The Alaska Show

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Commish of ADFG with Douglas Vincent-Lang - TAS #15 Jun 17, 2020

This week on The Alaska Show Podcast I sit down with Commissioner of Alaska Department of Fish and Game Douglas Vincent-Lang. Doug and I discuss how many bears should be on the Kenai Peninsula, the state's relationship with the federal government, subsistence, and raising the next generation of hunters and fishermen.

www.TheAKShow.com

Supplying Alaska's Marine Industry with Dan Voelz - TAS #14 Jun 11, 2020

This week I sit down with Dan Voelz, owner of Pacific Pride Marine Supply in Ketchikan, Alaska. We talk about the seasonality of his business, the community service aspect of keeping the store open during unprofitable winter months, the challenges of being a business owner in Alaska, and advances in the marine industry.

www.TheAKShow.com

Alaska's Doctor with Dr. Anne Zink - TAS #13 Jun 03, 2020

This week we sit down with Dr. Anne Zink, emergency room physician and Alaska's Chief Medical Officer. She talks to us about how she is leading us through the Covid-19 crisis, Alaska's public health strengths, and activities she wishes Alaskans would think twice about as an emergency room physician.

www.TheAKShow.com

Interview Notes

Dr. Anne Zink has been the Chief Medical Officer for the State of Alaska - starting July 2019. Sits under the commissioner of the DHSS.

Disaster response, disease, epidemiology are their main focus. She’s the medical voice.

Dr. Zink’s day-to-day changes a lot. They stood up their disaster response structure for the Wuhan flight. It’s been escalating since thm> She helps secure PPE. Looks at protocols around travel, tourism, large groups, and businesses. Covid is the main focus but there are other health initiatives as well. Lots of conversations and talking to the Governor and commissioners and messaging and trying to understand the data behind Covid. They do a lot of calls with frontline providers to help them understand the latest data, science, and testing. She also works with the fishing industry and various businesses.

How much do we really know about Covid-19? We have come a long way in just a month. 5-6 months ago we didn’t know this virus existed. In a short time we’ve learned a lot. There are inherent things we won’t know without time, such as immunity information. That just takes time to study. This has also highlighted uncertainty in medicine and science - and how different people adjust differently to a disease. But the genetic sequencing is already uploaded. There are over 200 vaccines in different trials. We have different antivirals working. They’re doing calls with different doctors all the time all over the world.

Dr. Zink is still working from the yurt at her house - which is a guest bedroom. That gives her kids space to homeschool in her office at home.

Dr. Zink reminds her patients that medicine is an art and it’s not perfect. She brings knowledge and education through her training and it has to sit with their personal experience. Each individual person has different needs and environment and it’s a partnership and not an exact science.

How do you decide what treatment to recommend? You analyze the benefits, the effectiveness, and the downsides. For something like masks the downside is that it’s uncomfortable and not everyone has them and it’s politicized. The upside is that the data shows the disease is translated by air through micro-droplets, and a cloth face covering could significantly decrease those droplets. A mask is covering your talking like covering a sneeze or cough. There are other social norms around what we wear like “no shirt, no shoes, no service.” A study said if 60% of us wear a mask that’s 60% effective this disease would stop. How do we use rules and regulations to address preventable disease? Dr. Zink sees a lot of Covid deaths as preventable.

Dr. Zink reminds herself that changing culture and behavior is hard. You see it in drunk driving, STIs, and drug and alcohol addiction. What’s hard about Covid for her is it’s asking us to be different than our normal human experiences. People miss having large parties and holidays and hugging their friends. Dr. Zink sees other options and treatments coming soon and knows if we can hold it off we could prevent a lot of death.

What are the bright spots of public health in Alaska? We have some of the lowest infant mortality cases in the country. We have a robust public health network. Some rates like STIs and Tuberculosis have been sore spots. The community response to public health challenges has been strong, specifically around the opioid crisis. We struggle with it but aren’t the worst in the country by far. Communities have done a great job responding on a local level.

We have some of the lowest cases in the country and highest per capita testing in the country that’s because of Alaskans.

Is Dr. Zink still seeing patients? She was until 6 weeks ago. She was doing it on weekends but this job became all consuming. Her group covered her shifts for her. She misses that part of her job a lot right now.

Does she feel removed or disconnected from patients? The highlights of her week are zoom meetings with clinicians in order to stay connected. Right before the pandemic Dr. Zink took care of a young man who coded and essentially died and came back. His friends did CPR, the EMS was ready, and the hospital system worked to save his life. Even the sadness of the job - Dr. Zink appreciates being able to grieve with people who get bad diagnoses.

She has a visceral response when she sees people riding a four wheeler with no helmet and when people party with fireworks. She has the same response when people post on social media about partying with tons of people in the time of Covid. Don’t do dumb things drunk.

Dr. Zink wishes people would test more for Covid. The data says if you get tested early on they can manage it better. She also wishes people would just ask for help more as an ER doctor. Someone with a stroke can get treated right away and get something taken care of. It’s an act of kindness to be tested early.

Alaska Fish Radio with Laine Welch - TAS #12 May 27, 2020

This week on The Alaska Show Podcast we sit down with Laine Welch, founder of Alaska Fish Radio and the author of the weekly Fish Factor column out of Kodiak, Alaska. Laine and I talk about how she got her start in independent media, how she found her niche and served it well, her other work in the fishing industry, and what makes Alaska so special.

AlaskaFishRadio.com

TheAKShow.com

Alaska's Youngest Big Game Hunting Guide with Tyler Kuhn - TAS #11 May 20, 2020

This week I sit down with Assistant Guide Tyler Kuhn about his truly amazing story of becoming Alaska's youngest big game guide. Growing up impoverished in Western Pennsylvania, hunting was both an escape and a way to put food on his family's table. From a young age he had a singular focus to move to Alaska and become a big game guide. His journey of the last 6 years has been filled with harrowing encounters and bad actors, but through perseverance he achieved his dreams.

Links

www.TheAKShow.com

Tyler’s IG @BearSkinner907

One of Tyler's contributions to Fur-Fish-Game Magazine https://www.furfishgame.com/back_issues/2019/2019-01.php

Interview Notes

Tyler is 23, he’s an Alaskan hunting guide, and hails from a small city in Western Penn called Newcastle. Hour north of Pittsburgh.

Interesting upbringing - kind of an inner city environment. Grew up hunting - he was very poor. Once the steel mills disappeared in the 1980s the economy never recovered and a lot of drugs moved into the area. Tyler grew up with no real income in the household - tons of family members did drugs and drank. His release was being in the outdoors and hunting, fishing and trapping.

It was both a way for his family to eat and for his own release. There were times where food was scarce because they were on food stamps and welfare. Hunting white-tailed deer was a means to provide for himself and the family.

Extended family would live in the house. There were times when they’d have 5-9 people in one household.

Tyler hunted and fished everything - deer, turkey, small game, fishing for trout and walleye. Anything Tyler could get his hands on he would.

School was interesting for Tyler. When you grow up in that environment getting an education was on the backburner. He wasn’t sure if he’d have something to eat when he got home, so it would weigh on him. Back when he was in school he got picked on and bullied a lot. He used to be a really scrawny, frail, emaciated kid. Now Tyler has changed a lot through the experiences of being a hunting guide. School at that time was really tough. Tyler was the first person in his family to graduate high school. He’s thought about getting further education.

Tyler, when he was 7 or 8, saw a documentary program about the western caribou migration and told his grandma he would live in Alaska. No one believed him. In high school Tyler thought about getting into a science feel like wildlife biology or zoology since he loved the outdoors so much. But when he was a teenager he discovered the Alaska guide industry - and that became his main focus when he was 14 or 15 years old.

He learned about it initially by studying Alaska. One day he was watching a hunting show on tv and saw a guy do a goat hunt in Alaska. Tyler admired the way the guide presented himself and how strong he was. At the time that really impacted Tyler. The mindset of the Alaskan guide is no matter what you must push through.

After that he started reading literature by the pioneer guides. And nowadays he’s worked for some of these guys and knows them.

Has the guiding industry changed much? There are timeless aspects to the job but there’s also a lot of industry change between the pioneers and now. With the growth of technology and expansion of humanity across the globe - Alaska has changed in a lot of ways. The fundamentals of guiding in the 1970s is the same as 2020, but the technology is obviously way different and the skills are different.

Back in the day those guys had to have very strong grasp of the local topography and land navigation. Nowadays Tyler can use his Garmin and it’s much easier, although they have to learn those land navigation skills. The overall fundamentals and the ethics and morals has never changed.

Tyler came to Alaska directly after high school. He graduated high school in Pennsylvania. Went down to visit them in Arkansas for a little bit. Then took his savings and went straight to Alaska. Didn’t know anybody. He had applied for a Packer position for 26 or 27 different outfits and got one callback.

A packer hauls meat and camp supplies around. It ultimately gets into the Alaskan assistant guide apprenticeship which lasts two years. He started here directly after high school.

For that position the job description is vague. These outfits will fly them up there, give them basic gear like rain gear and a tent for the most part, and put you to work. For some you pay your own way. A lot of the outfits won’t pay you - it’s your way to get your foot in the door in the industry. There is some variability in the different outfits whether they pay or don’t pay.

You come up here and pack meat and being a sherpa hauling supplies, cooking, and doing all the industry grunt work. That’s what he was told and what he expected. This is an industry where you work your way from the ground up. You hope to rise through the ranks. Every master guide outfitter started being a packer.

He applies for the jobs mid-summer and they fly him up at the end of August. He started in the Brooks Range up above the arctic circle. He flew into Fairbanks commercially. They drove most of the way there up the Dalton Highway. Then they flew into camp. You can imagine coming up to Alaska and seeing it for the first time - that was a magical first experience for Tyler.

The thing that shocked him the most was the actual reality of the vastness of the wilderness. Growing up in Pennsylvania - you’re seeing human civilization everywhere, even deep in the country.

When you’re a packer you answer to every single person above you. The outfitter is the guy who runs everything - he’s the boss. He’s giving tours to everyone, but he’ll assign you to an assistant guide or camp manager for the day. The idea of being a packer before being an apprentice is they’re trying to break you down physically, mentally, and emotionally. When you’re out in the field as a guide and performing that duty you’re in charge of your camp, your hunter, other guides under you, and all the packers. You’re in charge of keeping them safe and alive in dangerous situations. Tyler compares it to a special operations attitude in the military - they want to break you down and build you up to do your duty.

There’s a lot of humbling that’s necessary and it’s also an educational experience. They’re destroying the toughness you think you have and are testing how tough you really are. The unpredictability of the training surprised Tyler. Not even the guides know what’s going to happen. When that super cub drops you off and flies away no one knows what’s going to happen after that. When you’re packing they’re putting you in situations to see how you react to things.

Every guide remembers his first pack because it’s the worst experience in his life. Tyler’s first pack - they killed a big bull that was probably 4-5 miles from base camp. They were glassing from this ridge. As a packer you also help hunt and learn the basics. They see a monster bull moose. The guide Tyler was with told him it was very nice - over 60”. It was actually 66”. They saw two bulls fighting - one was a 58” the other was that 66” bull. For a big bull like that their hindquarters can be 150-160 lb and that’s a long way to pack that meat. They made the decision like this is a very far pack, Tyler is new, is he capable of it?

The guide asked Tyler if he was up to the task and Tyler said absolutely. They put on a successful stalk, shot the bull, and butchered it. THey called in a second packer to help. It was shocking to Tyler how difficult it was. You’re in hip waders going through swamps.

In certain game management units you have to leave the meat “bone-in” and in some areas you can “bone out” the quarter. In that area you had to leave bone-in. In some places where you can bone-out it’s still highly recommended you leave bone-in so you don’t have as much surface area for bacteria to grow and it takes longer to pack and bears are more likely to come after it.

So they’re packing the quarters back. They didn’t even make it a mile when the other packer took a nasty fall and did something bad to his foot like twisted it. The second packer had to keep stopping and Tyler took his pack on and off like 20 times. It’s the worst to take it off because it’s so heavy, you can’t even do it on flat tundra. They finally get back to base camp after probably 5 hours. That second packer quits. He couldn’t even get his boot off because his ankle was swollen so bad. They call in a second packer.

That bull took 5 trips. Now Tyler and the new packer go out and do another two loads like that when another bull moose gets shot. The pilot comes in and takes the other packer to the other moose. Tyler’s legs are destroyed at this point. It’s about 4 miles total walking each direction for this pack. In this distance there are several swamps and rolling hills you have to go up and down. You climb the hill, go down in the swamp, and trudge through the swamp. You have to do that 5-6 times throughout the 4 mile walk.

He packs back tenderloin and some loose meet. He has one more load - the antlers - by law the “trophy” comes back last after the meat’s been preserved. He goes back and ties up the antlers and he sees this massive wall of cloud and rain coming down the valley. Tyler has no real survival gear. The thing about Alaska is one minute it’s sunny and 70 and the next it’s 38 degrees.

The pack back to camp was so bad with the swamps. They’d tried multiple routes back to camp to make it easier. When it’s as foggy as it was during that storm you can get lost very easily. The guide had marked off certain places on game trails with orange ribbon. Those ribbons would give him decent orientation to get back. The guide had the foresight to do that and Tyler doesn’t know if he would’ve gotten back. Hypothermia was a definite risk. Tyler couldn’t stop moving.

Eventually he loses the ribbon trail and gets on the ridge where you should be able to see the camp from. As soon as Tyler got back to camp - the guide Tyler was working for happened to be leaving the camp to look for him in the fog. The guide thought Tyler was dead. He’d fired the rifle for Tyler but he couldn’t hear it because the wind was so loud. He fired off rounds when Tyler was only a half mile from the camp but it was so loud.

Tyler calls that sleep the “victory sleep.” After you get that last pack in and get those boots off you’re fast asleep in three minutes. When you’re a packer or a guide helping pack - the next day there’s something you have to do after you get that bull done. When you’re in the field your job never ends. Tyler knew that going in, but when you get some quality sleep that’s the best.

Tyler got a lot of respect from guys in the camp after doing things like that.

You have to be a packer for two years before you can become an assistant guide. Tyler’s story of becoming a guide is a serious up and down story. That outfitter Tyler worked for never even paid Tyler. He was supposed to get $75-$125 a day plus tips. The outfitter said he’d pay Tyler at the end. At the end of the season the outfitter doesn’t want to pay him. Long story short he had to hitchhike back to Fairbanks at the end of the season. They’re in that transition period in the Brooks Range - a nurse from Anchorage visiting the arctic picks him and his 90 lb of gear up. Tyler had nowhere to go. He didn’t want to go to Pennsylvania because he’d be ridiculed. He ended up in two homeless shelters in Fairbanks for the first half of the winter.

One of the other packers in the camp lived in Cantwell and gave him his phone number. They were catching up and that other packer took him to Cantwell to live with him and help him. That packer was inexperienced at running trapline. He was really nice, originally from California, and wanted to live in the bush. He was kind of reckless when it came to what he’d do. The guy would want to do dangerous stuff.

One story - they were out running line and they were on this high mountain lake. There was still water overflow on the ice. His friend insisted he could take the snow machine across that lake. Tyler said it was a bad idea. Tyler let him cross and Tyler walked around the lake. Then he saw the back end of the snow machine dump below the water. Tyler ran out there with a long spruce pole. He was able to winch the snow machine out. They’re hauling back to camp - this guy was literally a popsicle when they got back. There were non-stop situations like that. Tyler knew something bad was going to happen and returned to Pennsylvania.

He was really down in the dumps then. Certain people were laughing at Tyler saying “I told you so” that he couldn’t do it. He’d heard about a guy named Scott Hoover in his teenage years who was a successful Alaskan guide. Scott grew up in the same area - they knew similar people - and his landlords knew Scott. They connected Tyler to Scott. Tyler called him in the early spring - spring bear season is just around the corner. After two to three months of interviews Scott brought Tyler on.

He would quiz Tyler on things like Alaskan hunting laws or regulations or identifying a legal Dall sheep or testing him in certain situations. He was asking Tyler about certain experiences. He would ask Tyler the same questions over and over to see if he would maintain consistency in his story to see if he was lying. Then he gives Tyler a phone number to the outfitter Scott was working for and before he knew it he was back up in Alaska. The second time he was up in the Talkeetna mountains.

That was a full-fledged lodge at that point. Different landscape, scenery and mountain range. Different ecosystems. It was similar to Cantwell - that greater Denali ecosystem. It was a full-fledged hunting operation. It was nice because Tyler was with Scott and they had that connection. Tyler has someone who is working with him daily to train him to become a guide. Scott had a reputation for being very hard on packers and people under him. He was one of the toughest of the tough in the industry. The outfitters he worked for would have him train the packers. He never had a packer made it all the way through the program. He would cause his own friends to quit.

Tyler was back to square one because that former outfitter wiped all evidence of Tyler even working for him the first time, so he has to do another two years of packing. In order to get to his assistant guide level. They’re doing the whole training process and Scott is testing Tyler to see what he can do. As the months go on Tyler is getting in-tune with the job. The first year you have as a packer you’re on a tight leash. It’s important you get one-on-one training. Some camps won’t train you at all. This was great to get one-on-one training and experience from Scott.

Tyler had to follow him around and absorb the information on tracking, spotting, judging, stalking, and butchering game. Of the 11 packers who came through the sheep and moose hunting season he was the only one who made it through. Starting the second year Tyler was the “senior packer” and he had a longer leash. The guide would have Tyler lead the group once in a while and incorporate his decision-making. Or they’d drop him in the middle of the woods and have him hike 10-12 miles and spend 2-3 days to recon an area to find moose or to find a place for the super cub to land.

When they pick you up and you go back they ask what you learned and how you could judge the moose. You’re constantly learning and experiencing new things. They want to see how you’ll adapt and overcome.

After your second season as a packer you’re eligible to become assistant guide. But you still need an endorsement from the outfitter to become an assistant guide. The outfit has the right not to give you the license. There’s a scorecard of all the skills - can he skin, track, spot, etc. Based on that they send that off to the state with their signature and they have to sign off on that.

Getting his guiding license was the greatest moment of Tyler’s life. It was a life-changing moment for him because he could say he was an Alaskan guide. He had a new title to his name.

This year will be Tyler’s third year as an assistant guide. In the off-season as a packer he had to work secondary jobs to make ends meet. Now he makes enough money as a guide to explore Alaska and run trapline and ice fish. This winter Tyler did a lot of ice fishing and exploring. He was trying to find a piece of land somewhere he could buy and start building a home. He now owns property in Glen Ellyn. The airstrip is right across the street. He’s trying to get his pilot’s license in the next two years here.

He and Scott are starting their own outfit. Scott got his outfitter’s license in December. It’s called Lost Coast Outfitting.

Online Fishmonger with Wild Alaskan Company Founder Arron Kallenberg - TAS #10 May 13, 2020

I sit down with Arron Kallenberg, founder of Wild Alaskan Company, to discuss how building a tech platform around the family business of fishing Bristol Bay sockeye is reviving the dying profession of personal fishmonger in the internet age. We talk family history in Alaska, why so many fishermen are intellectuals, the inception of Wild Alaskan Company, the challenges of marketing and moving frozen fish online, and how the book "Antifragile" helped his company prepare for disruption.

Links

WildAlaskanCompany.com

TheAKShow.com

Interview Notes

Arron is the founder of Wild Alaskan Company, a tech-enabled marketing and logistics company that sells wild-caught Alaskan seafood. Their customers are all over the United States and they are looking to establish some international fulfillment centers in the future.

Arron’s grandfather was born in Manhattan, grew up in New Jersey, and came to Alaska in 1926. Arron’s son was born in Manhattan 6 months ago, so his family is oscillating between Alaska and eastern seaboard. His grandfather was very academic and a city kid but was very interested in farming and the outdoors. He also had asthma. He looked around the lower 48 and decided to go to Alaska originally, as the story goes, to herd reindeer.

He moved out to the DIllingham area at 23 in the 1920s. There was no road out there. Instead of herding reindeer he fell in love with the salmon fishery. He started fishing on one of the original wooden sailboats.

At some point he wanted to get married so he went down to Florida on a fishing charter and met Arron’s grandmother, who was also from New Jersey. They got married after only knowing each other 2 or 3 months and packed up and moved to Alaska and had 5 children, one of which was Arron’s father.

His grandfather went back and got his master’s degree at Cornell at one point. His master’s thesis was a study of the red salmon at Bristol Bay with a focus on conservation. He went on to serve temporarily on the territory board of fisheries and was pretty active in conservation efforts early.

That was the ethos of the Kallenberg family. Fishermen, focused on sustainability, and very academic. That’s a big part of his family’s history and is inseparable from the genesis of Wild Alaskan Company.

Often fishermen are very academic and accomplished. Why is that? Arron has observed that phenomenon as well. He’s woken up on the boat to hear a conversation on trigonometry on the radio in Bristol Bay. His dad used to say there’s no good reason to be a fisherman if you don’t love it - there are easier ways to make money. His dad told him if they wanted to make money they’d be in stocks or real estate. It attracts people who might be quirky or idiosyncratic who prioritize certain things. Alaska and fishing self-selects for a certain type of person.

