The Fisher Queen (14 page)

Recipe for Sylvia's Superlative Salmon Candy

Catch one small (four- to six-pound) salmon. Humpies are too oily, springs too dry, coho too costly, but sockeye are just right. In a pinch, use what the gods give you.

Before proceeding, remember to tell the fish how beautiful he is and thank him for the gift of his flesh for your well-being and enjoyment. Kill him quickly and compassionately and handle him gently at all times thereafter.

Dress the fish out squeaky, and I mean squeaky, clean. Remove all scales and slime. Do not leave one molecule of blood behind. Transfer to a bleached-clean PLASTIC cutting board. Cut off his head and tail, slit open to both ends and debone, being ultra-careful not to cut through the skin. You should have a flat, rectangular slab of salmon meat backed by skin.

Cover meat with several sheets of paper towel to absorb excess moisture and let rest for an hour in a dry, breezy area away from fumes and diesel exhaust and cinders.

Place another bleached-clean PLASTIC cutting board on top, flip over gently and remove first board to expose the skin. Make sure flesh is flat. Blot skin with paper towel to remove excess moisture, then expose skin side in a dry, breezy, preferably sunny (but not hot) spot for two to three hours to dry and toughen the skin. This is so when you puncture the skin to hang the slab up to dry, the holes won't tear through the skin from its own weight. Bleach-clean the first board.

When the skin is dried and tough, puncture four small holes across the top end of the slab about an inch down from the upper edge. Place the first cutting board back on the skin, flip again and remove the second board and paper towel from the flesh. Bleach-clean the board and put away. Discard paper towel. The flesh should be deep orangey-red and glistening. Take a bleach-cleaned dressing knife and gently score the surface of the flesh in both directions with lines one inch apart to create a checkerboard effect. Then go back and carefully cut the lines deeper, about halfway to the skin. This will allow for air to penetrate the flesh without tearing the skin.

Weave a bleach-cleaned narrow dowel or long bamboo chopstick through the four holes at the top edge. Let rest for one hour to toughen the holes. Try lifting the slab partway up by the chopsticks to see if the holes will hold. If they start to tear, let the slab dry flat for another hour. Keep doing this until you can suspend the slab from the chopstick without the holes tearing.

While the slab is flat, sprinkle the following ingredients lightly and evenly over the cubes and gently rub in, making sure the spice mix gets into the cut-lines. This acts as a marinade for flavour and a curing substance to ensure safe preservation. Rub in this mixture once a day until the meat is completely dried and cured. Use a small amount, as it will accumulate over the days.

fine salt
garlic powder
onion powder
brown sugar
lemon juice (very sparingly)

Do not let the cubes get wet or dirty. Hang outside on the boom; works best in light winds. Hang inside when there is heavy wind, excessive heat or chance of wetness. Direct hot sun dries the outside too quickly and causes the inside to mould. This is a long process: give it approximately a week to ensure safe preservation.

As the skin dries and toughens, it will contract and pull the cubes apart. When this starts to happen, lay the slab down and carefully cut the lines just to the skin, but not through.

As the flesh dries it will shrink and become deep red and shiny. Anything else means mould. When ready, the flesh is chewy and the consistency of jerky, not mushy or tough. It should have only a very subtle fishy flavour.

Not only does cubing the flesh ensure safe and even drying and curing, it also creates convenient bite-sized pieces to pop in your mouth when you're on the run or dirty. It's also a fantastic high-protein lightweight food to carry on hikes. Just remember not to carry it wrapped in plastic, especially when it's warm, as this will create an orgy of bacteria.

When it comes to split-second timing and
perfect choreography, Swan Lake has nothing on The Quick Turnaround. Heaven to some, hell to others, it is the surrealistic state in which an entire fishboat is dumped, cleaned and reloaded in one day—sometimes a few hours. A precision Swiss cuckoo clock at warp speed. It is the state that fishermen dream and pray about because it is usually only necessary when the fish are running hard and your hold is full.

So much about this business is timing. Along with the vagaries of weather, tides and government interventions, there's the endless search for fish and the worry over having enough ice and supplies that you can afford and that will last as long as you need them to. It's not like you can zip over to the corner store if you forget or run out of something, and the results of not having enough can be disastrous. Your boat may run on oil and diesel, but you run on coffee and cigarettes: the fisherfolk's rocket fuel.

The second that crushed ice hits your hold, the 10-day clock starts ticking—that's how much time you have before it melts or your fish flatten or go mushy. Watery ice? Less time. Forgot to put on ice blankets? Less time. Anchored up in a hot, sheltered bay to wait out the storm? Less time. The longer you stay out, the more layers of fish you lose.

Then there's the running around like a lunatic from one area to another, frantically trying to find fish. The minute you hear of a good score somewhere, it's too late. By the time you get there, closer boats have fished it out or the fish have moved on elsewhere. So you burn up time and fuel and your health for nothing and you limp back to the camp after 10 days to dump your slush and the few rats awash in it. But when all the stars align and all the plates spin on all the sticks just right, you fly into the Quick Turnaround.

We knew it would be a low score again this trip, but the 10-day clock was about to run out of time and Paul had decided to bypass Bull Harbour this time and run down to Port Hardy for more gear and to get our pilot looked at again. It was late June and we hadn't been back to Port Hardy since mid-May. I wondered what it would be like on the verge of the first big opening.

