A rather simple design, a traditional way of harvesting fish, a wheel with two angled baskets and a paddle which is pushed by the current of the river, spinning the baskets like a carnival ride floating on water. As the baskets dip into the water they scoop up any fish passing through and when the basket reaches the peak of the ride the fish slide off into a holding tank. It is an effective, easy, ingenious way of harvesting fish and there are very few places where this method is still allowed. Alaska is one of those places.
We live within view of the Copper River in a rural community called Slana where there is a fish wheel. Any community member can sign up for their turn to harvest the sockeye and occasional king salmon that are caught in the wheel. A kind local man, generous with his time in many ways, owns/operates the fish wheel and gets permission from riverside landowners to access the river from their property to set up the wheel in the Copper River. He checks and oils the wheel twice daily and calls the list of community members each morning to let them know that it is their turn to harvest the catch in the holding tank for the day.
We received the call that it was our turn to harvest from the wheel on a morning when we were overwhelmed with new projects at the ranch and had more work on our schedule than we could possibly manage. But when the fish are in you find time to harvest them. And you are grateful for the hours spent under the midnight sun working by the river. And you a grateful for the lives sacrificed. And you are grateful for the food that will nourish you through the year.
This was our first year as a part of this community which allowed us to take part on the fish wheel harvest, and we were grateful for that as well. In previous years I had fly fished for salmon on the Kenai River and had gotten "fish on!" but had never managed to bring one in. We had also dip netted, standing in thigh deep glacial water working a long heavy net up and down the banks of the Copper River for over 24hrs only to be skunked. I guess that is why they call it fishing. With a fish wheel I call it harvesting, and on my fifth year of living in Alaska I finally managed to harvest fish for the season. For this I was extremely grateful and also SUPER DUPER happy!
We arrived at the banks of the river after a long day working on the ranch, followed by a volunteer fire department training exercise, and had our hands in the holding tank pulling out large sockeye salmon by 8pm. There were three of us and 36 fish to filet. None of us had ever filleted a salmon before. It was slow going the entire night, but we got better with our cuts as the evening went on. By midnight we had stocked our coolers with beautiful red filets, bags of roe and a bag of small "taco pieces". We also had a few white fish that we kept for future fishing bait. We were exhausted from the day but I still had a huge smile on my face. I was elated about life, about our opportunities and experiences and about the abundance of everything that surrounds us in Alaska.