The only thing harder in e-commerce than selling frozen fish on the internet is probably ice cream.

If you’re a Kallenberg born in NYC you go to Alaska. If you’re a Kallenberg born in Alaska you need another challenge.

Arron’s grandfather was back and forth but they always had a home in Alaska. They moved from Dillingham when his dad was in high school to Chugiak and lived the rest of their lives there. His grandmother passed away in Chugiak and his grandfather passed in Anchorage a few years later. Arron’s father and his siblings carried on the tradition of nerdy fishermen. His dad has a degree in aerospace, astronautics and aeronautics. He was working in the aerospace industry for Boeing and then came back to Alaska to fish in the bay. He was involved in the design of refrigeration systems at fish processing plants as well as being a fisherman.

Arron’s mom tells everyone he caught his first fish with her, but when he got old enough to fish in the Bay he went out with his dad. They were always working with the fish plants. All his uncles fished as well. Arron was just born into that culture - it wasn’t an option.

Arron had a major interest in computers when he was young. Growing up in Alaska was pretty humbling. He had no running water or outhouse. But he was interested in how the internet could connect him to the outside world. It was a huge outlet for him as a kid to sit in the middle of Homer, Alaska but be connected to the entire world. He got his first internet connection at XYZ.net. Even when Arron was out in Bristol Bay in the 90s he rigged up a boat phone to a modem and was learning to code in between picking fish.

Even back then they were talking about building a website and selling fish online. As he got older and into the tech industry it became less of a pipe dream to something that was just a little crazy and then to going for it. There was 15 years of him leaving Alaska, going to college, working, then getting the gumption together to start this company.

When was the moment he’d decided to start the business? In 2010 Arron wrote an email to someone and asked his dad to crunch the numbers on the economics and the shipping. You start with the raw commodity, then you need someone to process it, and you get shipping and back into the price per lb you have to sell it at. Then you look at the market on, say, the east coast and see if they’re paying that much, and they were.

Arron was working in tech at that time and asked investors if they were interested and heard radio silence.

Fast forward 7 years he was working in tech on the east coast and he met his wife. He was positive he would marry her on their first date. THey connected on wanting to have a family. On the third date she moved in with Arron and within a year he proposed to her and within two years of meeting they got married.

What happened was Arron was living in NYC and his wife was visiting from Colombia. SHe was born in Colombia and raised in Miami. She was supposed to go home and decided to stay with Arron instead. Eventually she had to go to Florida and he missed her so much he flew down there. He had to go to a conference in Ireland and he convinced her to go to Europe with him. They had a romantic start to the trip and Arron got the worst food poisoning ever in Paris and she took care of him and Arron knew he had to marry her. It was easy to talk her into coming back to New York because she spent 30 years of her life in NYC.

They got married in Colombia. If you want to see a culture clash bring a bunch of Alaskan fishermen to Colombia for a Latin-Jewish wedding. She got pregnant on their honeymoon and they lost the baby. Arron’s wife is six years older than him and they decided to try IVF. They had another baby and lost it again. It was heartbreaking. They did 12 rounds of IVF. Now they have a son, who you can hear in the background. It was the result of some stubborn people.

About halfway through that journey which took 3 ½ years Arron was working for a private equity and venture capital group doing technical due diligence on companies and meeting with amazing founders. As an entrepreneur at heart it was torturous to see these amazing companies and founders and not being able to be one.

At round 6 of IVF the doctors told his wife she had to take a break for a summer. It was her dream of going to Japan so they decided to take a trip. Arron told his firm that he was going to leave, and they told him he couldn’t go. When the firm wouldn’t co-sign the trip he gave them his resignation letter and they had an amazing trip.

The first thing they did was go to the fish market the year before it burned down. They saw all the seafood and traveled everywhere. It was another romantic trip. When Arron got back to NYC he didn’t know what he’d do - but he always had this idea for the seafood company. A lot of his friends talked him into doing it. He thought what did he have to lose? The only thing he really wanted was a family and he didn’t have that so why not? He didn’t know how it would work.Fast forward to today they have five distribution centers across the country under contract, they’re moving a large amount of seafood each week. Arron was going to be happy with like 40 monthly seafood subscribers or “members.” That would be enough to pay him to keep the business going. They definitely blew past that number.

How long was it from the moment he decided to start the business to the first sale? Arron wrote the business plan in 2016 and pulled the trigger in 2017. He’d had the plan fleshed out and had a bunch of people he trusted read it. He wanted economic security and didn’t want to rock the boat around IVF. He spent most of 2017 getting the fulfillment network in place. That was the most difficult part. It’s cheaper to move fish via freight to a local distribution center and have them take it the last mile versus shipping direct from Alaska. It was tough to find distribution centers that could hold frozen inventory and do it well.

There was one really good frozen warehouse group and Arron spent a lot of time talking to them. A competitor at the time exercised a non-compete agreement they had with that group to stop them from shipping out of the only national frozen fulfillment center. Arron works with independent operators, they had to design a whole new inventory management system to put together their own network of warehouses.

He has business intelligence that can determine location to customer and inventory. A salmon box can have a combo of sockeye and coho, in the combo box there can be pollock and cod and other fish. They can change what the customer is receiving based on localized inventory. That took a year along with building the warehouse group relationships. A lot of them were used to catering to grocers and they were figuring out how to do direct e-commerce business. Arron had to work with their engineers a lot.

February 12 of 2018 they sold their first box of fish. That felt unreal because he had this dream since he was a kid. Gunny Bishop is the name of their first member - Arron talked to him on the phone for forty minutes. Now he has a staff of almost 40 people that talk to their customers. They had about six other sales that first week then radio silence. After the first two days and valentine’s day hit they were spending thousands on advertising and had zero sales for a while.

There were two guys working with Arron plus his wife at the time. They were wasting money and Arron thought he’d made the worst decision of his life. His in-laws were encouraging him. They had to do a lot of tweaking to their marketing to start getting sales again, but it started to really snowball. Now on a good day they might get 1400 new members. They probably have had more than that. It took a lot of tweaking but there is clearly a huge demand for sustainable Alaska seafood. It was a logarithmic progression. At first you don’t register the increase but as you get huge jumps you really notice. That’s been the journey of the last three years or so.

A large degree of responsibility falls on the membership side. Most of Wild Alaskan Company is the membership experience team - they call them “personal fishmongers.” They help customers with shipping problems or getting them recipes or educating them on how to shell spot shrimp. Their employees have to go through “fish school” to learn all about fish.

What can Wild Alaskan Company do that grocery stores can’t? They stay in their lane. Amazon owns Whole Foods - does the consumer want to buy fish from the same place they order a tv online? There’s a reason why Amazon tried to put Zappos out of business but acquired them instead. Zappos did one thing well - they built a world-class support team. Shoes are scary to buy online like fish. But Wild Alaskan Company has a big member experience team which is what differentiates them. That team that supports your shipment and teaches you how to thaw and cook are things that come into the price of their fish.

If you look at the evolution of the American seafood industry - there used to be localized small fishmongers on the docks. That market is almost dead and was taken over by national grocery chains. Wild Alaskan Company is trying to revive that model online.

The biggest marketing mistake initially was Arron believed people would buy their fish because it’s sustainable and it’s Alaskan. But people didn’t understand that stuff. Arron wasn’t getting the response on that messaging. The real initial consumer driver is health. People understand wild Alaskan seafood is good for them - their doctor said they had high triglycerides. They weren’t selling a lot at the beginning based on the initial marketing strategy - but they can continue to educate customers.

40% of all “Wild Alaskan” seafood in grocery stores was tested to be not from Alaska. Fish fraud is rampant. Alaska is a model of how fisheries could work throughout the world.

Why is the seafood industry so secretive or opaque? Arron is a pescatarian. He doesn’t eat land-based animal meat except eggs and dairy. That was a health thing initially, but it’s stuck. He doesn’t know much about how the land-based animal meat market works or even the global seafood industry. He stays in his lane in terms of wild-caught Alaskan seafood. He only sources from one fishery outside of Alaska - it’s a very low-volume, sustainable, high-quality fishery. But the rest is in Alaska. By and large if it’s not caught in Alaska under the fishing mandates that the state has they don’t sell it. He had one of the largest importers of tilapia send him an email to get him to do higher volume, but Arron knows it’s not why he started the business.

If there is no money to enforce fishing, they over fish it, and then the fishery is gone. Alaska has been very smart - conscious capitalism - and reinvested money from fishing into enforcement in the fishery. They do by-and-large understand the importance of those economic drivers and Arron doesn’t understand why other areas of the world don’t get it - probably short-sightedness.

A Bristol Bay sockeye salmon - their hottest commodity - they’re working with a handful of trusted suppliers they have solid relationships with. They’re typically working on blanket agreements ahead of time with some projections. It’s tough in seafood because they’re not used to an e-commerce company growing 100% in a year. Their suppliers are vertically-integrated seafood companies in Alaska that own the processing plants. Fishermen like Arron’s father sell to these processing plants. The boat fishes for sockeye - it gets dropped off at a tender which goes to the fish processing plant. The fish gets commoditized - they’ll typically buy whole sides that get frozen in Alaska then shipped to Washington State. One of their six secondary processors will take that whole side and turn it into portions without thawing it out because it’s once-frozen in Alaska. THose get sealed and labeled with Wild Alaskan Company’s label. Those get shipped to frozen fulfillment centers in New Jersey, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, California, etc. When a member’s box is up for renewal the system looks at their preferences - do they want salmon or whitefish or pollock or what?

Then it gets put in a box with eco-packaging which is 100% US-grown corn-based. It’s totally dissolvable in water - they don’t use styrofoam. Styrofoam is the best insulator but there’s nothing worse for the environment. The green insulation in their box is corn. You can burn it in a wood stove, compost it in your garden, melt it in your sink, whatever.

You can’t be a sustainable seafood company and hold your head high and ship in styrofoam. WIld Alaskan Company could make better margins by using styrofoam, just like selling tilapia, but it’s not in their DNA. The fish goes in there with dry ice. Their software calculates how much dry ice is needed based on the wait and location. They’re actually building in weather API that determines the temperature of the shipping location to get more nuance about how much dry ice they need in the box. They’ve done a bunch of heat chamber tests measuring temperature in each part of the box to see exactly how much dry ice they need for a normal shipping plus a standard delay. A superdelay - like a box that gets lost for 5 days - gets immediately replaced.

They have designed it so that when you open the box there should be just a little bit of dry ice or none with the fish still frozen. You can hop on the website and check out recipes. They have members sharing meal ideas. On your second or third box you get a t-shirt. Welcome to the world of adding seafood to their diet.

Arron reads the book “Antifragile” by Nicholas Nassim Taleb once a year. It’s like an album you love. He’s met the author a few times. Arron doesn’t think he’s an expert on that subject but it’s had a profound impact on how he navigates his personal life and business. The general concept is if you put something fragile in a box and you ship it it will break. If you ship something tough or robust it won’t break. Something that’s “antifragile” will actually be strengthened by the volatility of kicking something around.

When you approach the world instead of trying to predict volatility you want to position yourself to benefit from it. If you look at a bridge you don’t have to predict when there’s an earthquake in order to safely travel over you have to just know the bridge can withstand an earthquake. Predicting when volatility will occur is impossible.

We have two eyes because one can be poked out and you have redundancy. An accountant wouldn’t do that.

How Arron approaches this is having massive redundancy within the business. He feels grateful to be able to provide seafood when there’s a shortage of other protein sources.

"Alaska is Unsustainable" an Interview with Robin O. Brena - TAS #9 May 06, 2020

This episode will make you mad and will open your eyes. Anchorage attorney and real estate investor Robin O. Brena is spearheading the Fair Share Act on the ballot in November to raise production taxes on Alaska's most established and profitable oil fields. He clearly lays out the flaws in Senate Bill 21 in 2013 that let oil companies obscure their profits and evade production taxes, explains why the Alaskan economy was still in recession when oil was at $70 a barrel recently (hint: we aren't getting our fair share) and how this state's dividend and essential services are flat out unsustainable if Alaskans let oil companies buy their votes this November. We also discuss his major litigation wins (fighting on behalf of AND against oil companies), his pro-business approach, and commercial real estate in Anchorage.

Interview starts right away - no timestamps!

Links

https://voteyesforalaskasfairshare.com/

https://rsd-properties.com/ - developing coworking space in Anchorage

Interview Notes

Robin O. Brena is the founding partner of Brena, Bell and Walker law office in Anchorage. He is a commercial real estate investor, born and raised in Skagway and is one of the three sponsors of Fair Share Act.

Fair Share Act:

Robin has skin in the game - he’s spent $100,000+ of his own money

It’s not anti-business - it supports some oil fields and not others

He has a long history of fighting big oil on behalf of Alaskans and independent producers.

The Fair Share Act is on the general election ballot in November. It raises the production taxes on our three largest and most profitable fields in a transparent way. One of the most important pieces is it requires the production tax returns associated with Prudhoe, Alpine, and Kuparuk to be transparent. Their production tax files will be public. That’s critical because it’s our oil on our land and we’re in partnership with these companies and have no clue what their revenues, costs, and profits are in the three major fields. It’s hard to be a proper steward of this resource when we have no access to this information. The administration and legislature doesn’t have this information.

How did we get into the situation with no transparency? It was a process of political influence over years chipping away at the reporting. We used to have this information years ago and we don’t have it anymore. People are passing oil policies in Juneau and they don’t know how the fields are performing.

Has it always been like this? Robin doesn’t think people understand how important it is that they stay informed and engaged. We’ve reached a point where we’re getting very little for our oil. Robin thinks one of the most important things the Fair Share Act does is allow Alaskans and the industry to sit down and determine what is fair based on knowing something.

Under normal circumstances it would raise about a billion dollars a year. Even with that it will be lower than the average production tax in the past three decades. That money will help fund essential services, Permanent Fund, and PFDs, and hopefully we will get a capital budget back to do construction which we haven’t had since Senate Bill 21 passed in 2013 lowering these taxes.

Alex thinks something has to give. We need money from somewhere.

Governor Hammond said if you don’t have enough money to run the government here you should first look at oil and make sure we’re getting our fair share. He was right. $1 billion is a lot of money - that’s 10,000 jobs at $100k a year. We need to keep more oil revenue in Alaska to create and save jobs in Alaska. Right now it’s all leaving the state. Alaska doesn’t work if you give away your oil.

All resource-rich countries deal with this problem. Alaska is doing the worst of all of them. If you look at our production tax and royalties we’re doing worse than any other resource owner in the world - less than Brazil, Nigeria, Iraq, Norway, even Iran is doing better than us. There’s an inherent tension between resource owners and producers. We’re doing the worst job of any resource owner in the world as a result of Senate Bill 21. They produce oil throughout the w2orld for $2-5 a barrel. In 2018 they made between $25-30 a barrel of oil in Alaska.

There’s no way to have a fair conversation about oil in this state except for popular initiative. There are too many ways for oil to influence the legislature and the political process. You have to get it done through the initiative.

SB-21 does a bad job at low, middle, and high oil prices. So nothing has changed even though oil prices have crashed. There aren’t any major resource owners taking the kind of commodity risk Alaska is. When oil goes down, our production taxes go down faster than that. In fact they go down almost twice as fast as the price of oil. So when the price of oil goes down the pie gets smaller, but Senate Bill 21 gives away that even smaller share to international producers.

Why did you spearhead this initiative? SB21 went into effect in 2014, was passed in 2013. It got through the senate by 1 vote and there were two ConocoPhillips employees that voted for it. Robin doesn’t think it passed in a fair way. On appeal they spent $15 million dollars telling Alaskans if they lower production taxes the companies will invest more in jobs and production, but all they’ve done since then is lay people off and reduce production. That was BEFORE Coronavirus. We got less investment, less jobs, less production, and a whole bunch less revenue. We gave up $1.5B a year and we got less of everything they promised.

Robin is a conservative businessman by nature - this is just a matter of getting fair value of what you own. If you’re going to sell your house, your car, or oil, you have to sit down and get a fair deal. He doesn’t view it as a flawed economic theory as much as poor negotiating. We’re in a partnership - the Fair Share Act isn’t even about taxes it’s about getting a fair cut of revenue.

What’s Robin’s feeling on public sentiment around this act? His polling suggests people strongly support the Fair Share Act and transparency. Alaskans are tired of learning how their oil fields are performing secondhand and through partial information. People know we’re not doing well in Alaska and know that we gave SB21 a chance after they spent $30m to convince us to try it, and it’s failed miserably on every promise that was made. This is our time to revisit it and change it.

What was Skagway like in the 60s and 70s when he grew up? It was a beautiful place to grow up - Robin still loves Skagway and Southeast Alaska. Their family ran the oldest bar in Alaska that started in the gold rush days. When it came time to go to college Robin worked the railroads and did every job there.

Was there still a lot of gold business there? Tourism started picking up then. They had the railroad from Whitehorse to Skagway so the industry cut back and tourism picked it up and it’s a spectacular example of turn-of-the-century architecture and Klondike gold rush vibe. Tourism is how it survives now.

A lot of Robin’s friends worked on the pipeline and Robin got three graduate degrees. His mother was a teacher and so was his grandmother - so he grew up in a living room full of books. Robin thought, when he went to school at 17, that he would be a teacher. But when he saw the $17,000 starting salary and his friends making six figures working on the pipeline he gave that up and followed his passion. He has an MBA, a Law Degree, and a Masters in Law in Real Estate Finance. He took a year off between his MBA and law degree because the family bar business fell on hard times and his dad had passed and mom was running the business. He took that year to put together a historic restoration of the building so his mom and sister could have income for their life.

Robin’s father passed when he was 12. Soon after his brother became married and moved out, so Robin took on the responsibilities of the household. When he was 17 he started working to support the family filling vacancies at the railroad roundhouse. He was going to high school then working 3-11pm after school at the railroad yards.

When he got to college he signed up for 25 academic hours. They said freshmen can’t sign up for more than 15 hours without special permission. He went to the dean and said “this is just 25 hours a week” because he’d been working 40 hours at the railroad, and night janitor at the school, and going to school during the day so he thought it was ridiculous he could only take 15 hours. Robin talked him into 18. Robin always took a lot of classes and did really well, he was in National Honors’ Society.

Robin always wanted to come back to Alaska - it was home. When he finished his graduate degrees he had opportunities on the east coast to develop real estate and to teach law at Hastings Law School, but he couldn’t leave Alaska. If there was a job for him here that’s where he wanted to be. He came back and went to work at a law firm Atkinson, Conway and Gagnon. Bruce Gagnon was his mentor, one of the best attorneys he knew.

After three and a half years there Robin had the opportunity to start his own firm. Two other attorneys told him to talk to them if he started a new firm, and he partnered with them in business. They’ve been in an office share or the same law firm since 1988 and there hasn’t been a raised voice in the office since then.

Three and a half years is pretty quick, no? Robin says it was the right timing for him. He has 110 open cases when he left the firm he was with. He took every one of them with him with the firm’s blessing. That was the first of major cases he worked on with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. It makes more sense to build your firm when you manage major cases so you can focus the firm resources on those cases rather than being at the bottom of the totem pole.

Did you feel there were more entrepreneurial opportunities in Alaska as opposed to an established place like DC? It’s home for Robin, it wasn’t a choice made on opportunity alone. Something about Alaska drew him back - it’s home. In terms of entrepreneurial opportunities though, his law firm has been involved in multiple cases with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake and they’ve prosecuted successful cases with billions of dollars at stake. The opportunities he had were rare. It was a tremendous opportunity.

Did he have that same idealism then? Robin always took cases that if he won Alaska would be better off for it. That’s one of the criteria he applies.

Most of the success he’s had is for smaller oil companies against major oil companies. He’s advocated on behalf of the industry to get a fair deal even then. On behalf of Anadarko and Tesoro he fought to get fair rates on Trans-Alaska Pipeline (TAPs) for independents. At that time TAPS was making 130% per year return on capital. That was when Conoco left Alaska because they couldn’t make money because of the price of oil transportation. They didn’t come back until the folks that controlled the infrastructure to the north slope took lower returns. Robin fought to get their transportation rates down and reduced those rates substantially and in doing that added tons of value to Alaskans. The ROIC after was 9.5%. It saved the state of Alaska half a billion dollars a year.

Robin isn’t anti-business, he’s a fiscally conservative, pro-oil businessman and attorney. He’s been fighting for fair deals in the oil and gas space. He’s also fought for municipalities to get fair deals. TAPs were taking a position that it was worth less than 10% than it really was. And so they paid really low property taxes. Robin battled them 17 different times in 17 different forms to get them to pay fair property taxes for TAPs to municipalities. Robin prevailed in those cases. They were getting 130% returns from independents and paying 10% of the property taxes. Someone needed to litigate those areas of investment and return and stand up on Alaska’s behalf and that’s what the Fair Share Act does.

