died of the flu in the Crofton area when Wooten was 2 1/2 years old; brother Eugene Sprakel was only six months old. Her grandparents helped raise the two youngsters until her dad remarried.

“After my sophomore year of high school at Beaver Creek, my grandmother from West Point said to my dad, ‘Let me take Millie back with me,’” said Wooten. So with 10 years of country school in northern Knox County under her belt, she headed off to West Point to start her adventure and cooking career.

Wooten waitressed and cooked her way to Omaha and then Seattle, where she met Charlie in a restaurant where she was a waitress. They married but Charlie had the spirit, too, and the couple decided to head to the Aleutian Islands, a chain of volcanic islands extending west of the Alaska peninsula.

Charlie, being a carpenter by trade, decided it might be an interesting place to see and work, and he headed to the new territory first. They were building military barracks and buildings. Mr. Wooten was part of the crew who built the hospital at Dutch Harbor and also several sets of duplexes — a dwelling with two, one-room, one-family homes with a small bathroom and fold-down bed in Unalaska.

Mrs. Wooten arrived in March 1941 and stayed until the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. While working as a cook in Unalaska, she had their first of six children, Dick ‘Dutchy’ Wooten.

Conservation groups voice concerns about offshore leasing

source:  Alaska Journal of Commerce, by Margaret Bauman

Exploration in outer continental shelf area stirs debate in Bristol Bay.
An oil and gas industry spokeswoman says a federal decision to open the North Aleutian Basin to exploration is good news, but fishermen and conservation interests say it poses a grave risk. “It’s good news for both the nation and for Alaska,” said Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, speaking from her Anchorage office July 2. The federal Minerals Management Service estimates that the entire national outer continental shelf program will generate 10 billion barrels of oil, 24 percent of which will come from Alaska’s OCS, and 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 11 percent of which will come from Alaska, Crockett said.

“Very disappointing,” said Robin Samuelsen, head of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., speaking by cell phone from his fishing boat, near Clark’s Point. “It doesn’t surprise me, with this (Bush) administration, but a lot can happen between now and 2011.

“We have some of the most productive waters in the world,” said Samuelsen, whose family has fished Bristol Bay for generations. “We shouldn’t be drilling; it may cause an effect on the habitat.” Being in federal waters, there is no state control, and exploration companies don’t even have to hire Alaskan residents, he said.

An estimated 40 percent of total domestic fish harvests come from the Bristol Bay region, including salmon, halibut, pollock, cod and red king crab. The fishing industry is also a major employer in the Bristol Bay region.

The decision announced June 29 by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne opened the way, beginning July 1, for a five-year lease sale program, through 2012, including eight lease sales in Alaska.

These include sales in the Chukchi Sea in February 2008, the Beaufort Sea and Cook Inlet in 2009, Chukchi Sea in 2010, Beaufort Sea, North Aleutian Basin (Bristol Bay), Cook Inlet sale 219 in 2011, and a third Chukchi Sea sale in 2012.

The federal environmental impact statement for the 2008 Chukchi Sea sale is already out for a 30-day public comment period, which closes at the end of July, said Tina Huffaker, MMS spokeswoman.

The proposed notice of the sale will come out shortly after the comment period ends, along with a consistency determination. There is a 60-day comment period on the proposed notice, and the state of Alaska must study the consistency determination and agree that the plan is consistent with its own coastal management plan, Huffaker said. The state may ask for an extension.

The Alaska Marine Conservation Council also weighed in on Kempthorne’s decision, expressing concerns over the potential impact of hydrocarbon exploration on Bristol Bay, home of the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery, and critical to other commercial, sport and subsistence fishing interests. “It is, indeed, a sad day for Bristol Bay,” said Eric Siy, AMCC’s executive director. “Repeated calls from an extraordinarily diverse constituency including Native villages, commercial fishermen, conservationists, and more united in their opposition to offshore oil and gas development in Bristol Bay, have fallen on deaf ears.”

The Bristol Bay fishery, now in full swing with a harvest of 24 million sockeye salmon expected this year, is valued at more than $2 billion for its salmon and other seafood. The proposed 2011 lease sale lies in a 5.6 million acre area off the Alaska Peninsula. It overlaps important habitat and fishing grounds for red king crab, halibut, pollock, cod and salmon.

The lease sale area also overlaps designated critical habitat for the endangered North Pacific right whale and is home to the greatest concentration of seabird colonies in North America.

Seismic exploration, oil spills, contaminated discharges, infrastructure construction and increased vessel traffic pose risks to the region’s fish, marine mammals, seabirds and waterfowl, Siy said.