This quick turnaround was going to catapult us over the top of Vancouver Island and down the wild and woolly west coast, where we'd heard they were doing a bit better than this miserable scratching around in the dirty lump that continued day after day at the north end. Coho season was opening in three days, on July 1, and we wanted to hit it hard out of Winter Harbour. Ironically, the very morning we had to run in was brilliantly sunny and calm. I took that as a good omen for our run to Winter Harbour.

We'd been up since 4:30 a.m. to fish the morning bite and had trolled as close into the offshore shelves and reefs as possible, to save fuel and pick up the odd straggler. The nor'wester was picking up pretty good, as it often did in the afternoon. We pointed the bow into the waves and picked up the gear. We'd radioed the camp in Port Hardy and knew they had space and ice for us and an unload time. Paul knew better than to arrive in a fish camp during high season without radioing ahead. He'd seen the boats tied six deep off the finger floats, waiting their lives away.

But we'd be okay; Paul knew the manager and he liked us. Being loyal, bringing in quality fish and helping out with the unload kept us on the company A-list for ice, water, fuel and even pricing at all the camps. They even let us run a tab when things got scratchy. A good reputation could make or break you and was damn near impossible to fix if broken.

While we stashed the gear, we made mental notes on what we had to replace and what we could get by with. I'd set up a system of notebooks for everything we needed and bought, from food to fuel, so I could keep track of our expenses and how much we used. No matter how frugal we were, we barely broke even most of the time.

A shopping list may be more of a wish list, depending on the fish camp, how much you made that trip and how much they have in stock. So you plan your meals out carefully, factor in all the other costs, like fuel, coffee and cigarettes, count your pennies and hope for the best. I'd stood in front of grocery shelves that made Cold War food lines look like Harrods of London.

Most of the time, if the autopilot was working, I dressed the last of the fish and kept watch for other boats while Paul went down to the hold through the deck hatch to pull off the ice blankets and excavate any groceries still tucked away in the ice. He shovelled the top layer of ice onto the hold floor to make sure no over-zealous camp worker accidentally sliced into the first layer of fish. I carefully washed down the wooden deck. No stray guts or slime to slip on or last-minute fish dressing to wait for with our boat. We lifted off the massive hatch cover and laid it on the aft-deck, well out of the way. This was the kind of stuff that kept us on the A-list.

We were getting close to the Nahwitti Bar, which usually required some rodeo-riding and careful navigation, so we hung our Hellys on outdoor hooks by the cabin door and swung into Phase Two. While Paul navigated the channel and checked our electronics, I collected and separated the laundry into three designated green garbage bags.

1. Dirty: underwear, bedding, towels

2. Filthy: socks, bottom-layer shirts and long johns

3. Disgusting: top-layer shirts and pants

I measured powdered laundry detergent into three sandwich bags and counted out quarters for the machines in case I couldn't get to the free ones in time. There was nothing like waiting for your laundry to dry while the skipper frothed and bellowed about getting back out to the grounds.

As we steamed into Hardy harbour, Paul called the camp again to see if we could unload right away or if we'd have to tie up to wait our turn. It was shocking to see so many fishboats in one place at one time. When I read reports of the fleet size it seemed exaggerated: I never saw more than 40 or 50 boats fishing close together, and in off-season, boats were tucked away in hundreds of nooks and crannies along this vast coastline. This was a dog pound of a harbour: boats of every size, shape and condition imaginable. Some like old mongrels limping on three legs, some as sensible and sturdy as black labs and some like primped-up poodles. And everywhere, a circus of noise, action, smells. Bellowing skippers and shrieking seagulls, grinding gears and reeking diesel, airborne ice and flapping fish. After 10 days of isolation it sent me reeling around the deck. If isolation on land was called
bushed
could this be called
waved
? I, the urban groover, felt like a hillbilly down from the hills.

We lucked out and were told to tie up at the unloading dock. By the time we threaded our way to the far end of the camp I had changed into moderately clean clothes, stashed the grocery list and change in my back pocket, put the laundry bags and shower kit on the deck, and dropped the bumpers down on the tie-up side. As Paul nosed into the float and swung the stern in, I grabbed the middle tie-up rope, leaped onto the float and cranked it hard onto a cleat. He cut the engine and threw me the bow and then the stern lines to tie down. We were snug. He threw me the three laundry bags and I stumped my way along the float, up the corrugated ramp and across the dock to the wash house. We hardly spoke a word. I knew what he'd do; he knew what I'd do.

Though I was never seasick, solid land threw me off balance, and I walked like a drunken duck. I ignored the stares and raw yearnings and worn-out offers that came at me like buckshot. This wasn't the first time I'd navigated a man's world. I had already been fending off the advances of a bona fide lech. He made it clear with extravagant offers of less work and more pay that he would not let up until I jumped boats. The fact that I was not only Paul's deckhand but also his girlfriend didn't seem to penetrate his hormone haze. Paul and his pals laughingly referred to him as my
salmon stalker
. I was not amused and took to hiding in the cabin when he was coincidentally in every camp at the same time and would brazenly come onto our deck asking for me. If he was tailing our boat to stay close to me, all he would get out of it was to go broke too. First-aid Anne was no more amused than I, and she let me know she'd had a little chat with him one day in her office that would likely cool his ardour. I never knew the details of that chat, but when we next saw him, he acted like a dog that had had a hose turned on him.