Robin owns 9 office buildings in Anchorage. That’s a real investment in an area over a long time horizon. What’s stood out to him? It remains to be seen whether this was a good investment decision and the future makes him smarter or dumber, and it’s hard to say which it will do. But Alaska is Robin’s home and he’s invested heavily in it and he will continue to invest heavily in it. Even in the middle of Coronavirus he’s doing $2 million in projects to increase energy efficiency in his buildings and build out a quality co-working space for Alaskans so they have more flexibility in their options. Aside from that he’s a businessman as the law firm is a business.

Robin saw opportunity in co-working because they suggest these “flexible workspaces” will grow in the future. The challenge is in a typical lease you can come in and negotiate so many square feet for so long. But your needs change - they ramp up or down - particularly for smaller companies but often for big ones as well. A 5-10 year lease doesn’t work for some people. In his buildings he wants to bring in anyone who wants to rent by the month or wants to rent a classroom or wants to have a community where people can share ideas and have high-speed internet.

People have these internet businesses, but just sitting at their home is sort of isolating. So the co-working space is where they can work with other entrepreneurs. It’s kind of like a health club membership - there’s a flat rate then an upcharge for the pool or for the tennis courts or to get a massage based on their needs. It gives people a community of like-minded people and the flexibility to change as their needs change.

As people work more remotely, especially as people learn they can work remotely through Covid, I think it will drive people to places like Alaska where they can live and work somewhere more beautiful and remote instead of paying $2200 a month for a studio in San Francisco. Robin plans to have the highest-speed internet possible there. He’s setting this up to be a very flexible space. It’s challenging in the midst of a pandemic to be in a community, but that comes and goes and shows the need for flexibility.

What was it like in 1984 and 1985 during the oil price crash and the huge exodus of people leaving Alaska? Is this similar? Robin says we bounced out of that low oil price relatively quickly and went on to have several years of sustained growth in part because we got a fair share of our oil revenues. We’re in a situation now where, for example, if you compare us to North Dakota pre-Covid, they had the lowest unemployment in the US. Alaska has the highest. Both are huge oil states. One of the real challenges here is when the oil price came back it used to save us because we weren’t giving away our share. When oil was $70 a barrel a couple years ago we were losing jobs and in a recession. Why? Because SB21 gave away our share. Why do two oil states have such different outcomes? We’re going through some hardship and so it feels the same as back in the day because of that. What Robin knows the price of oil doesn’t save us now - because in Senate Bill 21 these companies can avoid these production taxes in a number of ways.

In 2018 we gave $744 million in tax credits in Prudhoe Bay. When it was built out oil was, in modern terms, $21 a barrel. It’s the largest, most profitable conventional oil field in North America and possibly the world. In SB21 we gave them three quarters of a billion dollars a year to produce oil that was already profitable. They took tax breaks from where it was needed and gave it to where it wasn’t needed. Why are we giving that money away when production is going down and investment is going down and it’s been operating without any incentive for over 3 decades? Why did we decide they needed that money now? Most of the money the Fair SHare Act raises is just being fair to Prudhoe. If Alaskans don’t get Prudhoe Bay right, we’ve got it all wrong. Prudhoe has been in harvest mode for more than a decade.

So two things - we’re giving away our oil and price doesn’t save us and the oil fields don’t need it.

We’re staring down the barrel of the gun of a perpetual decline in revenues. Since SB21 we’ve spent $18 billion in savings, our PFDs have been cut in half and might not be able to continue, our capital budget is ⅓ of what it used to be, construction is minimally funded, investment and jobs have declined. Why in the world are we giving away our oil? A billion and a half dollars a year in breaks to get less…

What feels different to Robin this time than last time is we saw prices go up to $70 two years ago and Alaska didn’t recover because SB21 eliminated progressivity so when it goes up Alaskans don’t get more.

So, most importantly vote in November. The oil companies are going to outspend us. We were outspent over 25-to-1 to repeal SB21. They will spend tens of millions of dollars again because there’s a billion dollars a year at stake, but Robin knows in his gut that Alaskans know they’re being taken advantage of. It doesn’t matter what the price of oil does, we’re not getting much. Our spending and dividends are not sustainable or possible without this.

This state is being taken advantage of and it requires Alaskans to step up.

Alaska's Biggest Export is Ray Troll Art - TAS #8 Apr 29, 2020

I sit down with Ray Troll, Ketchikan-based artist, to discuss how Alaska's fishing industry inspired him to build a t-shirt empire that would ship millions of shirts worldwide and adorn the chests of rockstars and actors, the business of art, the founding of Salmonfest, the ongoing fight against Pebble Mine, and Alaska's precarious future.

Ray Troll Interview (5:15)

TrollArt.com

SalmonFestAlaska.org

TheAKShow.com

Interview

Ray Troll is an artist, activist, lay scientist, and musician songwriter for the “Ratfish Wranglers.”

Ray is most well-known for his shirts and his designs like “Spawn Till You Die” and “Return of the Sockeye.” STYD is the biggest seller over the years. Ray is 56 years old and still cranking out new lines of shirts every year.

He doesn’t get tired of seeing his old designs. His shirts end up in the wackiest places - in Superbad, a Ugandan action film, on celebrities, and all around Alaska.

Ray’s currently in “hunker down” mode. He hasn’t been doing much in 7 weeks at home. It’s been relaxing and meditative. He’s been walking in the woods and working on a line of new t-shirts. He hasn’t taken on the next big project yet.

His band the Ratfish Wranglers recorded an album in Port Townsend, Washington before Covid-19 hit.

Ray is thinking about starting a podcast. He has a ventriloquist friend named David Strassman from California. Twenty years ago they met and have been friends since. David used to do shows in Anchorage in the 70s and 80s, but his main career is in Australia. They want to start a show called “Paleo Nerds” and talk to scientists. They want to pick the brains of various scientists.

Does Ray do a new line of shirts each year? He needs to be inspired to create new designs, otherwise it’s too much like work. But he’s been inspired regularly for decades now. Over the years he’s done his t-shirts that sustain him financially but in the meantime he has book projects, museum exhibits, a band, and he travels and speaks. The t-shirt business is almost on the side even though it’s his “main gig.” But he has a deep archive of designs. He can go back thirty years ago and rework old designs or hits.

“Return of the Sockeye” is a great example. The shirt came out in the early 90s. The sales tapered off, but one year in the 2000s when he didn’t have new designs he dug it out and did a new digital coloring. It came out again in 2007 or 2008 and they flew off the shelf.

Ray doesn’t think he will ever run out of ideas. He has a huge archive of idea and sketchbooks. His designs go beyond just fishing into paleontology and the natural world and they aren’t all pun or jokes. So he can be funny or not and cover a wide array of subjects.

Most people know Ray from the t-shirts but he’s done bigger pieces as well. Usually he’s doing large paintings and prints and the shirts are on the side. He has done large murals for universities and government things. He’s always wanted to sell his original art for big money, and he’s had good prices for originals, but he’s always liked the egalitarian “art for the masses” attitude. Art on a t-shirt is art that everyone can have - it shouldn’t be for the wealthy alone. He was trained as a printmaker and that trade is all about making multiples. That was the everyman’s art back in the middle ages. They were kind of the first t-shirts.

Was having such a big t-shirt business a master plan? No, Ray says, it just took off on him and he was shocked by how popular the shirts were.

Back in summer of 1983 Ray was out of graduate school and was teaching at his Alma Mater in Kansas. He wanted to be a college professor, but it’s hard to get that job as a new MFA. He was looking for a day job and his big sister Kate was living in Ketchikan and she and her husband started a little seafood shop on the dock in Ketchikan. They offered him a summer job.

Ray comes from a family of 6 kids and three of his siblings were already living in Alaska. 4 of the 6 of them have since made Alaska their home even though they grew up all over the place as Air Force brats.

Kate and Bill offered him a job running the store and Ray came up here to sell fish on the docks. He made a t-shirt for the business - which was called Hallelujah Halibut. Ray found Alaska appealed to him. He taught part-time that fall at University of Alaska Southeast campus and he worked on the slime line at canneries and had a studio. He began painting fish.

In the summer of ‘84 he printed up a bunch of t-shirts of his original designs for a seafood festival in town. He brought a couple hundred of the shirts to the show and sold out of them in three days pretty much. The shirt said “Let’s Spawn” and had a salmon on it.

He had a few shirts left over and he took those shirts to a local seafood store and wholesaled them for $1 per shirt profit. The store sold those shirts quickly and wanted more and that was the beginning of it.

Then he and his wife took the ferry around southeast Alaska with a little catalog of drawings of the shirts and he took orders. A bunch of stores ordered them and many of the stores still sell them.

Then he got a printer in Seattle who took it to the next level. That printer hired sales reps and they sold to stores in Anchorage, Seattle, all over the Northwest, and eventually all over the nation. His t-shirt sales were gangbusters in the early 90s. They had outlets in every state and even the Canadian provinces. It got to a point where it almost collapsed in on itself. The printer sold the company to another guy and the new guy took on all kinds of other artists and grew an art department. They put Ray’s stuff on the backburner and so when the contract ran out he signed up with another printer in Tacoma with more modest ambitions.

He’s been with that printer for 20+ years. Post Industrial Press is the printer name.

Ray doesn’t know how many shirts he’s sold over the years but he thinks it’s in the millions over several decades. The shirts are part of the geologic footprint on the planet.

The only online source is at TrollArt.com but he has retailers in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and some outlets in California and Canada and out east. He also does stickers, calendars, magnets, and all that.

Ray has two museum exhibits right now - one at University Alaska Fairbanks - the dinosaur exhibit - and one in Kansas. Those are floating around the country. He has a lot of irons in the fire.

Why does his art resonate so well culturally? Ray tries to be true to himself - he has to think it’s funny or cool or it looks good. He doesn’t like to pander to an audience - he believes visual artists should do work for themselves and hold themselves to a standard. Then you run it up the flagpole and see what works. He doesn’t pander, but he has a feedback loop with the audience.

Alaska is its own unique world or tribe. We’re different here. We are proud of this place even though there are a lot of issues we face.

Around fishing - there’s sport fishing, commercial fishing, the science side of it - there’s a ton of depth to the subject. But in the end the work speaks for itself. You can look at a piece of art and see if there’s depth to it or if it resonates.

If Ray Troll were to give advice to someone starting out in art and commerce: it takes ambition. You have to work at it and get your stuff out there and hit the pavement. Ray shows up to work at his studio 40-60 hours a week like a zealot. He believes in the work and being bold enough to put your foot in the door and tell people to check something out. You have to have the guts to walk in a store and talk to the buyer.

How much has the art business changed with the advent of social media? It’s a different world, but Ray thinks it’s a benefit that people can grow a global audience quickly. That said, the world is flooded with imagery so it’s tougher, but you can get a follower and grow it organically with your friends and peers.

Ray tries to meet his own deadlines but as Douglas Adams says, “I love deadlines, especially the sound of them whooshing by.”

Salmonfest. Ray wouldn’t say he was a founder, but he was part of the chain that helped ignite it with a group of people. Salmonfest is a wonderful event that happens in August every year. This year is going to be number 10, but Ray doesn’t know if it’s going to go on with Covid.

Nine years ago it started as an event to focus on stopping Pebble Mine. Ray’s brother Tim had a place out of Dillingham and has been very involved in protecting salmon habitat out in Bristol Bay. He introduced Ray to Anders Gustafson who put on a few rock n roll events against Pebble. Ray thought that idea was cool and called Anders up out of the blue and Anders liked the idea. Ray wanted art to be part of the festival and did the art for free for the festival. The idea floundered for a bit, but then Jim Stearns took it.

Ray has been doing the art for the festival for 9 years but is now handing it off to the next generation. The festival pays for itself now.

At the beginning it was called SalmonStock and it was focused on Pebble Mine - but when Jim took it over it morphed into SalmonFest.

Anders rolled around the state looking for spots and he called Ray one day and told him he found the spot - Ninilchik Fairgrounds - and it was perfect. That became the spot for several reasons: 1) it has a highway 2) within striking distance of Anchorage 3) the proximity of Homer as the Cosmic Village by the Sea and the cultural fit there. It’s right near the ocean which is beautiful. It’s a magical place.

Ray’s been to most of the Salmonfest events but not all of them.

Where are we with Pebble Mine? The governor and president and EPA are all aligning to be more pro-mineral extraction so the fight against Pebble Mine is not over. It’s a celebration of the natural world - through salmon.

We’re dealing with a lot of headwinds economically. What was it like here during the last oil crisis and are there parallels to that time? The oil fields were cranking more in the late 70s. We staked our future on that resource and don’t have another source to pay for this state. Tourism is the only other thing so we’ve been really crippled. In a way salmon are our last hope - and it reinforces the message of taking care of the natural world. We’re looking at no cruise ships in southeast Alaska for the summer and plummeting oil prices. Ray hopes the rebound is quick and people are eager to get back to work but people need to do it cautiously. Ray thinks the natural world is our salvation and if there’s a silver lining there might not be as much pressure on resource extraction.

The pulp mill in Sitka closed in the mid-90s. That was a big economic blow to the town and they lost 10% of the population, but that wasn’t a sustainable industry and the town survived and thrived under tourism. Alaska has the last bits of untapped wilderness - vast stretches of it - and thousands of miles of coastline. Ray has hope for our future up here.

What is the most underrated town or place to see in Alaska? Petersburg. It’s beautiful. The big cruise ships can’t get in there. It’s a few thousand norwegian fishermen who settled there with native people. IT’s a cool small town vibe and it’s very beautiful. They have this festival in May every year that Ray’s band has headlined. It used to be called “Little Norway” but they call it MayFest now to be more inclusive. Ray has a soft spot for Petersburg. Devil’s Thumb is in the distance and it’s quite idyllic. There are beautiful trails and great people. It’s basically a fishing town.

Some of these most special towns are fishing towns and aren’t too accessible by tourists.

The Last Mountain Man with Buck Bowden - TAS #7 Apr 23, 2020

This week we talk to Buck Bowden, Alaska master hunting guide and founder of Hidden Alaska Guides and Outfitters, one of the state’s top-rated Dall Sheep, Moose, and Grizzly hunt outfitters. We talk about trying to make grizzly bear edible, how hunting culture has changed, the pressure high-end outfitters face to be successful from clients, young people in hunting, and his amazing story of becoming a true Alaskan bush man.

Alex rambles about Covid fatigue and Riley the Denali Park wolf who recently passed away.

Intro (1:11) Interview w Buck Bowden (10:19)

Links

Buck's Outfitting Business https://hiddenak.com/

Buck's Appearance on MeatEater Podcast https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-133-youre-a-cool-dude-buck

https://aksalmonsisters.com/products/salmon-sisters-cookbook

Interview Notes

Buck hasn’t run a trapline in 15 years - but he used to do it for a living. Since he started the hunting business he needed to be based more in town plus he got married. So in the 90s he didn’t trap much - it was done in the 70s and 80s.

Buck got on Steve Rinella’s podcast - that’s where Alex heard him first - on MeatEater. Buck went to hang out with Steve and Steve asked him to hang out in the basement and have a couple beers and Yannis and the crew was there and they just put some headphones on him and they started talking.

When Buck jumped on the Meateater podcast he got inundated with emails and messages.

Buck is a master hunting guide and is the founder of Hidden Alaska Guides and Outfitters - a hunting lodge only accessible by floatplane in the Alaska Range. They specialize in dall sheep, moose, and grizzly hunts - but clients can also go after black bear or on eco-tours in the summer.

Buck reserves May, June, and July for friends, family, and clients who want to bring their family up. He doesn’t put a ton of bank in the eco-tour stuff.

Buck just flew into his lodge recently. April is typically when they have spring bear hunters, but since the state banned out-of-state hunters he had a lot of cancelled trips. He’s been harvesting logs from the beetle kill, taking care of the homestead, and harvesting burls for his bowls.

In the spring, bear hunts are 15% of his income. He usually only takes out two hunters per year in the spring since there’s such a narrow window. Bears start coming out in April, but by the end of the month it’s touch-and-go trying to get people out of there because snow conditions have really deteriorated. May is that time when you can’t land on skis since the snow is too sloppy, but you can’t land on the lake since there is still ice. Buck has to make a tough decision around this time of year every year how to get out there.

Landing in six feet of snow you’ll bury down to the belly of the plane and you have to get on top of it to get out. It’s pretty tricky since his “lake” is more of a glorified beaver pond and it’s tough.

This time of year they go after brown bear more than black bear. They’ll start seeing bigger boars first week of April. They’ll go after them from the 5th to the 15th. The brown bear season is open year-round. Obviously you can’t hunt them in the winter.

Buck has tried for 50 years to try to make brown bear edible and he just can’t do it. Black bear is actually really tasty. Even the meat looks different. The black bear meat is a richer, deeper red. Brown bear is kind of a pale brown when you skin it. The taste is really funky.

Black bear usually come out the tail end of April. Pretty much every year in May he’ll take a black bear for camp meat since they are pretty much living off the land.

What’s the closest buck has come to making brown bear edible? He’s tried it on the grill. The closest it was to being ok was boiling it on a simmer all day to tenderize it and then grilling it up and trying to season it but it always tastes rank.

They’re known for sheep, moose, and brown bear in that order. Buck will be at the lodge doing his thing May, June, and July. When August 1st rolls around he’ll “shut the fun off” and concentrate on getting sheep clients up. Sheep season opens August 10th. He tries to fly his guys out August 6th to get cmap set up and clients come in August 8th. From August 1st he’s getting camps ready making sure the tents are in good shape. He has two sheep camps. He makes sure every camp has what they need. That first week of August is pretty busy preparing for the season.

August, September and the first week of October is when he makes 90% of his income.

Sheep is tough work. You have to go climbing for them. Buck says they very rarely surrender. How it works is they’ll fly a client out on August 8th and they have a big steak dinner that night. August 9th - all his guides work one-on-one - the guys will hike their way into whatever spy camp they want. All of Buck’s guys have been with him a while and they have the places they prefer. Guides will look for a group of rams. When they find one they’ll camp August 9th that night and hopefully the next morning on the 10th they’ll hike up and try to get within range. That’s hopefully how it goes. A lot of times something happens and the weather is bad or something and they’ll have to hunt the full 10 days, but more times than not the sheep hunter will get the sheep the first two-to-three days.

A lot of people may think the second hunt which starts August 19th that their odds are better on the first hunt than the second, but that’s not true. THere’s no fence around the place - the sheep are moving in and out. The odds of getting sheep on the second hunt are just as successful as the first hunt.

Buck started guiding in 1975 but went into business for himself in 1991. The first couple years were kind of slow - just like any business starting out. He had the sheep area he has now starting in ‘89. It’s really grown and in the last 10-15 years after growing pains he really locked in his good guides and the system. So they’ve gotten into the ability to be a top-end sheep outfitter in Alaska, although the prices they have are pretty much the going rate of a quality dall sheep hunt with an established outfitter that’s proven itself.

How has hunting changed? When Buck started doing it there were no sat phones, no inreaches, the plane took you and the client out, they dropped you off, and they said goodbye for 10 days and hopefully they remembered to come get you. There was no contact. The hunting ethics were that you were out there and you had to go look for the animals, find them, and kill them. It was a true hunt. But nowadays you have inreaches and sat phones and the cost of the hunt is so high that a lot of the hunters think that because they paid so much that they are guaranteed to get a sheep. It’s actually illegal to guarantee an animal and it’s unethical.

He’s had close to 100% success over the last few years because the Dall Sheep populations have been high and his guides are very good and they have a lot of pride in making sure the hunt is successful. Buck’s guides make his business. He owes everything he has to them.

Two types of clients: the blue-collar guy who has saved up his whole life for this and then the guys who have so much money that it buys them success in every endeavor. Two different types of pressure on the outfitter.

The guy who comes up to hunt and is on a fixed income and has saved up his whole life for this - these guys are the ones you almost cringe because you know it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing so if it’s not successful it’s really tough. But usually those guys are the ones who have a better attitude that understand hunting is hunting and they’re going to work hard at it and they’re not guaranteed a hunt. Better than guys who have so much money they feel like they’ve “bought” a sheep?

This can put pressure on outfitters to cheat - hunt outside of season or hunt on behalf of an exhausted client - but it’s illegal and unethical. Every once in a while you’ll hear of an outfitter who breaks the law on behalf of a client.

Do you have young people interested in this line of work? Buck thinks the average age of the hunters he gets is probably 50s and 60s. It doesn’t seem the younger generation has as much interest or passion to hunt as it did back in the 70s and 80s. Same goes for guides. It’s getting tough to find guides these days. When Buck was a kid it was a dream come true to get your assistant guide license and go out there and guide someone. That romance is gone. Since the 90s and into the 2000s it’s really getting hard to find younger guides that want to grow up to be a guide. I don’t know if it’s because of the computer age or what’s changed.

Buck gets approached often by younger adults or kids who want to guide as a job because they want to be out of the woods. If he finds someone like that he will put them to work until they get an assistant guide license. If an outfitter finds someone like that they need to take them in and help them along.