Until 2007, Bristol Bay was protected by both congressional and executive actions imposed after the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill to bar offshore oil and gas development.

“It is now incumbent on the Congress to restore protection to this national treasure before it is too late,” Siy said. “The federal government’s own studies predict at latest one major oil spill will occur if development goes forward here. Knowing this makes today’s (June 29) action appear all the more irresponsible.”

Crockett countered that clearly MMS will carefully study and evaluate all potential impacts from leasing in the Bristol Bay area before the sale and eventual exploration occurs.

“Having the five-year program in place provides that level of certainty that the agencies need to move forward with studies and plans, and also, importantly, the level of certainty industry needs for future planning and investment evaluation,” she said.

Article

Mappers turn up wrecked freighter (near Dutch Harbor)

 

Unimak Pass

Marine surveyors mapping the sea floor in a shipping lane near Dutch Harbor in Unalaska, Alaska, have discovered the uncharted wreck of a South Korean freighter that sank in 1983.

Surveyors aboard the Kittiwake found the 551-foot Pan Nova in about 300 feet of water in Unimak Pass on June 22, said Tom Newman, president of TerraSond Ltd., a Palmer, Alaska-based company. Sonar images showing depth in a range of colors indicate the ship is lying on its side and nearly broken in two near the bow, he said.

The discovery was a surprise and thrilled the three-man crew working the night shift, said Garrett Yager, 29. He was watching sonar images of a fairly featureless sea floor about 2 a.m. when the freighter’s profile started creeping onto the screen.

“It was a hydrographer’s dream,” he said Saturday from a ship phone in the pass.

The Kittiwake is taking soundings of coastlines and sea floor in the pass northeast of Dutch Harbor for the first time since 1938, updating sea charts for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Newman said.

The Pan Nova, transporting wheat to its homeport in Pusan, South Korea, collided with another Korean freighter early on Sept. 10, 1983. It sank that night after the Coast Guard rescued its 26-member crew, according to contemporary news accounts.

The Swibon, bound for Anchorage with 131 towers for the 170-mile Anchorage-Fairbanks electrical transmission intertie, was damaged in the collision but made it to port. Its delivery was delayed a day.

The TerraSond crew members started sleuthing after they realized they were likely looking at a sunken freighter, Yager said. They measured it. They studied shadowing effects. And they got on the ship’s Internet to check the Minerals Management Service Web site.

Sure enough, the Pan Nova went down there, about 5 miles north of Akun Island on the northwest side of the pass.

“We find neat geographic features, but when you find something of that magnitude, that hasn’t been seen since 1983 and no one knew where it was, it’s kind of your own little discovery,” said Yager, who plans to frame the sonar image to decorate his wall at home.

The sunken freighter is no hazard to vessels but will become a landmark on updated sea charts, said Newman, who was in Palmer during the discovery.

“A lot of times we don’t find much, so it’s pretty fun when you do find something,” he said.
By ALEX DEMARBAN
Anchorage Daily News

Deadliest Catch Geography: The ISLAND OF AKUTAN

    There’s Dutch Harbor, the Pribilof islands, the Aleutians, and there’s also Akutan.  Akutan is the Aleutian island that Sig Hansen and the F/V Northwestern docked at to offload during king crab season.  And not only did they stop there this last season but have done so for many years.  Lucky for them they got to spend a little down time at a cozy-looking tavern called the Roadhouse and lucky for us fans, we were introduced to a little known part of their world that seems  full of character and likewise, full of crab fishing details, like the wall full of framed images of crab fishing vessels, some of which are long gone, a wooden table engraved with countless signatures of prior visiting fishermen, and of course,the locals who receive yearly visits of the crabbers who regularly test their fate in the cold dangerous waters of the Bering sea.  But what else is there to know about Akutan? 

Akutan has a deep and protective bay and is actually 40 miles closer to the “crab fishing grounds” then Dutch Harbor.  Although Akutan has no landing strip, has only 100 or so fulltime residents, and has no paved roads–only wooden boardwalks, is still one of the busiest fishing ports in the country, and has one of the largest processors–Trident Seafoods–about 1/4  mile away from the village of Akutan.

First formed in 1878 as a fur trading post, Akutan village was also one of the first introduced to the crab fishing industries in the 1940’s and was home to several floating processors at that time.  In 1942, when the Japanese attacked Unalaska, all residents were evacuated and thus had to re-establish themselves as a village in 1944.  Finally in 1979, it was incorporated as the “city” of Akutan.

