Forty five dollar potatoes

It's not unusual to wear a ski jacket in July. The Aleutian Islands are notorious for extreme weather; howling wind, grey skies, and the cold rain is mostly horizontal. But it's not all bad, there are guaranteed to be four days of sunshine and blue skies every year. Invariably, one of these days will fall over the July Fourth weekend.

About forty miles north of Cold Bay on the Alaskan Peninsula lies the Cathedral River. It is so named because of a natural geologic formation in the mountainous head waters that resembles a cathedral formed by glaciers over many years; tall spires of rock stretching a thousand feet or more into the sky. It is here that the river begins and flows its few miles before emptying into the Bering Sea. It's not very wide, it sure is short, but the river is abundant with large King Salmon. Many of these fish are more than a yard long and can weigh up to fourty pounds.

The King Salmon start their spawning run up the creek the last week of June every year. My friend Spence and I planned a trip there every July fourth during the salmon run. Now, I must explain that Spence is over six feet tall and weighs over 300 pounds. He is a big Arkansas farm boy. We would always take in at least a 25 pound sack of potatoes with us because we would catch a fresh King Salmon each day, bring it back to camp, wrap it in foil, stuff it into the campfire coals along with about a dozen potatoes then sit back and recite poetry. With our book of Robert Service poetry in one hand and a bottle of Jack Daniels black in the other we’d begin to wax poetic. At midnight, we’d haul our fish out of the coals along with the potatoes and we would eat until we could make ourselves ill. Fresh King Salmon cooked on the same day it comes out of the stream is just plain good to eat. At any rate, we had a pretty popular camp. Folks from different camps would come for our fish and of course, the poetry.

On this one particular occasion, I had been fishing all afternoon and I had just gotten back to camp. I had caught a fine looking king and had put it in the stream just below camp. As I pulled in, I saw my friend sitting on a stump looking sadly and totally dejected. “Spencer,” I asked, “what’s the matter?” “Michael,” he said, “We’re out of potatoes.”
Out of potatoes? Oh no! The thought of dinner that evening without potatoes was just not delightful at all. I began talking to my friend and I told him of the fresh king that I had just caught and had on a stringer down in the creek. A strange expression came over his face, but at the time, I didn’t think anything of it.

I did have to take care of a little business, so I stepped over the small ridge behind camp and was away for just a few minutes. When I walked back into camp, I saw that Spence was gone and so was the four-wheeler. I didn’t think anything of that either as it was common for us to come and go.

About thirty minutes later, he pulled back into camp on the four-wheeler and he was holding a small paper sack. “Spencer,” I asked, “what ‘cha got in the sack?” “Michael,” he said, “I got us four potatoes.” Potatoes! Wonderful, I thought. We’re going to have potatoes with our fish for dinner this evening. Then he said, “Michael, I had to trade your king for these potatoes. The new group of fishers just down the beach haven’t had any luck so I took them your king and traded it for these potatoes.” Well, at least we had potatoes for dinner that evening.

About a month later I was going through a supermarket in Anchorage when I walked by the seafood counter. I saw King Salmon steaks on sale for six dollars a pound. “Six dollars a pound I exclaimed!” Six dollars a pound and my fish weighed thirty pounds! That’s a hundred and eighty dollars! And he traded it for four potatoes! Why them dern potatoes cost forty five dollars apiece!