All guides have to be licensed. You have to get your assistant guide’s license first by working for an outfitter and that outfitter gives you a recommendation. You have to be able to judge a legal animal, take an animal, take care of the meat. You have to be adept at photography and cooking. There are social skills too, you have to be able to get along with people. You would need a few years before you can feel comfortable enough to take and judge animals on your own. You need to have a mentor and work with them. They teach you the ropes and you feel comfortable doing it on your own.

Buck thinks there’s a stronger trend for eco-tourism based on what’s popular, but there’s a strong hunting community. It’s an American tradition and it will always be there and there will always be people with a passion to hunt. It’s just not as popular with younger people.

How did Buck get into hunting? He came to Alaska in 1971. His parents sent him to Nome from Peoria, Il to live with his godparents because he was in trouble a lot. Buck always wanted to be a mountain man - he would draw cabins on hills in class as a young kid. When he was in Nome the native community would take him seal or ptarmigan hunting. He had such a passion for it he would learn it and retain it and by the time he got out of high school he was a pretty skilled hunter.

Part of the reason Buck wasn’t a model-perfect child is because he was dying to go out in the woods and hunt, but his parents didn’t believe in it and wouldn’t take him. He would always run away from home and camp in the woods and he wanted to be in the outdoors all the time but he wasn’t allowed to. When he was sent to Alaska he was placed in the element he wanted to be - and he went in the opposite direction. His parents didn’t plan it.

The last straw was Buck got arrested and sent to juvenile courts. The judge was going to put him in a boys home and his parents spoke up and asked if they could send him to Alaska. The judge said, “I don’t care where you send him just get him out of my town.”

What did the Native culture in Nome teach Buck? A lot of it that he still retains to this day is the subsistence lifestyle. Right off the back he got a girlfriend and he would go with their family to fish camps during the summer and he saw the subsistence lifestyle. In the fall they would shoot geese and crane. Everything was done for a reason, not for sport. And that’s what got him - the survival of it in a beautiful place in the outdoors. Everything you shot you ate. Buck appreciated that and it still impacts how he runs his outfit now.

Buck is a pure fair chase hunter meaning you don’t use aircraft to locate game or try to lure them in. It means to be in the same element as it is that you’re hunting. Buck is a real strong advocate of making sure there is no wanton waste. Take the whole animal, salvage all the meat, and use everything. You’re not just shooting horns or antlers or a hide. You need to respect what it is that you’re hunting. He passes those values along to clients and they know that’s what his ethics are. 95% of the hunters he gets already have that attitude.

How did Buck get into the business after high school? After he graduated he was working at a battery manufacturing place. One of the guys there was an outfitter and he was looking for someone to go out and help him with the horses and live out in the woods and be a gopher. Buck immediately volunteered. It was a dream come true. This is when the pipeline was coming on. He had two choices: get rich working on the pipeline or go out in the woods and be a worthless mountain man. Guess what he chose?

Buck told him he knew about horses even though he knew nothing. They went up the Yentna river and just took the string of horses out until they got tired and stopped. They dropped everything and threw off the saddles and had the horses pull in logs to build the cabin. That initial journey was about six weeks. They thought it would be shorter but it wasn’t really well-planned. The river was at a flood stage and there were times they were stalled and had to call for help. One time they couldn’t cross the river with the horses up on the Yentna and they stamped an SOS in the sand and wait for a pilot to see them and get a boat.

That year Buck was new so he didn’t take hunters out that fall. The next fall was his first time taking a hunter and the next winter was the first time he stayed out there alone and watched the horses and trapped. He wanted to be a mountain man and stay out there and trap. Sometimes Buck wouldn’t have contact with anyone for three to three-and-a-half months.

He didn’t feel isolated at all, he was living the dream and didn’t want to wake up. He would go back to town three times a year to take a break and sell his furs at Fur Rendezvous. He would be in town for a week and he wanted to go home. Usually after the hunting season just before trapping season you go into town to get supplies for the winter. He would have a week in town then. Then come end of February/March he would come in for Fur Rendezvous and sell furs at the auction. After that he’d fly back out April or so and be out there until the ice would go out the first of June or so. He did that for about six to ten years or so in that routine.

The guy he was working for would get anyone he could find to pick him up and fly him back into town. Don Sheldon, one of Alaska’s most famous bush pilots, went out to pick-up Buck for one of his last flights.

Buck’s one connection to town was the radio stations in Anchorage. One was called “Bush Pipeline” and one was called “Ptarmigan Telegram.” Every night at 7:30 and 9:30 people would call in and leave a message like, “To Buck, the plane is coming at such-and-such a time, so and so says hi”. Every night he would make the popcorn and gather around the radio.

A lot of times Buck didn’t really know what day of the week it was. He would take off for 3-4 days with the horses in snowshoes and come back and turn on the radio and figure out what day it was when he missed it.

What did Buck eat? Everything was canned butter or canned chicken. He lived a lot on sourdough hotcakes and bread. Twice a week he’d make sourdough bread. For Thanksgiving or Christmas or special dates he would make sourdough cinnamon rolls. There were times when you’d eaten all the good stuff. Buck wasn’t very good at conserving. Sometimes he was down to nothing but a meat diet. No butter, potatoes, sugar, nothing. It didn’t bother him. It was part of the game.

Buck would run out of meat sometimes. He’d shoot a black bear but during the summer all of his meat would come from fishing for grayling or hunting rabbits. He lived on porcupine a lot. Anything he could catch. If you shot a bear there was no way to preserve it because the weather was warm. Once he did shoot a black bear and he made a smoker and that meat kept for quite a while.

In the winter Buck would just quarter it and leave it outside.Back in those days the average temperature was 25-30 degrees below zero. They would just have the quarters hanging on the porch, because smaller animals would try to get the meat. You just go out there with the meat saw and saw some off and put it in a pot on the stove which was going all day. Then he would go out on the trapline on snowshoes. By the time he got back the meat had simmered all day long and it was ready to eat. Towards the end of the season all he might have is salt to season it with.

Buck heard of bears being out in the middle of winter but he never ran into one that woke up early.

His favorite season out there? He got to not loving the fall because he had to be with hunters and other people. But his favorite was probably late spring because it was just Buck out there and the snow was going away and the days were getting warmer and it would finally get down to the ground and you’d get the smell of new life coming out of the ground and leaves coming on the trees and everything rolling into summer. The bugs weren’t out yet.

Salmon Sisters Feed the World with Claire Neaton and Emma Teal - HAP #37 Apr 15, 2020

This week on the final episode of The Homer Alaska Podcast I sit down with Claire Neaton and Emma Teal of The Salmon Sisters. These two real-life sisters co-founded the successful clothing, gear, and wild-caught Alaskan seafood brand and we talk about their new cookbook, how they started the company, their roles as ambassadors of Alaskan seafood, and the future of fish marketing.

I also talk about fishing in Cordova this summer, our new Instagram Live content, and sit down with Dr. Minda Morris, PT at South Peninsula Hospital.

(1:29) Intro, Fishing in Cordova, IG Live (12:56) SPH Rehab with Minda Morris (17:29) "The Salmon Sisters" Claire Neaton and Emma Laukitis

Links

https://localcatch.org/

https://galleystories.podbean.com/e/ep-68-the-salmon-sisters-emma-clair-they-were-born-for-this/

Interview Notes

They just released a new book “Salmon Sisters: Feasting, Fishing, and Living in Alaska”

What inspired it? For their family catching and eating seafood and living in a world where fish is part of an identity it was hard for them not to make a book. They’d talked about making a cookbook for a long time and sharing their family’s recipes. They couldn’t just put a few recipes in a book without a cohesive story about their lifestyle and how Alaska seafood is caught and the fisheries are managed.

They also wanted to talk about how they cook on the boat and being resourceful with limited ingredients.

Emma put in a lot of work using old and new artwork, putting together infographics, and putting together this coffee table-style book. It’s a combination of recipes from their mom to favorites at potlucks in False Pass to their young adult friends who have great salmon dip recipes.

Cooking on a boat more of a philosophy. It’s about using what you have and not following a recipe exactly. It’s also about simple ingredients like using canned beans and vegetables and frozen stuff. It’s not necessarily luxurious because they can’t go to the store or pick food from a garden.

The book has a mix between simple recipes and more “projects.”

Growing up, Emma and Claire’s mom was a great cook and a lot of her recipes are in the book. She took on the full time job of food production on the homestead which meant planting the greenhouse in the spring, raising chickens, and set netting for fish. They spent a lot of their summers smoking fish and puttng it up for the winter. They had a lot of the essentials from the land and sea and their mom used a lot of recipes from people in False Pass like traditional salmon and seafood recipes. She collected a lot of recipes and putting them in a three-ring binder. They learned a lot from their mom and tested their knowledge on the boat when they became crew fishing for their dad.

They always had family dinner growing up. Claire and Emma’s mom didn’t learn to cook until she moved up to Alaska in her early 20s and moved to Alaska. Now she loves to create food and share with her family.

They gained confidence cooking because on a boat if you make anything hot and on-time people love it.

What are common mistakes people make preparing seafood? One big mistake is overcooking seafood like salmon. But the other mistake is people being too afraid to mess it up. If you start with a quality ingredient you’ll end up with something at least edible if not delicious. They want to tamp down that fear with their book. The cooking methods aren’t challenging and presentation doesn’t always matter.

Another mistake is people don’t use what’s left. People will eat the fillet usually, but if there’s too much you can turn it into a salmon spread or patty the next day. If you start with the whole fish there’s a lot you can do with the whole fish. You can use it for soup or stock or use the bones or tail or skin. You can make chips with salmon skin, for example. There are fun ways to use the whole fish and that might be unapproachable to a lot of people if they don’t have a lot of experience. There’s a lot of information about that in the book - at the very least how to fillet a fish.

What’s it going to take to get the average consumer in middle America to love seafood? Education is one piece. Having good fresh fish available easily to them will help. Convincing people that frozen product is very high quality. Also ready-to-go-snacks like canned salmon or smoked.

A lot of Salmon Sisters’ customer care team is dedicated to educating customers on Alaskan seafood. A lot of customers want to share their experience with Alaska. A lot of customers also want recipes, and Claire and Emma are excited to be able to give them something. A lot of people who eat fish get stuck in a rut with what to make. The enthusiasm runs out after they tried the marinade and the grill - like how do you keep it exciting for everyone? You have to spend a lot of time at home trying.

For a great interview of their childhood go check out the podcast “Galley Stories” where Mark Caylor interviewed them in December 2019.

By 2nd or 3rd grade Claire and Emma were taking the Tustumena into Homer to do school in the winters. It gave them a strong foundation educationally. They both ended up on the east coast. Everything seemed so far away from Alaska, even the west coast, so it didn’t matter to them where they went in the Lower 48 since everything was a plane ride away.

Claire went to University of Vermont through the influence of a teacher and family friends. She had a great educational experience and group of peers. School was very challenging. She focused on getting through classes and it was a natural transition from Homer since there was so much outdoor activity. She met her husband there. She was a year ahead of Emma so they crossed over in high school for a couple years.

Emma also ended up on the east coast - she had a friend who was a year older who went to Williams and followed her. She joined the rowing team with her friend Lindsey. College was great for Emma as well she really enjoyed Williams and the small school. She adapted fine and there wasn’t much culture shock.

Junior year both sisters studied together in Italy. Emma was doing screenprinting and was making fish prints at home and that was the moment she realized how much the place they group up had formed them and what they wanted to share. Emma was an art and english major at WIlliams and was doing a lot of visual representation of what they work on. That sparked the idea for working together in the business. College was a time of understanding how much Alaska had formed their identities. Once they realized that it’s hard not to go back and check-in. They worked their way through college commercial fishing every summer so they were constantly back and forth between the east coast and Alaska.

When they graduated they took some time to figure out if they would get a job or fish or what. Claire and her husband started their own fish marketing business on their own and were doing fish deliveries around the midwest. Emma took a year to work for a magazine at Portland and do an art residency in New York. At the end of that year they had started on Salmon Sisters and prioritized fishing because it was too hard to get a real job.

Claire wanted a real job really badly because her senior year everyone in her program went and worked for their uncle’s investment school or whatever. They had been making shirts and selling them at a shop on the spit. A lot of it came from not having a job starting that summer. She couldn’t find a job when she was going to fish all summer so she took odd jobs and did Salmon Sisters on the side. They were both on the west coast and in Alaska in the summers. They finally decided to fully invest in themselves and their fishing and how to make it work. It was hard to imagine how to do that out of school.

How did Claire and Emma’s relationship evolve in college? Emma and Claire’s schools were only a couple hours away. They would see each other at crew events and spend holidays and summers together, so they saw each other a lot in college. But working together was very natural. Working on a boat you have to trust each other and communicate. When you fish you have to trust your crew, so they developed that trust and ability to work together in adverse conditions early. They developed a lot of resilience and grit. Their first mini-business together was selling eggs as little girls in False Pass.

Where Salmon Sisters is more food-driven. They are also offering more gear that people can use in a professional capacity. It’s been a big learning experience to manage apparel and accessories. They listen closely to what their customers and community want. They’ve grown up with them. A lot of their peers now have families that already have a pair of fancy boats and are more interested in feeding and growing their kids. They have a million ideas but there is a balance in figuring out what people want and what the Salmon Sisters team can produce.

The other important thing in decision making is having everything they sell connect their customers to the water, because a lot of their customers are or were commercial fishermen. A lot of the things they put out is things they would want to wear as fishermen. It’s a reflection of what they’re into at the time.

Direct-to-consumer fish marketing. Claire doesn’t think that all or even most fishermen will direct market their fish. The value comes from stewardship and story-telling and being part of the food chain a little longer. Salmon Sisters does not sell the exact fish that Emma and her have touched. What they sell is from processors in those fisheries. It’s always felt a little funky because they can offer this story and the logistics and the education and recipes and outreach, but they can’t close the loop of directly processing their own catch. They catch such a large quantity of fish they can’t support that much ordering capacity. They don’t have the processing support to do that. It’s a double-edged sword because they’re proud of what they do but they have not cracked the code on direct marketing.

A lot of their peers who have been doing it have been through a long, bumpy rode. There’s a lot of the normal headaches of small businesses plus the question of uncertain supply based on their catch. There are people who are just making small connections with people and restaurants and some even have thriving small businesses but it’s hard.

It’s really hard to sell even ten pounds of fish. Think about how much you catch in a day as a commercial fisherman.

The best thing Salmon Sisters has done for them is supporting the Alaska seafood brand and being a steward of the resource and also encouraging fishermen to make sure they know that this is going to end up on someone’s plate and to take good care of the fish they catch.

Emma wishes this was easier because especially right now without restaurants open - half of Americans eat seafood out. Their only other options are going to a grocery store or buying direct from a fisherman. For a fisherman that could be a saving grace but there is so much work into not only being a fisherman but also processing a marketing their catch.

LocalCatch.org is a great website for connecting with fishermen doing direct marketing across the nation. The biggest thing they tell people is you have to find a system that works with your lifestyle or you’ll burnout. If you’re taking catch back to Montana and just supplying your neighborhood - celebrate that.

Do they feel responsibility for facilitating demand for Alaska seafood nationally? They feel responsible for being a steward of the resource. At the same time they can’t represent every fishery because there’s a lot of pride in different fisheries. So how do they tread lightly and continue to receive support from their community and yet represent Alaska?

What does it take to run a successful family enterprise? It’s a combination of dysfunction and love. They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t all love the work and the places it allows them to go and the people. Their dad came up and started fishing and this was the first thing he felt good about doing. He really channeled into the seasonal work, it’s kind of addictive. It comes with a lot of its own challenges as well. Putting fishing and family first makes a lot of things fall by the wayside. Both of their husbands are gone a lot fishing.

They also have the huge advantage of working together in a positive way. Their mom does all the bookkeeping and on-shore support and can make phone calls. They can dump their gear at the shop they share together. Maybe their dad has an old net they can use. It’s helpful to share resources. It’s really expensive to get into and without the common tools and knowledge it’s really hard. The generational thing is really awesome because they’re learning from their parents and they’ve been able to be their crew for a lot of their lives. A built-in crew is awesome. Being able to start their own operations with their own families is great. Claire fishes with her husband. Emma fishes with her husband and dad. Then at the end of the season they come back together to fish halibut on the same boat at the end of the season. It’s totally crazy, but work is a huge part of their family’s life. It’s hard to talk about things other than fishing sometimes but it’s beautiful in a way.

How are they dealing with Covid-19? They’ve been dealing with it for 3 weeks and have hit some burnout and are trying to establish the new normal routine. Homer is a challenge because they physically are not present, but their seafood logistics provider is still shipping lots of fish. Fish has accounted for about 90% of their sales for the last few weeks. They’ve had a big dip in a lot of the “lifestyle” product. They’re trying to figure out what to do with the brand as well as their fishing business. It’s been a great opportunity for Emma and Claire to go back to their company’s values and figuring out what they can provide people. They’re weathering the storm and working together and acknowledging there is no written plan for this.

Summer in Alaska is normally a busy season for so many people and it’s going to be very different for a lot of people. They might open their Homer shop later on, but they’re planning on keeping things buttoned up and as safe as possible. It’s different not having a big season ahead.

As a small business is provide helpful and hopeful messaging to people and rethink how their product and services can be used.

Alaska's Anti-Reality TV Entertainer with Rob Prince - TAS #6 Apr 08, 2020

This week on The Alaska Show I sit down with Rob Prince, Associate Professor of Documentary Filmmaking at University of Alaska Fairbanks and the founder of Dark Winter Nights: True Stories from Alaska. Rob and I discuss documentaries, how DWN was founded from his experience with reality tv, who controls Alaska's image to the world, and what makes a great story.

As a special bonus we include one of the great stories from DWN at the beginning of the program! Go check out the show wherever you listen to podcasts or go to DarkWinterNights.com and get tickets to a live show! Next one is tentatively planned for the Saturday before Thanksgiving in Fairbanks.

(0:55) Intro

(3:27) Dark Winter Nights Story

(13:59) Rob Prince Interview

Interview Notes

Robert Prince is the Associate Professor of Digital Journalism and Documentary Filmmaking at University of Alaska - Fairbanks

He was interested in video as a kid and he was amazed he could make a living making videos. As he got into college he took some tv criticism classes that opened his eyes to the power of television to be a force for good in the world and how it falls short. He wanted to make a difference in the world through his field. He liked being able to entertain and educate people at the same time. He also likes it because it’s a form of filmmaking you can do almost single-handedly. To get into fiction you have to convince people to act in the film and make them good at it.

Are documentaries journalism or entertainment? They’re both. It’s like paper journalism, it’s whatever you put on it. It can be long-form journalism which is why he’s in the journalism department. There are programs like Frontline on PBS that are great examples of documentary journalism. Then you have fun baloney documentaries and some that are downright evil. In the best way it’s both.

Alex’s favorite documentary is Queen of Versailles.

The dream of most documentary filmmakers is to have things unfold right on-screen. Queen of Versailles is a combination of luck and hard work.

Rob’s favorite documentaries depend on his mood. One of his favorites is “Flag Wars.” It was produced clearly by someone who was new at it. Some of the best documentaries are made by people that are not great filmmakers, but are just passionate about a subject. It’s the story of gentrification of a historically African-American Baltimore community by the homosexual community. Great documentaries leave you with more questions and things to think about.

Rob also likes anything by Errol Morris. Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control and Thin Blue Line are both fantastic. Errol Morris - 90% of his stuff is awesome.

On Netflix “Dirty Money” is a thing he likes. Rob doesn’t love True Crime because he doesn’t know if it makes him a better person. He can’t let go of horrible crimes and true stories. He started watching a documentary about priest abuse and the murder of a nun. He was waiting for the story to get to some point of justice but he couldn’t.

Rob’s biggest problem with True Crime is “Mean World Syndrome.” The theory is the more tv you watch the more dangerous you think the world is than your neighbor. His concern of people who watch tons of true crime and news is it will warp their sense of how dangerous the world is beyond reality and lead them to do things they don’t need to do. If there’s a vote in the city for more policing vs more funding for schools, people who are afraid will vote for more policing. For example it would be hard to be killed by a serial killer even if you tried. It’s like being a police officer.

Alex loves business documentaries but thinks there are very few good ones. Often they’re a little too heavy-handed. Some are almost messianic biographies of people which is insufferable. He loves business documentaries like Silicon Cowboys on Netflix about the rise of Compaq computers out of Texas. How these guys founded the company and overcame IBM. Why are business makers so hard to make?

The key to a good documentary is access. There aren’t more because what disgraced CEO wants to invite a filmmaker in? If it’s an uplifting story that might be a different story, but billionaires don’t necessarily want to let people in like that. Rob tells his students he votes with his time and dollars. If you want more business documentaries watch the heck out of what they have and they’ll make more.

Frontline has great business documentaries for free streaming at PBS.org

The other documentaries Rob likes are those that change people’s lives and impact the world like Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock. It had a sweeping effect on McDonald’s and fast food. Another example is Blackfish and how it stopped the breeding and showing of Killer Whales at Sea World. It will entertain you and change the world at the same time.