Akutan is a tiny island with a very small community, yet is still an interesting stop for visitors.  The active Akutan volcano–last eruption in 1992– is only 7 miles away from city of Akutan and adventurous hikers can climb to the crater.  Many scientists have spent time there.   There is a large variety of birds and animal life to observe and some of the largest halibut in the world have been caught in the Akutan area waters.

The Bombing of Dutch Harbor, AK, 65 Years Ago Today

How many of us remember that the only time ever in history, that American soil was actually occupied was also in WWII, in part of the Aleutian Islands, and it was 65 years ago today that Dutch Harbor, Alaska (the “home base” so to speak, of Deadliest Catch), was attacked by Japanese forces. This information is from nps.gov

“The island of Unalaska, in the heart of the Aleutian Chain, is approximately 80 square miles in size with an elevation as high as 6,680 feet at the top of Makushin Volcano. The Port of Dutch Harbor, which is part of the City of Unalaska, is located on Amaknak Island and is connected to Unalaska by bridge. The current day population of the City of Unalaska is about 4,300. The population triples between August and May due to the arrival of commercial fisherman.” Unalaska is approximately 792 miles by air south and west of Anchorage.

December 7th, 1941 was proclaimed to be a day that would live in infamy by then President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, as a result of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Hawaii of course isn’t  connected to nor is it physically part of the contiguous 48 States. The attack on Pearl Harbor thus presented itself to Americans living on the “mainland” as an event that took place in a somewhat detached and remote location, given that Hawaii is located some 2,400 miles to the west of San Francisco by air.

On the 3rd and 4th of June, 1942, six months after the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, they attacked and bombed the port of Dutch Harbor. Now, Dutch Harbor, being around 792 miles from Anchorage, AK, is a little closer to home. You’d think that the mainland Americans would be outraged, concerned to the maximum extent…but given that American soil was attacked directly by the Japanese, and that this was seen as a demoralizing factor, the military clamped down on any news reporting of this event. Little was known at the time in the lower 48 about this attack on Dutch Harbor.

June 3, 1942, six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese aircraft struck U.S. Army and Navy installations at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Island Chain.

Two days of aerial bombardment left over one hundred civilians and servicemen dead and wounded; barracks, fuel tanks, and other structures

---

U.S. forces at Fort Mears met the first attack on June 3, with antiaircraft and small arms fire, but on June 4, the Aleutian Tigers (eight P-40s), engaged the Japanese planes in aerial dogfights. The U.S. planes were launched from Cape Field at Fort Glenn, a secret airbase on neighboring Umnak Island. The Japanese had thought the nearest airfield was on Kodiak, and Cape Field, disguised as a cannery complex, had remained undetected. The surprise aerial counter-attack destroyed four Val dive bombers and one Zero.
In the following days, U.S. amphibious and bomber aircraft searched the Pacific Ocean for the Japanese carriers and their escort ships, with Zeros. Low visibility weather exacted a heavy toll on the search planes. Of six Catalinas that came within sight of the Japanese fleet, four were downed by Japanese fighters, another was lost in the fog.
Notwithstanding the tragic loss of American lives, the first forty-eight hours of the Aleutian Campaign exacted little substantive damage on U.S. or Japanese forces. No Japanese vessels were damaged and Fort Schwatka at Dutch Harbor was quickly repaired. What had quickly become apparent to both sides however, was the role the capricious Aleutian weather would play in the campaign; at times an unpredictable ally, at times an uncertain foe. Weather claimed more than its share of lives. Soldiers shot their own in the fog; unable to penetrate fog and clouds, ships were thrown against rocks and sunk in heavy seas; pilots met the sides of mountains in low overcast skies, or flew off course never to be seen again.

December 7, 1941 March 31, 1942 June 3, 1942 June 6, 1942 June 7, 1942 August 30, 1942 September 14, 1942 September 20, 1942 January 12, 1943 February 21, 1943 May 11, 1943 May 29, 1943 May 30, 1943 July 28, 1943 August 15, 1943

Hostilities begin in the Pacific Runway completed at Fort Glenn Japanese attack Dutch Harbor Japanese forces occupy Kiska Japanese forces occupy Adak American forces occupy Adak Adak based U.S. aircraft bomb Kiska American forces occupy Kiska American forces occupy Amchitka Amchitka based U.S. aircraft bomb Kiska American forces land on Attu Last Japanese attack crushed on Attu Occupation of Attu completed Japanese evacuate Kiska Allied forces occupy Kiska

