My Alaska Beach Agate Story (for lack of a better title)

 Back in the mid-90’s I worked a few summers in Bristol Bay, Alaska at a fish cannery in the wonderful little (and insanely remote) town of South Naknek.

 I went up to just be a fish gutter.  Anything to get out of Montana and escape the bartending life after my Grandma died.  I was immediately nicknamed “Montana” and somehow the head of the cannery found out that I grew up on a ranch.  This came in incredibly handy when one of the 5 truck drivers broke his leg.  The difference between a fish gutter and a truck driver is the like the difference between royalty and the Untouchables in India.  The pay was much better, the rooms more spacious, and the truck driver “mystique” was well known.  Anyone would have given their eye-teeth (or orange fish gutter’s apron) to become one.

 My chance came one day at mug-up (10 am coffee break). 

“Hey Montana!  You know how to drive one of these?” the truck driver boss yelled, pointing at a 6-wheel drive 1956 dumptruck contraption.

I had never seen anything like it in my life.  Six wheels.  Four gear shifts.  A dump truck bed.  And a crane.  Holy shit.

 “Sure!”  I said.  Hey, I’m a big believer in the fake-it-till-you-make-it philosophy in life.  I figured I had driven several large trucks, numerous tractors and operated different types of farm equipment including front-end loaders, balers and hydraulic feeders.  How hard could it be?

I was to find out quite rapidly.  The boss informed me that the tide was receding and it was time for my driver’s test.  We went through a quick tutorial on the gears.  Two shovels were slotted into their holders behind the cab.  I was in the drivers seat…..

The first test was to maneuver this behemoth out of it’s parking space on the dock and up a crazy-steep inclined boardwalk to the tundra above.  The boardwalk was strong – but only 6 inches wider than the wheel base of the truck.  Letting the tires slip off either side would send us plummeting about 40 feet onto the beach below.  I am not ashamed to admit that my first trip up that ramp was spent with me hanging out the door peering at the driver’s-side front wheel and the edge of the boardwalk.

 A few miles after this horrific experience we clambered down to the 15 mile expanse of beach that the trucks patrolled.  These trucks were equipped with cranes, on which hung a scale and a brailer.  A brailer is a hanging net like device that fish are thrown into (it holds about 1000 pounds) and then weighed.  The driver then cranes the brailer up and over the truck and pulls a cord – releasing 1000 pounds of freshly-netted salmon into the truck.

 Before picking up any fish the boss wanted to see if I had the guts for the job.  We sat at the beach entrance as he went through the laundry list of dangers, pitfalls and evils of the job.

• This area of Bristol Bay has the second highest tides in the world.  They come in fast – like white-water rapids.  The water comes all the way to the sand cliffs.  If you are not off the beach, you will not be safe in your truck.  You will also not be safe trying to climb the cliffs.  They are sand and only crumble.  If you are not off the beach when the tide comes in you are dead. 
• In 15 miles, there are only three places to escape the water.  The beach entrance, the far end of the beach and a swampy area at mile 11.
• There are huge sinkholes on the beach that your truck will get stuck in up to the axles on almost every trip.  There is no predicting where they will be and they change with each tide.  That is what the shovels and the CB are for.  If you are stuck, call for help and then dig like your life depends on it.  It does.
• The run of salmon only lasts for 4-6 weeks.  You will be working non-stop the entire time.  The only sleep you will get will be in your truck.  The only food you get will be whatever is given to you when you bring a full truck back to the cannery.
• It will be my job to throw each fish into the brailer.  The fish average 10 pounds each and to be efficient one must throw two at a time.  After a few days of this I was to expect my hands to swell up and not go down until well after the season was over.  (This was completely true.  My fingers were so swollen the entire time that I couldn’t even bend them to hold anything.  I had to hold my pencil in the space between my thumb and first finger and try to write.)
• Wear gloves.  Any cuts on your hands will get infected and you can get fish poisoning.  At least a few people get flown out to the hospital with this every year.
• You will be almost completely alone this whole time.  Native Alaskan fisherman are not too friendly and we have never had a female truck driver.  No telling what they will think of that.

That last one is the one that got me.  I had to do it.  I took my “driver’s test” and got the job.  At the end of the season as we were all ready to go home, the truck boss told me that I had driven better than anyone on my first trip he had ever trained.

I don’t remember much of the actual driving except for one thing –  I was barreling down the beach trying to avoid rocks and invisible sink holes when he suddenly yelled, “STOP!”.  I did.  Immediately.  He jumped out of the truck, picked up a rock about the size of a marble and smiled at me when he climbed back in.

 “A beach agate,” he said.  “You can find a few each summer if you keep an eye out.”

I had found my purpose.  I am a complete and utter rock-hound.  One of my most prized possessions is a rock hammer my Dad gave me for my 16th birthday, for crying out loud.

The agate was buttery-yellow with orange stripes.  It glowed in the midnight sun.  It was beautiful.

There are so many funny stories to tell of my time as a truck driver in Alaska, but my favorite memories are those spurts of adrenalin every time I would catch a yellow glow out of the corner of my eye and find an agate.  Over the few years I was there I found about 10 specimens.  The best I ever found, however, was a reddish-orange one.  It was larger than the others.  The color was magnificent.  All the Natives (now my friends even though I was a girl truck driver) remarked how they had never seen one that color.  It was my  prized possession.

I came back from Alaska my last year pregnant with Maya.  I was terrified to tell my parents.  Things went as I expected with my Mom.  It wasn’t pretty.  But when I told my Dad he was sad and scared for me, but he was supportive.   He patted me on the shoulder and said, “Goddamn it kid, it will all turn out.”

I gave him my red agate.  He understood my love of rocks – but he understood so much more.

He always kept it in a dish next to where he kept his watch at night.  Every time I would come home to visit I would see it.  I could hold it against the light and see its glow.  I could feel its smooth waxy surface.  I could know that it was in a place where it was being appreciated.

When he died I didn’t think anything of it.  It wasn’t until this fall that I called my Mom.  It had been five years since he died.  My Mom had moved into a new house and the old one was completely gone.  My Mom also had a reputation of throwing coveted rocks outside “where they belonged”.

With my heart already in the pit of my stomach I asked her if she remembered seeing anything like this rock.  I visibly cringed even before I heard her say that she couldn’t remember anything like that and “I probably would have just gotten rid of it anyway.”

I was so sad, but played it off.  “Well, it isn’t the end of the world.  It’s okay.  I was just wondering…”

 Right before Christmas a box came in the mail – after all the other boxes had been received.  There was one gift inside.  One simple box tied with a ribbon.  Inside the box was a smaller box.  And inside it….the only Christmas present that has ever made me cry.