The subject can be so good that the documentary works. Nature documentaries are a good example. All you need is good footage and some facts and a good voiceover.

You are learning all the time whether you want to or not. Rob’s students think that just because you are watching something student you aren’t learning, but you’re always learning. TV doesn’t always tells you what to think, but it tells you what to think about. When you watch a nature documentary you are thinking about the planet. When you watch reality tv you are thinking about super rich people and their lives. When you watch tv you are basically surrendering your current thought process over to whatever that topic is. What do you want to be pondering in life? That you aren’t as rich as you want to be?

Make a conscious decision of what you watch.

In the 70s advertising had to cut from 60 seconds to 30 seconds, so advertisers didn’t have the time to practically convey their product vs another one. Once you shifted to 30 second short ads they don’t have time - all they can say is “here is how my product makes you feel.” It was no longer about the quality of the product anymore.

Our attention spans are shorter. Nobody reads anymore. Rob doesn’t read anymore. You can convey so much less information in a debate or talk or documentary vs text. People can only take it in the first time. They’re not going to rewind and hear it back again. In a book you don’t have to do that.

What’s the value of education in a creative field like media/journalism/entertainment? Rob doesn’t look down on people who don’t have college degrees, but it depends what you want to do. These days with the competition it’s something that’s going to be important that separates you from the crowd. It’s not always about what you learn but who you meet and know. You’re more likely to hire someone you know and trust that you have a relationship with rather than someone off the street.

College is tribal - it’s a social club. You can use that time and take advantage or not. In creative fields it will accelerate your learning dramatically. Rob was mostly self-taught.

Rob is the founder of Dark Winter Nights. It started because Rob was frustrated how Hollywood was showing Alaska. This was 2012-2013. We gave over the reins to Hollywood to control their image. A production company in LA called Rob and were looking for people living in a dry cabin to do a house hunting show. He was used and never credited and was frustrated. He was a big fan of radio programs like This American Life.

The way he approached it was he knew the world of podcasting was saturated. His idea was to build a local audience, raise awareness, and use it as a launching pad to show folks outside Alaska. He needed it to resonate with Alaskans before it went to the outside world.

The live events have way more tangible payback. If anything they almost “forgot” about the podcast and have focused on live events. Last November they had 900 people. They have about 1600 podcast subscribers. He’s gotten distracted by the live audience side of it. This spring was their 6th year. They can do that now because of income from live events.

The other thing he wants to do is go on tour because he thinks people in the Lower 48 would eat it up. There are a lot of logistical issues. His ultimate goal is to share the real Alaska with the world through podcasts and maybe a tour. His goal for the live events is to be the best dinner party you’ve ever been to. Real people are telling true stories in a natural way. It’s not a Ted Talk, things aren’t planned out to the millisecond.

There’s a reason we love stories, we learn stuff from them. They’re entertaining, but it taps into our empathy. We can put ourselves in others’ stories. Horror movies are so scary because you feel like you’re a character in that film. It’s a body-snatching thing in a good story. Stories are bad because they can’t put themselves in others’ shoes.

What makes a good story? Most people can tell a story and with some coaching they can tell it a lot better. After 45 minutes they can make great progress on their story. There are some people who are inherently not great at storytelling. They can get better but they take more work than others. The process is not that hard. There’s the element of making sure the audience can see what you see. One thing people forget is the audience doesn’t know what they know. The audience can’t picture it. What year was it? What season? You have to convey these things. How old were you? What did the environment look like?

Things need to get more and more interesting until the climax, and then the audience needs a moment at the end to bask in it. Any story will be ruined by being too long. He aims for stories to be in the 15 minute range. That’s kind of the magic number, but they’ll range from 3 minutes for kids up to even low-20s. It’s enough time to settle into the story and feel a connection without being so long they get bored. A good 15-17 minute is Rob’s favorite.

The most cliche way to wrap a story up is have the storyteller say what they learned. But it usually always works.

Stories can be over-practiced and start to sound scripted. It’s kind of like a Ted Talk. Their job is to convey information in a very polished way. Rob can struggle with telling a story too many times. You’ll come to a part of it that you’ve perfected too much. At that point you’re acting, you’re doing a bit, your not telling a story. Rob doesn’t want people to write the story out because we don’t write the same way we speak. Maybe an outline, but not too much. He’ll meet with storytellers two weeks out so they have some time to practice but not too much.

The consolation prize for doing something stupid is having a good story to tell.

Go to DarkWinterNights.com the fall show is typically the Saturday before thanksgiving in Fairbanks.

How to be an Alaskan Gold Miner with Emily Riedel - HAP #36 Apr 02, 2020

This week on The Homer Alaska Podcast we sit down with Emily Riedel - gold miner, star of "Bering Sea Gold" tv show, opera singer, and outdoor enthusiast. We talk to her about dredging for gold, growing up in Homer, what life is really like in Nome, the case for opera music, and the pros and cons of being a reality television star.

We also talk to Ashley Brasfield from South Peninsula Hospital Rehab clinic about tips for when to bring children in to see a speech language pathologist.

(1:11) Intro

(9:10) SPH Rehab w Ashley Brasfield

(13:18) Emily Riedel

TheAlaskaShow@gmail.com

IG @AlaskaShow @AlexanderTrokey

Facebook.com/TheAlaskaShow www.TheAKShow.com

Interview Notes

The name “Riedel” is German. Pronounced “r-eye-dell.”

Opera singer, ice/rock climber, gold miner.

Currently in Nome shooting a special season ice mining for Bering Sea Gold. The ice freezes in February and they can drill into the ice and dive under the ice. The craziest miners will take their equipment out onto the pack ice and dredge for gold underneath.

A dredge is a boat that has a diesel or gasoline pump motor. Emily’s is diesel. Nome is tough to get equipment, things break down easily in a marine environment and you can’t just stroll into a huge hardware store. Supplies are limited. You have to wait a few days to get specialized stuff from Anchorage. It’s always a logistical challenge.

Emily runs the Eroica - it’s not called the Erotica. Eroica is a symphony that Beethoven wrote to commemorate Napoleon before he was an emperor/dictator. Many people mix it up.

Emily thinks in retrospect it probably wasn’t a great idea to go for the lofty, classical boat name. But she doesn’t want to change the name because she’s a little superstitious and it’s bad luck.

For her ice operation she called her boat the “Job.” This ice season has had a lot of breakdowns and malfunctions and chaos. She’s been reading a book on the philosophy of faith and prayer and Job was the relationship between man and God.

So right now they’re filming and diving under the ice. Because of climate change the ice there is really unstable and they have to be really careful with their equipment. In past years the ice is really thick and strong, but recently the ice has gone out quickly. There are leads that are opening up. They have to bring equipment in from storms.

The Iditarod is there right now and people are worried about Coronavirus.

Emily’s brother Paul is one of her closest friends. She has a sister named Liz who lives in Homer. She also has another brother in Seattle.

Emily’s dad was on the show and he did mining for a bit. Her mom lives on the east coast right now and teaches music.Growing up in Homer, Emily was partly homeschooled and grew up on the beach on Kachemak Drive. She spent her childhood on the beach. She would play pretend and build rafts and float around Kachemak Bay and build driftwood forts.

Emily moved out at 16 to live with other families in Homer until she graduated. Her parents separated when she was 12 and her mom had a string of not great relationships and the last one was bad enough for her to leave. Then she went to college to pursue music.

Homer vs. Nome. Emily is 31 and has been mining there for 10 years - working seasonally for a third of her life. Homer has tons of natural beauty and art and interesting characters in the community. There’s a wide spread of educated people and great thinkers and slightly insane people. The variety of people combined with natural beauty makes it very special.

In Nome it’s easy to feel a sense of desolation. It’s pretty flat with low rolling hills and the ocean. The lack of trees and greenery in the landscape is a bit of a feeling of being on the moon especially in wintertime. It’s very isolated and lonely. It has a tiny population, mostly Alaska Natives. But the more you’re there the more you see its special beauty. It kind of looks like Ireland in the summertime. It has an incredible history of the gold rush as well.

Nome has an interesting history - it was established by gold miners for gold miners. It has a sense of palpable desperation, almost like their spirits are left behind. The modern gold miners can feel it. There’s a mental shock when you get there - a lot of people fall apart in Nome. They start to drink or can’t focus or give into mental health issues. Compared to Homer it’s much harder.

Studied opera at University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She spent most of her life up to age 17 in Homer with very few trips out. She was pretty cut off from the rest of the world. They didn’t have cable television or anything. The rest of the world was very confusing to her. When she experienced suburbia and big box stores and connectivity she didn’t understand a lot.

School was demanding. Only 4 of the original 35 singing students graduated. She thinks being Alaskan helped her persevere through the program. Alaskans avoid being classified - people are here because they’re individuals and have a sense of independence.

Alaskans do a lot of objectively miserable activities like endurance sports.

Emily got into gold mining by accident. She got her vocal performance degree and wanted to study in Vienna, Austria to study german language and music there and she needed money for her masters.

She had a friend mining in Nome and her and her dad and friends discussed going up and diving for gold.

She wasn’t connected to the fishermen in Homer. She was poor, her dad worked on the slope, and her mom was a teacher. Her friend was looking for kin up in Nome, because it was isolating. Her and her dad got up to Nome and heard Discovery channel was there scouting talent.

They were working and diving and Discovery found them and started filming with them. Getting the show was random and serendipitous. She signed a contract with Discovery her second year. It was a multi-season. She did her first year in Nome then went to Austria to live and she ran out of money. Discovery called and asked her to do a special and flew her back. She literally had no money. That was the start of it. Then she signed a contract with them.

She has an agent now and worked with them in the past. She does her job to the best of her ability - meaning being a gold miner. Discovery is there on an observational business. They try to keep things organic and they’re a fly on the wall. She doesn’t personally watch the show, not since season 1, because she doesn’t want to watch their version of reality on Bering Sea Gold.

Emily’s advice is don’t read what people say. She has people say very kind things and people say horrible things. She tries not to engage with either. If people say they love her or they say they hate her - they are wrong either way. People aren’t interested in the truth, they’re interested in the power of their feelings. She has no ill will towards people who criticize her.

It’s been a struggle to shelf her opera singing career. Filming the second season Emily had some near-death diving experiences and someone took their own life. She came back after that and everyone in Nome thought she was useless and stupid and she couldn’t get a job.

She bought a boat then to be an owner and a manager rather than being diver.

Opera vs pop music. Opera is like a poem. It’s a richer form of music than pop.

Emily is interested in staying involved in media if there’s a great story to tell but has no interest in becoming an internet influencer for profit. She has a few sponsors like Arctic Cat and Lincoln Welder which help her stay in good equipment.

Advice to anyone in entertainment - don’t let it define you.

How to Be a Successful Youtuber with Annemarie Chase - TAS #5 Mar 27, 2020

This week on The Alaska Show Podcast we sit down with Annemarie Allen, also known as "Annemarie Chase" on her successful Youtube channel with almost 140k subscribers. Annemarie and I discuss what it takes to be a successful content creator, growing up in Anchorage, Alaska vs Lower 48, and how a social media presence can give us personal and professional leverage.

Alex and JJ are socially distancing. Alex talks about the definition of "clean" in the age of Coronavirus.

(0:00) Intro/The Definition of "Clean"

(8:10) Annemarie Chase

TheAlaskaShow@gmail.com

IG @AlaskaShow @AlexanderTrokey www.TheAKShow.com

THE ALASKA SHOW HAS INTERNS Mar 21, 2020

Yes, you read that correctly. The Alaska Show has interns. Four of them, to be exact.

Harrison, Kobe, Fleet and Nisarg, all sophomores (and friends) at UNC Chapel Hill came up to Alaska for their spring breaks this year to create content for The Alaska Show. They went on the adventure of a lifetime starting in Anchorage to see the start of the Iditarod, then to adventures in Girdwood, and snow machining and fishing in Homer.

On this special episode we catch up with them on the last day of their trip. Alex and JJ talk about how they ended up in Alaska and we dive deep on topics like the value of a college education, how the job market is changing, Alaskan vs Lower 48 values, and how there's no career road map for young people anymore.

Meet the interns:

Nisarg Shah @nisargshah36

Fleet Wilson @fleetwilson

Harrison Lewis @hlewis99

Kobe Roseman @koberoseman

Find us at www.TheAKShow.com, @AlaskaShow on Instagram, @TheAlaskaShow on FB, or find Alex and JJ on Instagram @AlexanderTrokey and @JCoe_Photographer

Show Notes

Intro - how they got here

Alaska in the winter as a tourist vs a local

When modern values come into conflict with old-school Alaskan traditions - Iditarod/dog sled racing, commercial fishing, big game hunting

Is The Alaska Show journalism? How journalism is changing with new technology and outlets.

Everyone needs to make content. People are making money with IG accounts and becoming “influencers” on social media, and there is no roadmap for it.

Career paths are changing so quickly - can college education keep up? What’s the value of college in today’s age?

The value of learning.

How to Be a Highliner with Steve Tutt - HAP #35 Mar 18, 2020

Today on The Homer Alaska Podcast we sit down with Steve Tutt, captain of the F/V Redemption, a 55-foot seiner, to talk fishing. We talk about his business of chartering Feeder King Salmon trips in the winters out of Homer and seining Prince William Sound in the summers. We also discuss the lifestyle around fishing - how to make it a career and managing a family - as well as the difference between captains who risk it for the big catch vs playing it safe.

In an attempt to escape Coronavirus news Alex and JJ discuss things they love about Alaska and we talk to Jessica Powell, Speech Language Pathologist at South Peninsula Hospital, about swallowing disorders.

(0:37) Intro/Why We Love Alaska

(12:40) Jessica Powell at South Peninsula Hospital

(17:28) Steve Tutt

Facebook.com/TheAlaskaShow

IG: @AlaskaShow @AlexanderTrokey @JCoe_Photographer

Interview Notes

Captain of the F/V Redemption - summertime seiner in Prince William Sound - charter boat for Homer King Fishing in the winter.

Steve’s son Eric got the idea to chartering the vessel in the wintertime instead of just sport fishing themselves.

Steve started fishing at 8 years old with his dad. Now his sons are getting into fishing. All the fishing they did was not local, so they started this chartering business Homer King Fishing in order to be local.

There are 3-4 guys that run winter charter operations. It’s more of a sporadic business in the summer. Maybe one charter a week - and if the weather’s bad they might go a couple weeks without one. But there’s a fraternity of guys who charter fish and exchange fishing information.

They seine in the summer, big game hunt in September, then roll right into winter King Salmon chartering.

Homer is becoming a real destination for winter fishing because of the Winter King Derby, especially over the last 4-6 years. It’s brought a lot of notoriety to this area.

Steve’s clientele in the winter isn’t just Alaskans - they get clients from all over the country. It’s a tough business because you can spend a ton of money and not get a lot of action. They have an online presence and need to work on the cheap initially. Word of mouth works well for them. They use FishAlaska and KGTL for advertising.

The winter chartering isn’t a big business. It’s partially a passion and partially Steve trying to help his son Eric get a sport fishing business off the ground. It also gives Steve a chance to really connect with the community and clients in a deeper way.

The feedback they get is “you make us feel like family”

A lot of their clients are slope workers, military groups, and business people.

Steve runs the only commercial fishing vessel that charters here in the winter. It’s a good chance for people to experience life on a true Alaskan commercial fishing boat.

“Winter Kings” or “Feeder Kings” are in the phase of life where they are feeding. It’s distinct from the “spawning” phase when most of the flesh oil has gone into reproduction. When people have complaints about salmon that it’s dry or overdone, usually that’s from spawning salmon. Winter kings are very rich and oily.

The first year Steve fished was 1969 with his dad when he was 8. His dad was only a few years into the seine fishery at the time but also gillnetted on copper river flats. He had a 36 foot wooden boat. The whole operation was just $18,000 and no permits required. But the income level was negligible. $40-50k was a huge season. Today the insurance bill is higher than that gross. But it was a more carefree era in fishing.

Steve loved fishing as a kid. Even when they threw the anchor down he’d have a hand line down for halibut.

By the time Steve was 12 he was running the skiff - full time by the time he was 14 or 15. By 19 he got his first gillnetting boat and fished Copper River in Prince William Sound. Steve had his sons on the boat at age 5 and by the time they were 17 all three of his boys got their own boats and started fishing. So they have several generations of fishermen.

Back in the days in Homer there were “hill toppers” and “hill siders.” The people closer to town were generally better off.

Late 70s herring started to stretch out to Togiak west of Dillingham. That area has the biggest herring fishery in the world. When Steve started Herring fishing - the first part would start in Sitka southeast, but they would go from there to Kamishak in Cook Inlet, maybe out to Kodiak and then out to Togiak. Price was $100 up to $2,000 a ton. Steve’s last year herring fishing he crewed for a guy and over a month and a half he got less than he would’ve made at McDonald’s.

Fishing herring is different than salmon. It’s a big slam and jam rodeo often. They don’t run along the shore like Salmon do. They’ll run in lines or sometimes school up in huge masses. They were always looking for bigger masses like 200-300 ton schools. But those schools would draw the most competition.

Steve doesn’t love the competitive aspect of herring fishery. His fishing strategy is always to get away from people and find a place where there might not be as many fish, but you can get a good whack at it. Generally they’ve been at the top of their game with that strategy.

What Steve has found is his strategy doesn’t work for everybody. No matter how much time you spend fishing there’s still a massive learning curve.

There are people who will risk it for a big gain and people who will go for a steadier income. That is true within the fishing industry as well. Some people will go to the safe places and some will go for the big win.

Steve is spending every waking moment when he’s not fishing surveying. Figuring out fish patterns and going out and looking around.

Steve’s approach is different and carries inherent insecurity.

Bristol Bay is a fishery where you have to go really hard. Sleep is almost non-existent. He ran five-man crews the last few years he was there. Steve could go 24 hours a day with just naps, but he couldn’t expect older teenagers to do that.

Steve doesn’t care about age or experience in a deckhand. He wants a good attitude above all and someone who can work hard with little fear.

If you can get 4-5 years out of a good deckhand that’s a good stretch nowadays. When he started there would be lifetime crewmen to draw on. Part of that reason is that it takes more money now to live than it did if you want to move beyond hand-to-mouth existence. Used to be that if a crewman fished and made 30-50k they could live off that and raise a family. Part of it is also the college culture where people feel they have to go that route.

What Steve did with his kids was help them buy their boats and refurbish the whole thing. From 17-25 they got a college education on their own stuff. All three of his sons married girls with college degrees. They didn’t go to college because they couldn’t have, they just chose a different path.

With Steve and his wife - fishing works for them because when Steve is home he’s home. But some couples couldn’t survive fishing. It is almost worse to be a full time business owner all year being on call all the time.

Is fishing hard on family life or does the industry just attract type-A, compulsive, impulsive people? Chicken or the egg question.

People with ADD make good fishermen. There are tons of different systems and things to engage with and a lot to do. Eric’s sons all started out gill-netting which is a simpler fishery. He found they weren’t as driven. But when they started seining they were much more engaged.

Gill-netting is just as strategic of a fishery as seining, but it’s not as complex to operate.

Steve didn’t grow up in Homer, but he met his wife when he was 14 visiting his father over winter break in Homer. When he moved to Homer after high school he told his wife that they were going to get married.

Homer is becoming more of a destination. There are bigger and nicer boats, and wealthier people buying second homes here.

What’s changed is that this isn’t a little sleepy fishing village anymore. That was back in the day. But between tourism and chartering and some cruise ships and these second homes this has become a real destination on a lot of fronts.

Cordova is the most underrated destination in southcentral Alaska. It’s one of the most beautiful places when the sun’s shining and one of the most depressing places when it’s not.

Alaska's First Solar Farm with Jenn Miller and Chris Colbert - TAS #4 Mar 11, 2020

This week on The Alaska Show we sit down with Jenn Miller and Chris Colbert, CEO and CFO, and husband and wife co-founders, of Renewable IPP. Renewable IPP recently expanded its Willow, AK solar pilot project into a full-blown 1.2 MW utility-scale solar farm and went live with delivering energy to Alaskans via Matanuska Electric Association in December of 2019. In this interview we discuss the economics of solar in Alaska, how they got started, getting project financing, and how four partners from the oil industry can move renewable energy forward in Alaska.

Alex and JJ discuss postponing The Homer Alaska Podcast Anniversary Part and the Coronavirus.

Intro/Postponing Event/Coronavirus (0:51)

Interview with Jenn Miller and Chris Colbert (15:38)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkp_iaWCQaqpzUZD_f4uHrQ/videos?view_as=subscriber

IG @alaskashow

Facebook.com/TheAlaskaShow

Interview Notes

Jenn Miller is CEO, Chris Colbert is CFO of Renewable IPP - they are husband and wife. Sam and Grant are the other partners.