On May 11, 1943, two contingents of U.S. soldiers, numbering approximately 12,500 men in total, landed on the north and south ends of Attu Island and began pressing towards the Japanese strongholds at Holtz Bay and Chichagof Harbor. Progress was slow and costly. Eight days of heavy fighting passed before the South Landing Force climbed its way out of Massacre Bay. The North Landing Force, amongst their numbers the unorthodox Alaska Scouts, forced the Japanese from Holtz Bay, then continued towards Jarmin Pass and the North Landing Force to complete the pincer movement. The approximately 2,300 Japanese troops that remained had retreated to the wild heights of Fish Hook Ridge above Chichagof Valley, waiting for reinforcements. None arrived. On May 23, a force of sixteen Japanese Betty bombers was met by U.S. P-38 Lightnings over Attu. Five of the Japanese bombers were downed. It was the last attempt by the Japanese to support their Aleutian troops by air.On the ground, American forces had increased to 15,000. Air strikes and U.S. ground force assaults up the precipitous Fish Hook Ridge further diminished Japanese forces. On May 29, Colonel Yamasaki, and the remainder of his Attu troops, numbering 750 or less, broke through American lines in a desperate attempt to reach Massacre Bay and needed stockpiles of U.S. supplies. They were finally halted at Engineer Hill, as a hastily organized U.S. defense repelled wave after wave of banzai attacks. Those Japanese troops that were not killed by U.S. fire, took their own lives. In the end, of the 2,300 Japanese troops, fewer than thirty soldiers of the North Sea Garrison were left alive, many ashamed that they had dishonored themselves by surrender. American dead numbered 549.

---

Escape from Kiska
After the expulsion of the Japanese from Attu, U.S. naval and aerial bombardment of Kiska increased in fervor. Japanese submarines attempted to evacuate the estimated 5,100 Japanese troops on the island, but the process proved too slow, and far too dangerous with a tightened U.S. blockade. On July 28, under the cover of thick fog, Japanese cruisers and destroyers managed to slip through U.S. naval forces and aerial reconaissance without detection. In thirty minutes, the 5,100 Kiska troops were boarded, and the fleet headed back to the safety of Paramishiro Harbor. The evacuation was so bold and well executed, U.S. commanders refused to believe it had taken place. However, U.S. fighters strafing Kiska no longer received return anti-aircraft fire. In one instance, four U.S. P-40s landed on the shell pocked Kiska airfield. The pilots left their planes and strolled near the runway, seeing no sigh of the enemy. In spite of this evidence, U.S. intelligence argued that the Japanese adherance to the Bushido Code forbade them from surrendering Kiska without a fight. The lessons of Attu, America’s first experience with Japanese suidice attacks, had been too well elarned. The invasion of Kiska prodeeded as planned. On August 15, 1943, U.S. and Canadian troops landed on Kiska. In the three day operation that ensued, over 313 allied soldiers died from “friendly fire,” booby traps, and land mines. The Japanese had occupied U.S. territory for over a year before being routed at Attu. Not since the War of 1812 had a foreign battle been fought on American soil.

Dutch Harbor/Unalaska

 People may refer to the whole area as Dutch Harbor, but it’s actually the island and city of Unalaska…Dutch Harbor is on the neighboring island Amaknak and connects to Unalaska by a 500 foot bridge. 

Dutch Harbor/Unalaska (Each has their own zip code) 

Because Dutch Harbor is the busiest international fishing port in America, much of the population and commerce are right at Dutch Harbor.

The Church of Holy Ascension faces Dutch and is seen often on Deadliest Catch (especially the intro) 

   Dutch and Unalaska are part of the Fox islands which are the nearest to the mainland…about 800 miles or so.  The Aleutians are comprised of four main groups: Fox Islands, nearest to the mainland, including Unimak, Unalaska, Umnak, and Akutan; Andreanof Islands, including Amlia, Atka, Adak, Kanaga, and Tanaga; Rat Islands, including Amchitka and Kiska; and Near Islands, the smallest and westernmost group, including Agattu and Attu. The Semichi Islands, of which Shemya is the largest, are nearby.  The Aleutian Islands stretch out for more then 1100 miles.

The

The Aleutian islands and their arched shape 

Unalaska and Amaknak islands

Aleutians were visited in 1741 by Vitus Bering, a Danish explorer employed by Russia (Name sound familiar?).  Early settlers were Unangan people, now known as Aleuts, who lived in a few dozen settlements on the islands. Many were forced into slavery and moved by the Russians to the Pribilofs to harvest fur seals. Archaeologists often find remnants of the older civilization.  The History of Aleuts goes back at least 70 generations.