“Renewable IPP” is a general name they came up with so they can leave their options open for other types of renewables. IPP stands for Independent Power Producer meaning it sells its power to the grid.

The 1.2 MW solar farm in Willow, AK went live in December 2019 selling energy to MEA. It’s twice the size of any solar installation in the state. It was a $1.5M undertaking.

They went live in December so they could squeeze construction into 2019. They have to do the financing, feasability screen and construction all then. They rushed to get all the DC electric work and panel work one in November. The final interconnection took place early December. It’s a tight window that controlled when they came online. They wanted to move as fast as possible to show they could do it.

They completed the 140KW pilot project in Oct/Nov 2018. They wanted to do a full expansion in a year. Also, in 2019 there were federal tax incentives. The incentives step down in 2020.

They are confident that economic feasibility will continue to make solar viable as incentives step down.

There is no storage with the project - just grid-tie. They want to keep cost per watt low and keep costs to the utility low and keep power low to their members.

Alaska is an interesting solar market because in the summer as the state has the most activity there’s plenty of sunshine.

Chris says utility-scale renewable energy projects have explode across the US in the last couple of years. In Alaska there’s been a lot of residential solar, but no utility-scale. But if you look at a solar installation map of Alaska and compare it to a country like Germany, Alaska actually has a little more solar resource potential just distributed unevenly throughout the year.

Jenn thinks there’s a perception change to get through. Everyone at the beginning assumed they would go to Arizona or Colorado and that it wouldn’t work in Alaska. They had to come in and prove they could do it at a low cost.

The big driver of lower costs in the last few years is solar panel manufacturing has reached a scale where it’s very efficient and the panels are cheap. Wind and solar are the cheapest forms of renewable energy right now. In Alaska you have to be creative to keep costs down because shipping is expensive.

Even in the three years they’ve done the home project, pilot, and now this project, Jenn says they’ve seen a 5-10% reduction in solar panel cost already.

The federal tax incentive is one of the most successful programs. The Lower 48 created big demand and drove panel prices down and now the economics work in Alaska.

Oil investments might have a higher return, but they’re very high-risk, very expensive projects. Renewables are much more predictable, much more financially accessible, and still generate a healthy return.

100% of the power is sold to Matanuska Electric Association. Every electron that is generated off Renewable IPP’s panels go straight onto the grid through a meter. It has to be consumed instantaneously. There’s no valve to turn it on and off regularly, only emergencies. It just flows onto the grid as needed.

Matanuska Electric was extremely supportive of the project. They helped Renewable IPP team a lot and met with them frequently to work everything out. Jen says utilities a lot of time don’t have that reputation, but a lot of the utilities are member-owned and 72% of people in the Valley voted to get more renewable energy.

Took a lot of time to figure out how to do project financing and work the tax incentives into the cash flow models. That was a big challenge. It was a few months of working in excel, reading and talking to accountants. They had some basic cash flow modeling experience, but it took them a while to work through it.

Engineering vs finance. In engineering you have physics and structure to work towards a right answer. In finance you put the human into the equation. It’s not necessarily about the right or perfect answer, it’s about getting everyone to work together. To Chris it was a business/financial problem not a technical problem.

Jenn says they learned from the cashflow modeling that $1,000 models. They were 1.5% below budget on the Willow project. It’s so important to manage the upfront costs because overages will destroy the rate of return.

They might miss in some areas, but they’ll make it up in others. Going into the expansion they learned what they actually spent on the pilot and worked it into the expansion. They went into the projects knowing what they had to really execute on. They could be $10k off in one area, but if they’re over in another they knew they’d be over $200k off. All the partners are experienced in construction and designed the incentives so they knew if they overran they had no profit.

The pilot project was a straight-up out of pocket test. All of the technical and economic feasibility went into the pilot. The partners bought the land and designed the thing and built it themselves. They actually beat the cost model for materials and revenue came in on-target for the first year and the federal tax incentives worked as they thought it would, which gave them the real confidence to turn around and go to the expansion.

Now that they’ve delivered on the expansion project, are they seeing more doors open up? Jen says definitely. They became a licensed general contractor and hired people and had the full cost model and proved they could do it on-budget and on-schedule. That gave them a lot of credibility with investors.

Financing. Debt financing from Alaska Energy Authority Power Project Fund set up to fund Alaska energy projects. It’s a state organization. It was a good way to get validation for their project. It’s a very detailed application process - like one you would go through with a bank. They were excited to fund a solar project and new investment in Alaska. They ended up being a great partner.

For the private side they put together a pitch deck and went on a roadshow. This was new for Chris and Jen because they were pitching something the investors weren’t used to seeing. They were still nailing down the exact project and business structure. As they talked to one investor they would learn more details they needed to nail down. Jen said they realized it would be uncomfortable and they would have to push through.

During that time they discovered Silicon Valley the tv show and watched the characters on the show pitch stuff they could relate to.

In Alaska the investment community is still growing. It’s a good place to figure it out and grow. It’s not so threatening.

What does the investment community look like in Alaska? Some of it is people Jenn and Chris know in Oil and Gas. Some of it is presentation to random people. You can’t just go to the “investor store.” But if you have success people kind of come out of the woodwork. It’s been interesting for them to see the evolution.

Jenn says the investor community is grassroots. They spend a lot of time testing opportunities and doing presentations to connect to new groups and people. They learned about the PPF through a presentation.

What does it take to maintain a solar farm over time? From the maintenance side, it’s pretty minimal. You have to brush snow off the panels in the winter. That’s something you can manage because production is not super high in the winter. The snow will melt too, but there’s economic benefit to keeping up with the snow. They were able to test, with the pilot, how often they have to go clear snow based on the weather forecast. Maintenance-wise it’s just clearing snow and mowing the lawn in the summer. It’s low-maintenance compared to traditional forms of power generation. The panels have very long lives. They still have working panels from the 70s. They are assuming 30-year project life. You know what your equipment costs are so it’s easy to forecast.

The construction phase is the most significant lift. O&M is manageable.

How has the public received your project? The true public sentiment will drive renewables. That’s what utilities are looking to to see if they really need to invest in renewables. An MEA survey helped them get online. Chris thinks the true sentiment out there is positive.

Jenn and Chris will do community outreach as they look at doing a project. They want the neighbors to receive them well. The neighbors have been supportive. The farm is extremely quiet, and sometimes people are glad there won’t be a major store or anything being built there. They did a media release for the Willow expansion. The major thing they want people to know is they’re not increasing energy costs and they aren’t just taking state money. Solar installer is actually the fastest-growing job in the nation. They hired 13 people for their last project and are looking to bring 50-65 into the next one.

The AEA loan means the State of Alaska is getting good money from the loan and significant property taxes go to the local government.

Jenn is optimistic about oil and gas in Alaska. It’s created a lot of investment dollars here and the outlook is positive. For Hillcorp, Prudhoe Bay is going to be their star asset and they’ll be eager to invest in that field. Conoco is looking at new development. She thinks there’s rejuvenation and new interest in the North Slope. Jen is a BP employee currently, but switching to solar full-time. She thinks BP is setting a good example in being a leader in acquiring renewables assets. It’s all energy and one of the great things with the solar farm is they get carbon credits.

Three out of the four partners have had FT jobs. In February Jen Miller will move to full time solar. Chris became interested in solar energy reading articles in 2016 that said solar is now the cheapest form of new installation in the world. He thought it would be cool to produce power for his house. When he took another look in 2018 he saw how much costs came down. They did a DIY project on their house initially and saw how cheap it was. Then they started looking at a large-scale system with their partner Sam. It all looked like it was working.

This has come out of Chris’s entrepreneurial spirit. He did a lot of investing in his spare time and thought it was interesting and wanted to own a business and see if he could make the jump from employee to entrepreneur.

Jenn saw the economics were there. They initially looked at doing residential, but that was a ton of little projects. She thought they could achieve a huge social benefit. There was only 3 MW of installed solar before Summer of 2019 in Alaska. Renewable IPP alone increased that by 30%, which was excited. All of the partners are entrepreneurial and care about reducing the carbon footprint of the state. She liked the idea of doing a couple big projects well rather than a bunch of small ones.

When was the moment they decided to commit? They decided over beers. Had to move partner meetings to coffee shops from breweries when they started making big decisions. All the government incentives are designed for you to do this as a for-profit rather than a non-profit. In the non-profit space there are too many “if-thens” and they thought they could have a bigger impact as a business.

Have Chris and Jenn always worked together this closely as a married couple? Until recently they worked at BP together. They worked in Colorado together at a small company for a while. It wasn’t a big deal for them to work together. Chris and Jen have always been very appreciative of each others’ capabilities. They lift each other up. One of the drivers for Jen to do the business is she and Chris get to have their own life outside of work where they run the business together.

Jenn thinks it would be harder to do it without the other person, because it’s all nights and weekends. Chris has always been super supportive of Jenn running the show and wearing the CEO title. The positions in the company came from people’s logical interests. Jen was the obvious choice for the CEO - she’s the best with people and is the best project manager. The CFO position was good for Chris because that’s what he was interested in. Sam is kind of an inventor at heart so he manages operations and is inventing snow removal devices and making things more efficient. He’s intereste in the electrical side. Grand is a civil structural engineer whcih is important to lower the cost of sub-structures.

Initially the positions were more “outward-looking” for investors, but it’s allowed them to have autonomy in their role. They have snow clearers that work for them part-time, but are looking to bring on foremen and project managers for the next project. They want to build construction capability in-house.

Everyone this summer worked really hard and well in the summer.

Now they’re trying to put together a 7MW project for the next phase. They’re in technical screening with the utility. They’re figuring out how to fit the system without major grid upgrades.

Jenn thinks progress in solar is going to improve exponentially.

Eagles are Terrible Co-Pilots with Stephanie Greer - HAP #34 Mar 05, 2020

This week on The Homer Alaska Podcast we sit down with Stephanie Greer, the founder and chief pilot of Beryl Air air taxi service in Homer. She talks to us about her suffocating first few months in Alaska working in a gold mine, how the freedom of air travel lured her into being a pilot, the perils of bear guiding on Katmai, why floatplanes are the best, and the aviation tourism industry in Homer.

Alex, JJ, and special guest Ilse discuss an airman at JBER peeing in the office coffeemaker, what to do about people dying to see the "Into the Wild" bus, and events.

We also talk to Dr. Neil Schott of South Peninsula Hospital Rehab Clinic about knee injuries!

Best of Alaska News and Events (0:39)

Dr. Neil Schott on Knee Injuries (14:44)

Interview with Stephanie Greer (20:51)

Interview Notes

Stephanie Greer is the Owner, Founder, and Chief Pilot of Beryl Air, a Part 135 air taxi based in Homer, Alaska.

Beryl Markham wrote a book called “West with the Night” that Stephanie loves. She was a pilot, horse trainer, and adventurer in Africa. Great storyteller. First pilot to cross the Atlantic against the tradewinds - East to West. She was born in 1902 and was a counter-cultural figure.

West with the Night is a collection of short stories that weaves Beryl’s life together. Stephanie loves the way she weaves stories together and is a “jill-of-all-trades” with different stories from different pursuits.

Stephanie was already flying commercially when she first discovered “West with the Night.” She got into flying commercially in her mid-20s. She came up to Alaska as a private pilot to work for her Uncle in his gold mine in the interior. She had stopped aviation by then because she didn’t want to be a “bus driver.” But when she saw small planes working doing different jobs in Alaska she worked on her ratings more to get her commercial license.

Alaska really struck Stephanie right away. She was blown away by the stories people have here. It didn’t feel like anywhere else she’d been.

Stephanie worked in her uncle’s small plaster/strip-mine. She worked for crew share. The mine was up in Fortymile, close to Chicken. The Fortymile is the Alaska side of the Klondike, where there was the original gold rush. Her Uncle was 10 hours from Tok. They used Cats and heavy equipment to dig up dirt and run it through sluice boxes. Everyone is really remote - maybe 4-5 hours from their neighbor. There are tiny towns like Chicken (population 17) and Boundary (population 6), but if you needed supplies, for example the nearest Napa was in Tok. Her uncle said “redundancy is really important.” You need the part to fix the part to fix the part.

Nome is more where they dredge. They used to dredge Fortymile, but it’s mostly strip mines.

Stephanie grew up in Minneapolis. That’s where she came from. Being remote in the Alaskan wilderness made her “claustrophobic.” It made her feel trapped. You could get out, but there wasn’t everything at your fingertips including communication and needs. People describe it to her now that they feel that way when her plane leaves when she drops people off. At the end of the first mile she walked out of the mine 27 miles to the road. They couldn’t get a vehicle out, but she couldn’t stay any longer. Her plan was to hitchhike, but when she got to town everyone in Boundary - population 6 - was gone. So she broke into one of the cabins and slept the night. The next morning the mail plane came in - a super cub. She got a ride with him back to town. That plane ride sparked her aviation interest. She saw how an airplane opened up the state.

In Bush Alaska it was kind of an unofficial policy to leave your place open and you left dry wood for the next person. Stephanie thinks people are getting more closed off from that. Additionally, it’s harder to hitchhike. She thinks culturally we’re closing off to helping people.

Is Alaska’s culture in the past or is it a parallel universe?

Can you run the state with podcasters?

Stephanie was born and raised in Minneapolis. She wanted to go away and go to school and went to North Carolina for college. Because of how different it was in North Carolina she was inspired to travel and see other places. Besides the weather, she thought the racial divisions were very different. In college black kids and white kids still sat on other sides of the cafeteria in the late 90s. Kids were still being bussed to school there. The girls went to debutante balls.

Stephanie went to school on an army scholarship. She got her private pilots license in high school but didn’t fly in college. Her dad sold weather computers and he traded a computer to a flight school for pilot lessons for him and his kids.

She blew her back out snowboarding before the end of college and didn’t have to go into the army. All of her peers went to Iraq - she was glad she didn’t have to go. She then got a job as a bus driver and did the goldmine and became a pilot.

Stephanie’s first pilot job was with Smokey Bay air in Homer flying mail and people and things to and from Seldovia, Port Graham and Nanwalek. Did that for a few years then bought a float plane in Minnesota and flew it up to Homer. Then worked for Stellar Air and started her own business four years ago.

Everything becomes a job at some point no matter what you do. It’s really cool to be a connection to those communities. You see the same people over and over and become a part of their life. You take people to the doctor. You take pregnant women to have a baby and then take them back home. Take pets to the vet and deliver pizza. You don’t just bring cargo, you’re truly a taxi. Everything you’d put in the minivan in the lower 48 you put in a Cessna here.

The weirdest thing Stephanie ever delivered was an eagle in a crate.

The advantage of float planes is they give you access to tons of places. It’s also the most fun parts of planes and boats combined. When Stephanie took a float plane lesson the first time she just loved it.

The biggest differences are mostly in takeoff and landing and taxing around on the water.

Stephanie has had a lot of run in with wildlife. Had to jump a bear once in a plane and almost hit a swimming moose.

Stephanie sees a lot of bears - almost everyday in the summer - because she does bear guides in Katmai in the summer. There’s a controversy whether to name the bears or not.

Surprisingly there are no bear guiding licenses. We can only see the bears at Katmai because we don’t feed them.

Most people get surprisingly complacent about bears. Photographers tend to be especially complacent to get a great picture.

Large human populations don’t mix well with salmon and bears.

Stephanie explores and creates some trips and others are pretty standard. One trip she created was trips to go see walrus haul out in Bristol Bay. Last year the haul out moved. The fishermen and the biologists know where they are.

Walrus are actually bigger than bears. But you have to be careful because they will spook easily and trample each other.

The haulout is very loud and they stink. There’s anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of animals. Walrus change color. When they come out of the water and they’re cold they’re pink.

She also takes people flying over volcanoes and the Pacific ring of fire, harding ice fields, and Kenai Fjords.

Some of Stephanie’s favorite clients are the Alaskans who plan more creative hunting or hiking trips.

There’s a new big trend of people who want to see all the national parks. These tourists have a passport and want to stamp it for all the parks.

Seaweed, The Next Deadliest Catch with Jared Fuller - TAS #3 Feb 26, 2020

This week on The Alaska Show Podcast we sit down with Jared Fuller, CTO at Saltwater Inc in Anchorage, to discuss fisheries observers, why Alaska's seafood resources are so well-managed, opportunities and risks in aquaculture and commercial fishing in Alaska, and working with other countries in management and innovation.

Alex and JJ discuss Fairbanks Comic-Con with a special insider report, changes in Alaskan liquor laws, and Fur Rendezvous in Alaska News and Events.

Intro, News and Events (1:20)

Interview with Jared Fuller (10:55)

More blogs, vids, and pods by us www.TheAKShow.com

IG @alaskashow @alexandertrokey @jcoe_photographer

Facebook.com/TheAlaskaShow

Show Notes

News:

- Inside scoop on Comic Con in Fairbanks by special on-scene reporter Rita

- New bill in Senate Finance Committee could change the way Alaskans drink about breweries, wineries, and distilleries

Events:

- Fur Rondy Carnival and Sled Dog Races this weekend

Interview

Fisheries observation is about gathering data about the fishing stock and understanding the heath of the resource.

Observers are in cod and pollock mostly in Alaska. Also in the Rockfish fishery. They’re on small to large vessels.

Observers are not in Salmon or Crab, which are done through the state.

State and federal agencies actually hire the fisheries observers.

When observers are on the boat the relationship between the observer and fishermen runs the gamut from fun and friendly to confrontational.

Jared is from Texas originally and his degree was in biology. He never grew up around the ocean or salt water. He got to experience, first hand, the difficulties of boat life as an observer.

Observer recruitment tends to happen at colleges that have big marine biology programs.

His first boat was a pollock boat out of Akutan. Pollock is a big trawl fishery – he went out in B season that starts in May. It was tough fishing – they were scratching and trying to find the fish. He had to get used to boat life. He’s always recording information and doing paperwork – documenting when fishing starts and when the bags go in and when they haul. They collect samples as they dump fish. They collect scientific specimens like fish ear bones for age data and checking roe to see the fertility of the fish.

Alaska's fisheries are known as being well-managed for a few reasons. One, the resource is so vast and productive. Two, management focuses on sustainability and took all the best lessons and from US history and applied it to Alaska.

Fisheries observers tend to be college students – they turn and burn. Jared stuck on with Saltwater Inc serendipitously. He injured his knee to the point of having to have surgery. At that point Saltwater was also playing around with electronic monitoring. They were looking for someone with computer skills, which Jared had, and someone who knew boats and biology as well. Saltwater was awarded a 120-vessel contract for swordfish and tuna on the east coast.

The term “electronic monitoring” is a catch-all for a lot of technology – sensors, video, etc. – that helps companies gather data without an on-scene observer. It took off for Saltwater in 2014 with this contract in the Atlantic after 2-4 years of research with pot cod fishermen in Alaska.

Alaska requires a lot of innovation and it creates a tenacious attitude among the fishermen and people. Saltwater Inc is one of the few companies that exports expertise and services from Alaska to the rest of the US.

Jared believes in recent years people are concerned about where their seafood comes from.

Fish don’t respect political borders - we all share the same ocean. It’s important that several countries are willing to come together and discuss sustainable management practices. There are treaties and regional management groups that do that.

Alaska’s economy is truly international. The fishing market is very connected to Asia, the airport is a gateway to the lower 48 for cargo from Asia.

Saltwater Inc has done different work with fisheries including marine mammal and protected species monitoring. Alaska Marine Mammal program - every few years they monitor a specific port that is fishing salmon and observe the salmon fleet and its interaction with marine mammals. That’s state business.

In Antarctica they’re doing private industry business. There are people fishing for Antarctic Toothfish, similar to Patagonia Toothfish aka Chilean Sea Bass. The group’s hope is to provide monitoring so fishermen are playing fair. Often fishermen want monitoring so that the playing field is level.

There’s a perception of commercial fishermen that they’re trying to steal from the ocean, but in reality fishermen care more about the resource than anyone.

If Jared had a crystal ball to see which fisheries do best and worst...the oceans are warming quickly, and the polar regions are warming faster than the equatorial regions. When you have changes in current and you don’t move cold water you won’t have the same productivity. Obviously the big one now is Pacific Cod in the Gulf of Alaska. There was a massive uptick in black cod. That change is happening very quickly. Everyone and every species will be connected by this because it’s all connected.

While oil brings in more state revenue - fishing is arguably much more important to the state on a community level.

Optimistically, the science, technology, and communication levels are higher than ever in the fishing business. There’s a huge push for fish traceability globally. People want to know where the fish is caught, who caught it, who processed it, and where it travelled.

The internet has opened up a lot of opportunities for fishermen - a lot of fishermen are developing their own marketing strategy and supply chain to go direct to consumer.

The big new commercial product potential out of Alaska’s oceans are seaweeds. They can be used from pharmaceuticals and cosmetics to biodegradable packaging and food. There will have to be a palate change for seaweed to really pick up in the US as a food, but there have been a lot of changes in the last 30 years and Jared things seaweed is possible to become popular food. Alaska’s coastline is so productive.

Shellfish farms like oysters are another exciting area of growth.

The permitting process for seaweed is trying to adapt to growing demand. There are big companies in Juneau and Kodiak - Barnacle and Blue Evolution, respectively.

Jared is working with a group that discusses with groups in the nordic countries to analyze where food is coming from and best practices in the northern regions of the world.

Americans aren’t big seafood eaters - even Alaskans aren’t compared to Europeans. The Nordic countries have a highly computerized processing industry, great fishing data, and a different stock and brokering assessment. They do fin fish aquaculture, which we don’t do here. They do more on the seaweed side as well because they have more sophisticated processing facilities for pharmaceutical and biotech uses.

The biggest aquaculture challenge in Alaska is logistics. How do you grow a product, process it, and get it to market?

In terms of using other products of the fish for other purposes than food, it’s very hard to do at small scale, but people are talking.

Becoming an Olympian at 27 with Holly Brooks - TAS #2 Feb 19, 2020

This week on The Alaska Show we sit down with Holly Brooks, owner of Holly Brooks LLC a counseling, coaching, and consulting service based out of Anchorage. www.HollyBrooks.com

Holly made her first Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 at the age of 27, then went on to represent the US Ski Team in 2012 and the country in 2014 in Sochi. We talk about fostering healthy high-performance young athletes, sports psychology, her childhood, how moving to Alaska and coaching the West Anchorage High School team laid the groundwork for her olympic run, her experiences as a pro athlete, and retirement.

JJ and Alex discuss news and events, including the overnight survival of four lost children in a blizzard in Western Alaska, the pros and cons of selling Alaska back to Russia, Iron Dog, Fur Rondy, and Alaska's first Comic Con.

Alaska News & Events with Alex and JJ (0:48)

Interview with Holly Brooks (13:48)

More blogs, vids, and pods by us www.TheAKShow.com

IG @alaskashow @alexandertrokey @jcoe_photographer

Facebook.com/TheAlaskaShow

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkp_iaWCQaqpzUZD_f4uHrQ/videos?view_as=subscriber

Intro

News Stories - Four children survive night outside in blizzard

Alaska being sold to Russia?

Events

Comic Con in Fairbanks
Fur Rondy Festival kicking off February 21
Iron Dog race ends in Big Lake this weekend

Show Notes

Ex-professional cross country skier

Professional career sort of book ended by two olympics. Famously qualified, by surprise, at age 27 for the 2010 Vancouver olympics, was a member of the US ski team in 2012 for the first women’s relay team, and went again to Sochi in 2014.

Formerly coached West Anchorage High School and APU ski teams

Found time to win the Mount Marathon race in there twice in 2012 and 2014

Since then has raised ski marathons all over the world in Europe and China

Now runs Holly Brooks LLC - Counseling, Consulting, and Coaching. Helping high performers, especially women athletes, dealing with everything around the actual performance. Stress management, preparing for big events, transitioning, setting goals, team dynamics, etc.

Rebranding her business

Holly is a curious person – her niche was working with athletes at the intersection of mental health and performance as an LPC – but it has expanded

Does speeching engagements, coaching, and therapy

Takes the tenets of sports psychology and applies it to other areas of life

Kids athletics today are all about early sports specialization and are trying to attain that college scholarship which often doesn’t exist. This has become the dominant model over the last decade in Holly’s view – which leads to mental burnout and physiology problems.

Alpine skiing was recently said to cost $500,000 to get a kid from youth to the professional level. It’s prohibitively expensive.

Sports performance is tied into all areas of life. Someone who comes to Holly to work on sports psych skills might be forced to address anxiety, outcome-driven attitude, strained parental relationships, and self-worth problems.

Holly came from the polar-opposite of this high-pressure performance environment. Holly’s story offers hope to her clients because she didn’t make the Olympics until age 27. She is a self-proclaimed “mediocre skier” from Seattle, Washington.

Holly uses the term “clients” rather than “patients”

Most common struggles kids have with performing in sports is loving the process over striving for a certain outcome. An outcome perspective causes anxiety. She tries to implement the 95-5 rule – 95% of your thoughts should be spent on the process and just 5% on the outcome. The outcome is necessary and good for motivation, but most people should focus more on the process.

Holly makes her clients figure out the process and write down how they get to a certain outcome that includes training, skills, sleep, diet, and overall health.

She likes to work on a sustainability plan with her clients. What makes her clients happy? How will they do that? People can’t engage in their training plan if they hate what they’re doing.

Holly can work with clients on changing their individual thought process, but it’s hard when they go to a team or culture that is outcome-driven.

Holly thinks the Olympic culture has forgotten that athletes are actually people. There’s a bottom-up movement to focus on people-first, which is a paradigm shift, especially on the back of the Larry Nassar scandals.

Holly is trying to work with more teams rather than individuals, but it’s tough because the coach has to be progressive enough to bring in a consultant to work with everyone.

Kids should be picky and choosy about what team culture they go into in college.

Due diligence for college team culture:

Team retention data from the Athletic Director – how many kids come in and then drop out?
Go to a meet or race – see how the team interacts. Is everyone talking to each other and having fun?
Go out to lunch with someone on the team to get more insight on the culture.

Nature vs Nurture. Holly was in a situation where her love of the sport grew. Her best memories were skiing with her family, so it was a very positive experience that was filled with love that let her go the distance. These days, she thinks a lot of people do things they’re good at but don’t love. It’s important to be immersed in a nurturing environment to have that love for the sport build. Because of that Holly still skis to this day, as opposed to many people who retire and don’t ever play their game again because they aren’t as good.

She encourages parents to value good coaches and culture over just a high-winning record. Holly, as a coach, spent more time with her kids than their teachers or even parents. If the coach is a really good role model that’s a huge win. Kids with no love for a sport have no resilience, which is necessary 100% of the time to make it to a high level.

Holly grew up in Seattle, Washington – she was a proper city girl in the grunge era – even building a shrine at Kurt Cobain’s house when he died.

There’s a very small Nordic skiing culture in Seattle. She has triplet siblings, who were her teammates, and her parents were coaches. She represented the PNW at some Junior Olympics and was always middle of the pack. For college she decided to go to the west coast and went to Walla Walla Washington. She never made NCAA and ended her senior year sick.

She decided to move somewhere to be immersed in ski culture rather than living in the rain and driving to the snow. So she moved with a teammate to Alaska. Chose to be the West Anchorage ski coach for basically $2.50 an hour. That decision to coach skiing rather than take a job in the “outdoor” sector was pivotal and set her on a track to becoming an Olympian, because she wouldn’t have had nearly the natural amount of training she did as a coach.

Alaska is the epicenter of cross-country/Nordic skiing in Alaska. Obviously it’s because we have lots of snow October thru May, although Holly says that’s changing. Alaska also has glacier training facilities for summer training. APU has one outside of Girdwood – one of 3 or 4 in the world. There’s a lodge that holds 25 people and a commercial kitchen, and the elite team trains there one week a month in the summer. Alaska is the epicenter of access to snow and the culture around that.

Glacier ski camp. If the weather is good it’s the most beautiful thing ever, if the weather is bad it’s horrible. There is no visibility and they’re “skiing by braile” just following orange pulls. If they get lost they could ski into a crevasse.

She had 100 kids on West Anchorage team – students from the national champion to literally kids who have never skied before. It was a big deal at the school and in the city culture, because Alaska doesn’t have other professional sports teams. The skiers are kind of the local sports stars. Holly ended up skiing for fun and work and got into really good shape – almost by accident. The level of general proficiency is really high in Alaska so other professionals around the city are really good.

What did Holly do good and what could she have done better at West Anchorage?

What she did good was building positive culture. Even with the disparity in skill she put a lot of effort into making them one team. She’d have team buddies and theme days and ra-ra stuff that worked. As a result kids supported each other. Varsity kids cheered for D-teamers. They would do things that would acknowledge things that had nothing to do with winning. For example at the West Anchorage HS Skiathlon, they decided to turn it into the Pie-athlon that including an eating contest after the ski race. Each team had to make one pie and one student had to eat the pie in front of 1000 kids. It let people who weren’t fast shine in a different way. It brought the team together and it was tons of fun. It created community and a positive culture.
What she could have improved was sustaining that setup. It was a hard time financially and wasn’t possible to sustain. She was putting forty hours a week into that plus other side jobs.

How do Olympians fund training and travel? Holly says people bootstrap it. A small handful of people are making a lot of money but the rest aren’t. There are tons of pressure during Olympic years because that’s the one time people care and smaller athletes can get sponsors and make some money. Every sponsorship comes with obligations including speaking engagements and such, and it cuts into your recovery time.

The US is the only Olympic committee that is privately funded. Every other country’s committee is publicly funded, and they get some kind of government stipend. Canadiens, for example, get $30k a year to be on the national team which helps a lot.

How to be Famous in Alaska with Atz Kilcher - HAP #33 Feb 12, 2020

This week we sit down with Atz Kilcher. You probably know Atz as the star of the "Alaska: The Last Frontier" reality tv show on Discovery Channel. You may not know that Atz is also an artist, a musician, a retired social worker, and a veteran. In this episode we talk about everything from his complex childhood on the homestead, people's misconceptions about living a simple life in the woods, being defined as the son of a famous father and father to a famous daughter, his children and how they've had to adjust to Jewel's early success as an internationally-renowned musical artist, talking about and coping with an abusive father, writing his memoir, and why the Kilcher family has made a splash in entertainment for so many generations.

If you would like to meet him and see his art Atz is having a First Friday show for his Flower Baskets at Bunnell Street Arts Center on Friday, March 6th!

We also talk to South Peninsula Hospital Physical Therapist Kristen Rubio about the power of pilates and the importance of stretching in injury prevention and Alex and JJ talk The Alaska Show and Homer events.

Check out www.TheAKShow.com for all of our new video and blog content in addition to the podcast.

Stay tuned for our one-year anniversary party on March 21st at Alice's Champagne Palace! Music by Robert Toner, prizes, games, and guests from Homer's thriving entrepreneurial scene!

Introduction (1:28) South Peninsula Hospital Rehab - Kristen Rubio (14:10) Interview with Atz Kilcher (19:03)

Show Notes

Intro

The artwork and name of the podcast has been changed to “The Alaska Show”

The Alaska Show Podcast and The Homer Alaska Podcast episodes are available under that show – episodes still released weekly!

Podcast now available on Google Play

Our anniversary party is on March 21st at Alice’s from 8-11pm! Games, prizes, music, special guests, and a great time!

Rehab – Kristen Rubio, PT

Physical Therapist specializing in pilates to help her clients

Discusses history of pilates and what makes it so effective as an exercise therapy.

Specific injuries and programs that she will address with pilates.

Injury tip – don’t forget to stretch!

Atz Kilcher Interview

Retired music educator, veteran

Atz’s baskets are going to be featured in Bunnell First Friday event on March 6th with another local artist – the show is called “Flower Baskets”

Does Atz still feel defined by his relationships with his famous father and daughter?

Sometimes Atz is recognized before his daughter now after the success of Alaska: The Last Frontier

Being famous is a skill – people either improve and grow from it or they let it go to their head

Started in music doing music shows in Anchorage and around the state with ex-wife Nedra and performing on radio.

When Yule Kilcher came from Switzerland in the 1930s to get away from the rising Nazi influence in Europe he made a movie about the Kilcher homestead so he could start a community.

The homestead where Atz grew up was simultaneously a beautiful, happy place and an abusive home environment as a result of his father’s actions.

What are the biggest misconceptions people have actually living and growing up on a homestead? “Happiness is the inner work you do, not living in the woods”

Atz was born in Switzerland and he went back when he was 10 so his dad could show the film. For two years he and his siblings got in lots of trouble.

Got drafted and shipped off to Vietnam. Lied about having a sleepwalking illness to get out of the draft and told a World War 2 veteran who turned him in.

Used to be a practicing Mormon. Converted when he was 17 because all of his friends’ families were Mormon. Dropped out when he was 35.

Recorded first LP with ex-wife Nedra in’76. Recorded second in ’78. At that point there weren’t many recording artists in Alaska. Started doing family shows around the state until ’83 when he and Nedra split and he came back to Homer.

Music and horses saved Atz’s life – both meant independence.

Atz and Jewel played music around the state together until she was 16.

Nikos – Atz’s fourth child, grew up later than the other three. He only spent a year with Atz at age 16 growing up, but has the musical gene. He works for forestry and is a firefighter

The oldest son Shane was always was into building and arts and crafts and outdoors and worked with Atz doing social work. Today he works with kids in Homer.

Atz Lee is a singer-songwriter and an outdoorsman.

His sons have had to learn to live in the limelight of their sister.

When Atz wrote his memoir the biggest challenge was to tell the truth about his home life and not give it an air of self-pity. He is most proud of the comments he gets from men his age who thank him for his courage to talk about his home life and have given them the courage to talk about it as well.

It’s easier to think about stories from his childhood after writing the book and doing the audiobook.

Alaska The Last Frontier inception: Some folks from Discovery were in Homer looking for homesteaders and were introduced to the Kilchers. After a sizzle reel and some interviews they got a show. It all happened very quickly – less than a month. The team didn’t even know they were related to Jewel, although Atz suspected otherwise. The show is now on its 9th season.

A lot of the Kilcher family has made it into the entertainment industry.

A lot of the people who watch the show say they’ve learned something

Early in the show narrators relied on drama and high-stakes. Most people understand the Kilchers don’t need a moose to eat for the winter, but the show depicts how life on a true homestead is lived.

The old Homer still exists in Atz’s mind. It’s harder to know everyone and there is more development, but he’s happy it’s progressing.

Only the Coast Guard Would Have Me with Captain Sean MacKenzie - TAS #1 Feb 07, 2020

Welcome to The Alaska Show Podcast! Seeing how Alaska really lives and works through the eyes of our exceptional people.

For our first episode we sit down with Captain Sean MacKenzie, head of Coast Guard Sector Anchorage. He talks to us about the extensive missions the Coast Guard has throughout Western Alaska and takes us through his storied career that has taken him from overseeing the NY Harbor on 9/11, to Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Arabian Gulf, to Washington DC and Brussels, to counter-narcotics operations in the South Pacific, and finally to overseeing the bulk of Coast Guard operations in Alaska.

Your hosts Josiah Coe and Alex Trokey also discuss the Coronavirus evacuee stopover at Ted Stevens International Airport, the Anchorage doctor found guilty of dentisting while on a hoverboard, and announce upcoming events including the Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks and the Ice Climbing Festival in Valdez.

Introduction, Events and News (1:41)

Interview with Captain Sean MacKenzie (9:51)

More content on https://www.theakshow.com/

Also check out "The Homer Alaska Podcast" wherever you listen to podcasts!

Interview Notes

Captain MacKenzie oversees Sector Anchorage with over 600 personnel under him

Career taken him from Northeast to New York Harbor on 9/11 to Iraq to California to Germany to Alaska

38 sectors in the Coast Guard

He was Coast Guard liaison to European command

Most people think the Coast Guard only does search and rescue in Alaska

Based on JBER in Anchorage

Fairly significant Coast Guard presence in Valdez with small boats, patrol boat, vessel inspection unit, and support element

Valdez has 125 people and Anchorage only has about 100 - terminus of the TAPS terminal makes it a key place

In 2014 the Coast Guard moved to JBER for better communications and use of other military infrastructure like force protection and medical care

The main Coast Guard Missions in Alaska are:

- Search and Rescue

- Law Enforcement and Fisheries Enforcement - enforcing fishing regulations

- Oil Pollution Response - keeping Alaska's environment pristine

- Facilities Inspections - inspecting things like bulk oil fuel facilities on maritime nexus

- Waterways Management - organizing traffic so everyone in a community can have safe access through waterways

- Vessel Inspections - proactively inspecting vessels for safety from deep draft to fishing vessels

- Investigations - if there is a marine casualty the Coast Guard inspects

Marine Safety Task Force

- Over 400 bulk oil storage facilities across western Alaska

- Typical village will have 4+ 12,500 gallon heating fuel storage tanks

- Much of this infrastructure is aging and number of oil spills are increasing

- This is a "trainwreck in slow motion"

- Marine Safety Task force is Sector Anchorage's pitch to get more resources to get these facilities inspected annually or bi-annually and help get funding to resolve issues

Captain MacKenzie born in Asheville, NC

The Coast Guard Academy was the only military academy that accepted him into college

Coast Guard Academy has changed culture to lower attrition rate from 50% when Captain MacKenzie went to school

Out of the Academy he worked a buoy tender in the Hudson River

Then Executive Officer of a 110-ft boat in 1994

Went and got a MBA in Financial Management in William and Mary with his wife Dorothy

Then did a financial tour

July 2001 took over command of 110-foot patrol boat ADAK

On 9/11/2001 ADAK was repairing steering system in Sandy Hook New Jersey and got the word a plane crashed into the World Trade Center

Cell phone towers were on the twin towers so the cell phones didn’t work

First coast guard ship on the scene and designate command of New York Harbor

On 9/11 had to facilitate emergency response logistics and stop people from entering Manhattan through the harbor

In command of the harbor through the first 12 hours after the World Trade Center attack

Other buildings fell down around the twin towers

The wind switched and blew ash and smoke into the harbor for a period

The Coast Guard responsibilities changed after 9/11 from fisheries law enforcement boat to homeland security

Trained for four months to deploy to Iraq: weapons training, doing ship maintenance, adding guns to the ship, gun shoots underway, chemical weapons training, and medical training

Loaded 4 110-foot patrol boats onto a commercial vessel and took them to Bahrain, then went to Arabian Gulf

The Coast Guard shifts and operates under the Navy during times of war. The Navy doesn’t build 110-foot patrol boats with knowledge that if they need them they will get them from the Coast Guard. They have a standard Navy communication suite on those ships, standard weapons and ammo, and crypto gear.

Mission in Iraq was to engage Iraq’s one patrol boat if necessary

Pulled three Iraqi POWs from sunken ship out of water

Did a congressional affairs tour in Washington, DC after Iraq

Then was stationed in Coronado, CA to do counter-narcotics operations

Took over as skipper on leased Seal Team 179-foot patrol boat that could do 36 knots painted with camouflage

Caught cocaine smugglers with two-boat boarding operation

Primarily caught fishing boats which only did 6-8 knots

Intercepted over 7 tons of cocaine worth hundreds of millions of dollars

Coast Guard ships as temporary floating prisons

Eating Fruit Loops Without Looking with Jeannie Greene - HAP #32 Jan 29, 2020

This week we sit down with Lieutenant Commander Jeanette Greene (AKA Jeannie), the captain of the USCG Cutter Hickory, to talk to her about growing up landlocked, attending the Coast Guard Academy, her transient military life, why technical shooting is nerdy, taking over command of the Hickory, and the death of her sister.

Alex and JJ discuss JJ's trip to Florida, Alaska's first stores to allow on-site marijuana consumption, the death of Kobe Bryant, and Homer events.

Also, more details on The Homer Alaska Podcast anniversary party on March 21st at Alice's!

Intro/Chewing the Fat (0:00)

South Peninsula Hospital Rehab - Rich Kleinleder PTA (16:54)

Interview with Jeannie Greene (23:59)

The story of Jeannie's sister in Mission BBQ Stories of Service: Molly Waters

https://missionbbq.info/training-camp/stories-of-service/item/83-stories-of-service-molly-waters-august-2019

NOTES

Military ceremony

The ease of leadership in the military

How people reach the top of the career ladder in the military and corporate America

Coasties who leave after 20 years and never want to see the ocean again

Growing up all over middle America

Seasickness

Entering the Coast Guard Academy

Why calculus is useless

Eating fruit loops without ever looking at them

Bonding with others in the Coast Guard Academy through shared crazy experiences

Joining the shooting team in college

Why shooting is nerdy

Did you know there are icebreakers in the great lakes?

Meeting her husband

Jeannie's coast guard career

Coast guard in Alaska

Taking over command of the Hickory

The death of her sister Molly Waters

Pugs and Portraits and Bears, Oh My with Austin Parkhill - HAP #31 Jan 22, 2020

This week we sit down with Austin Parkhill, professional artist, amateur hockey player, and full time human-and-pug-dad. Austin talks to us about growing up in Golden, Colorado, trying to go into the NHL, becoming a full-time portrait artist, his art, his first success in the National Portait Gallery in Washington, DC, moving from Boston to Utgiagvik, and the beautiful light in Homer.

With no JJ this week as co-host I (Alex) discuss the jet ski Rorschach test, housesitting, and question whether Homer Communications Facebook Group is a positive thing for this community.

Introduction (0:54)

Spoonful of Medicine with South Peninsula Hospital - Susan Hubbard (12:10)

Interview with Austin Parkhill (19:39)

Facebook

Instagram

Get Some Air with Chris Palmer - HAP #30 Jan 15, 2020

This week we sit down with Chris Palmer, the founder of Angle of Attack, an online ground school and Homer-based flight trainer. Chris talks to us about founding the company, why moving to Homer was the best decision of his life, his passion for aviation, and how and why he's built out extensive media and social media capabilities for his business.