Aleut men aboard ship showing pelagic fur seal hunting equipment (1896) 

 

Hunting tools–spears, harpoons, bows and arrows (1896)

The Church of the Holy Ascension, the oldest Russian-built church still standing in the country, dominates Unalaska. It was first built in 1825 and then enlarged in 1894 when wings were attached to change its floor plan from a ‘vessel’ to a ‘pekov’ or one in the shape of a crucifix. Overlooking the bay, the church with its onion domes is a photographer’s delight. Outside is a small graveyard with the largest marker belonging to Baron Nicholas Zass. Born in 1825 in Russia, he eventually became bishop of the Aleutian Islands and all of Alaska before dying in 1882. Next-door is the Bishop’s House. The church is the repository of more than 700 Russian Orthodox icons, books and paintings.

The Church of the Holy Ascension, the oldest Russian-built church still standing

In 1939, the U.S. built navy and army installations and at one time the area supported 60,000 servicemen. In 1942, the Japanese opened their Aleutian Islands campaign by bombing Dutch Harbor and occupying Attu and Kiska Islands in the only foreign invasion of U.S. soil during World War II.

Remnants of WW II such as this bunker are visible throughout the area

According to 2003 data, 4,200 people live in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor permanently and 2,000 or so more arrive for crab season.

Dutch Harbor crab fishing vessels 

Seafood processing and commercial fishing are the town’s major industries. Dutch Harbor is one of Alaska’s largest seafood-processing centers. The town’s median income is $68,000 a year.

 

 

The Deadliest Catch Islands

 The “vast Bering sea”  covers alot of area as Deadlist Catch fans have learned over the last three seasons.  But just where are all these docks, the offloading areas and processors, exactly where is east & west, how far away is Russia, just how many islands are there, and what other interesting things are out there? 

 The islands sit on top of a ridge that divides the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. The Aleutians are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, with approximately twenty-four active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes, caused by the collision of two of the tectonic plates that form the Earth’s crust.” 

The Pribilof Islands are in the Bering Sea west of the Aleutian Islands.  They consist of St. Paul, St. George and several lesser islets.  Some refer to the Pribilofs as a group of four islands and some say five.  We’ll refer to them as five islands: St. Paul, St George–as mentioned earlier–and also Otter and Walrus islands and Sea Lion rock.

     The weather on the Pribilofs is as diverse as its animal life.  There is a common saying on the islands: “This is the only place in the world where you can experience all four seasons in one hour.”They are 230 miles north of the Aleutian Island chain.  The islands are completely open to the weather in the Bering Sea.  Trees do not grow because they cannot take root due to the almost constant wind.

Besides being home to multitudes of stored crab pots, and besides being a stop off point for crab fishermen–whether it be to pick up pots like the Northwestern did or whether it be as a protective haven from deadly Bering sea weather–the Pribilofs are also home to the largest population of fur seals in the northern hemisphere.

     Akutan Island is in the eastern Aleutians and is one of the Krenitzen islands of the Fox Island group (sounds complicated doesn’t it?).  It is 35 miles east of Unalaska and Dutch Harbor, as Mike Rowe has explained to us before.  And it’s also 766 miles southwest of Anchorage.  As we’ve learned from Deadliest Catch, season 3…Akutan has been a favorite offloading point for the Hansens of the F/V Northwestern for years.  The island contains  Mount Akutan volcano, which had a major lava eruption in 1979. On an interesting note: “Akutan is an Aleut name reported by P. K. Krenitzin and M. Levashev in 1768 and spelled Acootan by James Cook in 1785. This name may be from the Aleut word “hakuta” which, according to R. H. Geoghegan, means ‘I made a mistake.’

Sand Point is also a port of stop for some of the Deadliest Catch fishing vessels and is on the eastern side of the Aleutians as shown on the map below.  It’s also  a favorite with hikers, in large part because of its beautiful views and lack of bears. The island is also home to a spectacular population of bird life including eagles, puffins, cormorants and kittiwakes. Don’t be surprised if you spot a buffalo. A free-roaming herd was imported to the island years ago.  Local boat owners are often available to tour visitors around nearby waters to view a vast array of marine life. A popular day trip destination is nearby Unga Island

     Last but not least is Kodiak Island.  The F/V Maverick chose to offload it’s king crab harvest in Kodiak this season.  It is a bustling metropolis in comparison with the other islands being discussed.  The population there is approximately 14,000.  Kodiak is famous for huge Kodiak brown bears, fishing, for having one of the largest commercial fishing port in the nation–in addition to Dutch Harbor of course–and is called Alaska’s Emerald isle because of the rich-green color the island turns to in the summer months.

     These are the Alaskan Islands I’ve come to think of as Deadliest Catch connected locations “of importance” to the show.