JJ and Alex discuss the Eater article about Jeff Lockwood, Tyson Steele's harrowing experience in Susitna Valley, people posting videos of their dogs licking their faces, and announce THE HOMER ALASKA PODCAST ANNIVERSARY PARTY AND LIVE RECORDING AT ALICE'S ON MARCH 20TH.

Introduction/Chewing the Fat (1:15)

Spoonful of Medicine with South Peninsula Hospital - Edye Rathbun (13:32)

Interview with Chris Palmer (18:58)

Mentioned in the show - AviatorCast WWII Triple Ace Pilot Interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYUe0l_mibI

Interview Notes

- Instagram live vs interviews on a podcast

- Instagram as a platform

- "Motivation Monday" - Chris's flight training Q&A

- Chris is founder of Angle of Attack, which started as a flight simulator trainer and transitioned into ground and flight training for real planes

- Chris combines video and photography skills with flight skills and Alaska's beautiful landscape for his business

- He is certified to take students from "knowing nothing" to commercial pilot level

- Angle of Attack was already a location-independent business when he moved to Alaska

- Sells ground school courses online all over the world

- Chris started Angle of Attack as a 21-year-old in Utah. Grew up in an entrepreneurial family. His father was in real estate.

- After starting Angle of Attack, he helped a company called Cirrus Aircraft develop training materials

- Then pivoted into flight training

- Chris took Boeing manuals and deduced them down into a 10-hour DVD courses to fly a 747 within flight simulator game

- In 2009 realized he could deliver video better online instead of through DVDs and in 2010 the business blew up

- Chris was born in Anchorage and wanted to move to Homer after he visited at 19 an 23 for the view and the beautiful scenery

- Why moving to Homer was the best decision Chris ever made

- His 5-year break from flying

- The difference between the Alaska flying community and lower 48 flying community

- Transitioning from simulation training to real flight training

- Why winter is a tough time for Chris's business

- Instagram has been a facilitator for many of Chris's real life relationships

- Chris actually has the #1 podcast in Homer with AviatorCast

- The blurred lines between Angle of Attack as Chris's hobby and business

- The strengths and weaknesses of a podcast as a business development tool

- How the podcast opens other doors

- Chris's interview with a WWII Ace fighter

- Instagram is Angle of Attack's #1 business development tool

- The importance to Chris of WHY his customers fly

- Dealing with nervous students

- The biggest reasons people quit flight training

- Chris believes becoming a pilot changes people

- Why boat captains make great pilots

- Chris's favorite places to fly in Alaska

- Why Seldovia is easy to fly into and difficult to fly out of

- Flying above the arctic circle to Bettles

- Where people can fly in Homer

- Why bear viewing is arguably the best flight-based tourist trip around Homer

- The future of Angle of Attack

- Why Chris think Homer hasn't really changed in the last 10 years

Lost Shaker of Salt with Britni and Casey Siekaniec - HAP #29 Jan 08, 2020

This week we sit down with Britni and Casey Siekaniec, the husband and wife co-founders of Alaska Salt Co., to discuss the organic birth of the company, taking on Zac Brown as an investor, how they’ve grown so quickly in just three years, why they recently opened a new store in Anchorage, how they got together, and what makes them such a strong husband and wife team.

Introduction (0:51)

Events in Homer This Weekend (10:30)

Spoonful of Medicine with South Peninsula Hospital - Shay Hoffman (15:01)

Interview with Britni and Casey Siekaniec of Alaska Salt Co. (21:59)

Interview Notes

What Alaska Salt Co. does: harvest sea salt out of Kachemak Bay and make artisan culinary and cosmetic products

How they came up with the idea to harvest Kachemak Bay salt when Casey was commercial fishing scraping salt off the windows day-after-day

Why harvesting salt is better than harvesting fish

Why Kachemak Bay has lower salinity than the open ocean

How much salt is in a gallon of sea water

How Alaska Salt Co. started organically after giving salt they harvested to friends as gifts

The first sale in Spring in 2017

Selling salt online, in-store, and wholesaling

The challenges of selling salt online

The challenges of selling Kachemak Bay sea salt in Anchorage versus on the spit

The difference between Morton’s table salt (highly refined 98% NaCl, anti-caking agents) and unrefined sea salt (92% NaCl, no extra agents)

Why they opened the Anchorage mall location: storage and logistics in Anchorage, consistent business, no more shows

Why their store in Anchorage has sprinkles on the floor

Why staffing is the biggest challenge in the Anchorage store

What Britni and Casey look for in employees: committed to long-term growth with the company

The story of how Zac Brown approached Britni to invest in Alaska Salt Co. when they shared a store with Salmon Sisters

Zac Brown: “I’mma pour some jet fuel on this fire”

How the Zac Brown Collective offers support, creativity, and expertise to Alaska Salt Co.’s branding and design

The challenges of branding and designing a large product line

The best-selling products at Alaska Salt Co.: The sampler six-pack (15% of sales in last 6 months) and original Spit Salt jars

How Britni spear-headed expanding the product line beyond culinary salt and into cosmetics

The challenges of creating shelf-stable, safe cosmetic products from all-natural ingredients

How they divide up responsibilities:

- Britni: packaging, branding, product management, HR

- Casey, production engineer, finance, payroll, taxes

How their opposite skillsets make them a good business team

How they are still innovating in producing salt

They are moving to a new location and rebuilding the production process

Company size: 5 staff in Homer, 4 in Anchorage

Why shipping and access to materials is the toughest part of manufacturing in Alaska

Running out of salt

The lessons they’ve learned to never run out of their top 5 best-selling, highest-margin products

Why they sell products from other local makers on their website

The convergence of trends of young entrepreneurs creating natural products from the land in Homer

How Alaska Salt Co. has created a symbiotic relationship with local peony farmers to take blown peonies to naturally dye their cosmetic products

Buying a product from Alaska Salt Co. is actually an investment in a lot of Homer businesses

How they use salt instead of micro-plastics as a scrub in their cosmetics

90% plastic-free packaging

Renting out three rooms above the store as a side-hustle

Giving vacation renters shampoo and conditioner as a sales development tool

Britni and Casey have known each other for 7 years and been married for 4. They were setup by a mutual friend when she decided to stay for a winter after working for a summer

How commercial fishing taught them to work together

Why Casey got out of gillnetting in Cook Inlet

The story of the first $25,000 micro-loan Alaska Salt Co. received from the Kenai Peninsula Economic Development District

How they stretched their startup money with sweat equity

How Homer’s fishing DNA contributes to its entrepreneurial spirit

Homer’s job market naturally provides a way for people to make their own way

Why Britni and Casey decided to make Homer home despite not being born here

Announcements:

Office Hours this Saturday at Kbay Coffee from 10-2!

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From Wheelhouse to Wheelchair with Pat McBride - HAP #28 Jan 01, 2020

This week we sit down with Pat McBride, former captain of the F/V Judy B - a black cod longliner that he ran in the Aleutians and Gulf of Alaska for 24 years - and the F/V Invader, a crabber. Pat has had an amazing life story growing up around the Chesapeake Bay and falling in love with Alaska at age 11 on a trip here with his brother, apprenticing as a shipwright, taking the school secretary Barbara up to China Poot after graduation, and making a life with her for the last four decades in Kachemak Bay. After running a successful operation for many years and retiring in 2007, Pat had a tragic car accident that committed him to a wheelchair for his golden years. He continues to rely on and support this community.

Segments:

Chewing the Fat with Alex and JJ (0:54)

Spoonful of Medicine with SPH - Peggy Ellen Kleinleder (9:45)

Interview with Pat McBride (17:01)

Announcements:

Office Hours this Saturday at Kbay Coffee from 10-2!

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Did We Just Become Best Friends with Camron and Collin Hagen - HAP #27 Dec 18, 2019

This week we sit down with brothers Collin and Camron Hagen to discuss their uncertain move to Homer at a young age, the scrappy start in the fishing industry, why a fart machine was the best gift they received in high school, their last fight, standing up for your brother, leaving and returning to Homer, and the future of our town.

JJ and Alex go over the top five events of the 2010s and discuss our special holiday schedule.

Intro/Chewing the Fat (1:16)

Spoonful of Medicine with South Peninsula Hospital - June Yamamoto (11:17)

Interview with Camron and Colin Hagen (17:47)

Announcements: No office hours this weekend and no episode on December 25th!

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Making Markets with Doug Bowen - HAP #26 Dec 11, 2019

This week we sit down with Doug Bowen, owner of Alaska Boats and Permits, to discuss his business of brokering vessels, IFQ, and limited entry fishing permits. We cover:

- The "Greying of the Fleet" and its causes

- How his business ebbs and flows with the commercial fishing industry

- An in-depth analysis of the halibut and black cod IFQ markets

- How the farmed salmon industry crushed the value of boats and permits in the early 2000s

- How vessel demand is impacted by the performance of the fisheries

- How he and his wife came to Homer from California after the Marine Corps in 1984

Chewing the Fat with Alex and JJ (0:56)

Spoonful of Medicine with SPH - Anna Hermanson (11:19)

Interview with Doug Bowen (17:09)

ANNOUNCEMENTS

No office hours this week and no episode on Christmas!

The Alaska Show is going live on February 10th!

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Looking Forward and Looking Back - HAP #25 Dec 04, 2019

This week's episode is a little different. Since we had a last minute interview cancellation and it's the holiday season we chose to take this episode to reflect on 2019, look forward to 2020, take listener questions, and interview each other. If you are interested in how the show came to be, where it's going, or want to learn more about JJ and Alex this episode is for you!

Looking back on 2019 and forward to 2020 (1:15)

Events (20:58)

Social Media Questions (25:16)

Alex and JJ Questions for each other (46:58)

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Office Hours will be held at Kbay Cafe from 10am - 2pm this weekend and we welcome your feedback on Facebook, Instagram or email at homeralaskapodcast@gmail.com

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An Expression of Joy with Bekah Dalke - HAP #24 Nov 27, 2019

This week we sit down with Bekah Dalke, owner of Oodalolly, to discuss how she founded the home decor and gift store, how she selects what to sell, her relationship with her customers at Oodalolly, and she gives us some advice on the perfect Christmas gift in a variety of scenarios!

Segments:

Chewing the Fat with Alex and JJ (1:25)

Spoonful of Medicine with Dr. Neil Schott at South Peninsula Hospital (12:28)

Interview with Bekah Dalke, Owner of Oodalolly (19:18)

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Office Hours this weekend and thank you to Michael Becker at KBBI

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Loco Motion with Scott Dickerson - HAP #23 Nov 20, 2019

This week we sit down with Scott Dickerson, owner of Dickerson Stills + Motion, proprietor of SurfAlaska.net, and the sometimes captain of the Milo for Ocean Swell Ventures. Scott talks about how he got into photography, carved out a niche business doing photo and video for brands like Mountain Dew, National Geographic, Patagonia, and The New York Times, and how he turned his passion for Alaska's exploratory surfing into a way to bring passionate surfers from all around the world to Homer.

Chewing the Fat with Alex and JJ (0:59)

Spoonful of Medicine with Marilyn Shroyer of South Peninsula Hospital (21:23)

Interview with Scott Dickerson (29:50)

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Office Hours this weekend and discussing THE ALASKA SHOW

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A Tour of Your Homer with Gert Seekins - HAP #22 Nov 13, 2019

This week we sit down with Gert Seekins, Homer resident since 1969 and founder of many of its first tourism businesses, to talk about how she came to Alaska from Wisconsin, starting some of the first B&B's, fishing charters, and tour businesses in Homer, and her passion for hunting.

Chewing the Fat with Alex and JJ (1:14)

Spoonful of Medicine with Dr. Rob Downey of South Peninsula Hospital (8:25)

Interview with Gert Seekins (17:38)

ANNOUNCEMENTS: We will NOT have office hours this weekend and we welcome your feedback on Facebook, Instagram or email at homeralaskapodcast@gmail.com

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Ain't That a Hole in the Boat with Dan Rainwater - HAP #21 Nov 06, 2019

This week I sit down with Dan Rainwater, boat builder at Bay Welding, to discuss growing up in Homer with homesteader parents, the craft and responsibility of building boats for Alaska, hunting, and the future of Homer.

Segments

Chewing the Fat with Alex and JJ (3:40)

Spoonful of Medicine with Orthopedic PA Dharti Patel (12:37)

Interview with Dan Rainwater(18:11)

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Office Hours will be held at Kbay Cafe from 10am - 2pm this weekend and we welcome your feedback on Facebook, Instagram or email at homeralaskapodcast@gmail.com

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Stitching Together a Life in Alaska with Kate Mitchell - HAP #20 Oct 30, 2019

I sit down this week with Kate Mitchell, founder of NOMAR in Homer, to learn about how she grew up, how layoffs at Boeing caused her to join the Coast Guard and head up to Alaska, how she started NOMAR, her philosophy on business, and how her entrepreneurial spirit, love of Homer, and the dying art of sewing cultivated an unlikely manufacturing success.

Segments

Chewing the Fat with Alex and JJ (1:40)

Spoonful of Medicine with Nurse Midwife Julie McCarron (8:05)

Interview with Kate Mitchell (16:28)

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Office Hours will be held at Kbay Cafe from 10am - 2pm this weekend and we welcome your feedback on Facebook, Instagram or email at homeralaskapodcast@gmail.com

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Hospital General with Ryan Smith - HAP #19 Oct 23, 2019

This week we sit down with Ryan Smith, the new CEO of South Peninsula Hospital, to discuss his new role as CEO, the culture and goals of SPH, his return to the Homer community after 20 years working in other places, and how and why he got into hospital administration as a career.

In our new segment Spoonful of Medicine we talk to Meredith Pearson, Clinical Coordinator for Infusion and Oncology at SPH, about her role administering chemotherapy and other infusion therapies.

In Chewing the Fat with Alex and JJ we talk about JJ's photography tip, going with a gut feeling, and making friends as an adult.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Office Hours will be held at Kbay Cafe from 10am - 2pm this weekend and we welcome your feedback on Facebook, Instagram or email at homeralaskapodcast@gmail.com

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Zen and the Art of Commercial Fishing with Infants with Megan Corazza - HAP #18 Oct 16, 2019

This week I sit down with Megan Corazza - lifelong Homer resident, 20 year fishing boat captain, and accomplished horseback hunter - to talk about her life. We dig into her psyche a little and talk about what drives her to keep fishing and hunting in the Alaskan wilderness, her experience as a skipper in Prince William Sound, how to raise a baby on a seiner, her parents and childhood, and why the culture of commercial fishing in Alaska is so special.

In "Chewing the Fat with Alex and JJ", JJ and Alex talk about how the role of a portrait photographer has changed in the last three decades, misconceptions about social media, and how Facebook and Instagram have turned into essential tools for our businesses.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Office Hours will be held at Kbay Cafe going forward and check out our store at HomerAlaskaPodcast.com/store!

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The Best Part of Waking Up is Ethan Smith in His Cup - HAP #17 Oct 09, 2019

Ethan Smith, the owner of The Coffeesmith, dropped by our brand new state-of-the-art studio (my apartment living room) to chat with The Homer Alaska Podcast. I talk to him about how and why he started Homer's newest drive-thru coffee shop, what it's like to work in a giant cup, his philosophy on coffee and business, his story of growing up in Seward and Valdez, his family, and Homer's community.

Also, Alex and JJ discuss JJ's first week as a full-time photographer, the value of an idea, and the newest health revelations around vaping in "Chewing the Fat with Alex and JJ."

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Life Imitating Art with Asia Freeman - HAP #16 Oct 02, 2019

This week I speak with Asia Freeman, the Artistic Director of the Bunnell Arts Center in Homer. We talk about her childhood being raised outside of Homer by an artistically talented mother and a rugged father, the artistic vs entrepreneurial tendencies in artists, what Alaska can learn from Iceland in terms of developing its creative economy, her time at Yale, and the Bunnell Arts Center.

Other segments include "Chewing the Fat with Alex and JJ" where we discuss taking negative feedback in a creative endeavor and our siblings (including a very funny prank JJ played on his brother), and "Alaska Property Bros" with Marjolein Cardon where she talks about how she and her team at Kachemak Group Real Estate do due diligence on behalf of buyers.

Listen on:

Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-homer-alaska-podcast/id1455332793

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/50qgfBneFtHTzggeZfunb0

Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/alex-trokey/the-homer-alaska-podcast

History 201 with Clem Tillion - HAP #15 Sep 25, 2019

This week we're publishing the second part of a special two-part series with Clem Tillion: combat veteran of the WWII South Pacific Theater, a homesteader in Halibut Cove since the late 1940s, nine-term state legislator, and history buff. We talk a lot about his career in fisheries management, what Alaska has done well to manage its resources and what it could have done better, his political career, and the permanent fund.

I also sit down with Marjolein Cardon from Kachemak Group Real Estate to discuss the marketing and legal protections she provides sellers in a transaction. Finally, I introduce my new co-host for the first part of each show - Josiah Coe - and we talk about the worst jobs we've ever had.

Listen on:

Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-homer-alaska-podcast/id1455332793

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/50qgfBneFtHTzggeZfunb0

Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/alex-trokey/the-homer-alaska-podcast

History 101 with Clem Tillion - HAP #14 Sep 18, 2019

I sit down with Clem Tillion for the first of two episodes with him. Clem is in his mid-90s, is a combat veteran of the WWII South Pacific Theater, a homesteader in Halibut Cove since the late 1940s, a nine-term state legislator, and a history buff. This episode we discuss his childhood, his time fighting in World War II, coming to Alaska, homesteading Halibut Cove, and his relationship with Jay Hammond and his wife Diana Tillion.

We also start the end of our "Alaska Property Bros" segment with the first of three parts with Marjolein Cardon discussing the value of working with Kachemak Group Real Estate vs For Sale By Owner and I discuss one thing I hate about shopping at Safeway.

Listen on:

Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-homer-alaska-podcast/id1455332793

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/50qgfBneFtHTzggeZfunb0

Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/alex-trokey/the-homer-alaska-podcast

The Liveliest Catch with Deb Rhoades - HAP #13 Sep 12, 2019

This week I speak to Deb Rhoades about her lifelong love of Alaska, how she has carved out a niche in the fishing/marine industry that does not involve being a deckhand or running a boat, how she hustles to stay in Alaska, and her work in production on The Deadliest Catch.

I also discuss where I've been all summer, my new "Office Hours" at Stowaway Cafe (Saturdays 10am - 2pm) and how and why you should support the show!

Listen on:

Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-homer-alaska-podcast/id1455332793

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/50qgfBneFtHTzggeZfunb0

Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/alex-trokey/the-homer-alaska-podcast

Happy Little Accidents with Dan Coe - HAP #12 May 30, 2019

I sit down with Dan Coe to talk about his life growing up in blue collar Pittsburgh and making a living as an artist - first among the rich kids of the east coast and eventually here in Homer, Alaska. We also talk about parenting, sign painting, and Dan gives advice to young people who want to make a living as an artist.

I also talk to Debbie Fanatia at Kachemak Group Real Estate again for vacation rental investment part 2.

Listen on:

Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-homer-alaska-podcast/id1455332793

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/50qgfBneFtHTzggeZfunb0

Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/alex-trokey/the-homer-alaska-podcast

Music:

'Therfield Theme' by James Richardson(kingjamesroyaltyfreemusic.blogspot.co.uk)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

From Sea to Table with Marian Beck - HAP #11 May 16, 2019

In this episode I sit down with Marian Beck and discuss life growing up in Halibut Cove as Clem Tillion's daughter. She describes a wild Alaskan childhood accompanied by an array of artist and politicians. She talks about how her love of regional food and cooking was solidified at Cal Poly, describes a formative trip to Europe with her college friends, and tells the story of how she opened The Saltry and ultimately ended up on Good Morning America.

Additionally, Debbie Fanatia from Kachemak Group Real Estate talks vacation rentals and I give you five reasons I love my mom for Mother's Day.

Listen on:

Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-homer-alaska-podcast/id1455332793

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/50qgfBneFtHTzggeZfunb0

Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/alex-trokey/the-homer-alaska-podcast

Music:

'Therfield Theme' by James Richardson(kingjamesroyaltyfreemusic.blogspot.co.uk)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Bay Weld's Uncharted Waters with Eric Engebretsen - HAP #10 May 08, 2019

This week I interviewed Eric Engebretsen. We talked all things Bay Welding - how he grew the company with his parents 10x in just 15 years, and where it is today. In that story he shared what life was like growing up in Homer, how he knew he was put on this earth to build things, and how leaving to see (quite literally) the world solidified his love of this town. He also shares some of his business philosophy and issues with passing family businesses down to the next generation.

Additionally, we have Denise Pitzman from Kachemak Group Real Estate to give us some great insight on overcoming the challenges to determine a property price in Homer and I tell a story of a good deed gone wrong and discuss the 1950s.

Intro (0:00 - 9:28)

Alaska Property Bros with Denise Pitzman on Pricing (9:28 - 15:34)

Interview with Eric Engebretsen (15:34 - 55:37)