Posted by nicole on 07/13/2006 10:20 am

The following posting is from Carroll, who is onboard in the Bering Sea...

Two days flying from Washington D.C. Two days adjusting to the rhythm and routine of ship life. Four days and four thousand miles from home. And I’m finally ready to write my first blog. “This is a good day for it,” I told myself this morning. “We’ve got a lot of great stuff to write about.” Ahh, the best laid plans…

After losing our first rigid inflatable boat also known as a "RIB" or “zodiac” to a mysterious oil leak yesterday, we dropped the second one, “Marrakesh”, in the water this morning and headed out to look for killer whales. A RIB is smaller than a ship and bigger than a canoe, and it’s full of air we’ve got two of ‘em…Or, so we thought. As we passed through the channel into open sea, Adam opened the throttle to give us some speed and …nothing. Marrakesh just kept puttering along, even with the throttle wide open. In five foot seas, this is not a good thing. You need to go fast enough to stay on top of the waves, unless you want the waves on top of you. Less than ten minutes into the trip, we turned and headed for home. We were starting our day 0 for 2 on the RIBs.

This would have been inconvenient even at the best of times. Today was not the best of times. Allan Springer, a research professor from the University of Alaska, was coming at noon to get our help retrieving a killer whale research buoy. The killer whale calls recorded on the buoy will help scientists better understand the volume and nature of killer whale activity in the waters around St. Paul. Assuming, of course, we could get it out of the sea. We needed at least one working RIB to do that. Adam and Willie (the first mate, and fix-it-guy-in-chief) hauled Marrakesh back on board and started pirating parts from inoperable RIB #1 to get at least one of them working again. They were still working when Allan showed up three hours later. Twenty minutes after that, Marrakesh was running and ready to go. Little miracles.

While Adam and James headed out with Allan to fetch the buoy, the rest of us went to a community feast, to which we were graciously invited. The good food, the friendship and the folding chairs would be familiar to anyone who’s been to a small-town potluck just about anywhere. But it was something else that got me thinking of my own hometown in rural Kentucky. Before the meal, two priests led the community in singing The Lord’s Prayer. It was a version unlike any I’ve ever heard, drawn not only from the Unangan’s Russian Orthodox faith, but from their history in this harsh and beautiful land. It was a slow, rich, sonorous sound that rose and fell like the Bering winds, with a deep, thrumming bass line like the crashing of waves. It was the sound of sadness, and stillness, and memory. But mostly, it was the sound of belonging. The sound that comes from being so much part of a place that the place becomes part of you. Runs so deep in your veins that it aches to be away from it. This is what I heard in the Unangan’s song, and this is what I know is at stake here.

Again and again, people on St. Paul and St. George have told us how factory trawlers are ravaging their coastal fishing grounds, forcing local fishermen far offshore in search of a vanishing catch. The explosion of industrial-scale fishing is making it ever harder to make ends meet with the small boats and small crews of the Pribilof Islands. In the face of this economic pressure from industrial giants, more and more people are leaving the Pribilofs in search of new opportunities. Just as people from my county were forced from farms into factories when the growth of massive agribusiness made it impossible to compete. In fishing, as in farming, economies of scale don’t account for family, or community, or belonging—any more than they account for ecology. The trawlers will take from these waters and from these people until there is nothing more to take. Then they will move on to new fishing grounds and start the cycle all over again. Never still, never remembering, never belonging.

Shortly after we returned from the potluck, the Marrakesh returned from her errand. Despite some skepticism from us armchair quarterbacks back on the ship, they’d managed to find and retrieve a 2-foot research buoy hidden under several fathoms of water in a patch of ocean nearly half a mile square. Allan looked pleased.

After the buoy was loaded up an on its way, the sun came out from behind the clouds for the first time in two days, and I decided to take advantage of the rare sunshine to photograph the seabird cliffs nearby. As I clambered over the sofa-sized rocks of the seawall, I saw fat, fast puffins torpedoing across the sky, least auklets feeding their young, graceful kittiwakes sailing the updrafts, and a factory trawler sitting not a mile offshore, transferring its catch to a cargo vessel. Sitting there on the rocks, I found myself quietly singing a song from Sesame Street. “One of these things is not like the others….”

- Carroll 

Posted by nicole on 07/13/2006 09:59 am

The following posting is from oceans campaigner George, who is onboard in the Bering Sea...

Today is the patron feast day of St. Paul Island. The island was named after and in honor of the Apostles Peter and Paul, which were also the names of the vessels in which the Russian Garasim Pribilov used when he accidentally found these islands. I say found because in the Unangan folklore we talk about our ancestors knowing of the existence of these Islands eons ago but never settled here. We never settled on these islands because although for five months out of the year they are teeming with wildlife, the other seven months they are barren. It is almost impossible to subsist here. We had no land animals until reindeer were brought here. We have no salmon streams. Nonetheless, we are celebrating our holiday today, and the island has quieted, at least from the normal activity of other weekday work noise on the street and in the homes. People are going to church. And the crew is invited to their potluck to join in the celebration. It does my heart good.

At supper last evening we watched a documentary, Man’s Thumb on Natures Balance by NBC News, done back in the day, around 1972 when the issue of the commercial harvest of the fur seal was at its peak. It brought back many memories for me. Some good, because I got to see the images of people who are no longer with us and for whom I have a lot of love and respect. And it brought back some not so good memories, mostly because the exploitation of any animal is not good. The killing of any animal is not fun. When done for any other reason but for food, is not something one takes pleasure in. But that is what I thought, and still do, as I watched how the Unangan of the Pribilofs were a captive workforce for the United States of America, Canada, Japan and Russia because of a treaty between these governments to share in the bounty of the Pribilofs, the fur seals, and on the backs of its Unangan people. Thirty-three or so years after this documentary was made it still conjures up many mixed feelings; anger, love, and very little peace.

My son is fishing for halibut here, doing what I did to help supplement my income when I was the Russian Orthodox pastor here for fifteen years, a position I no longer hold. He is hopeful, young and strong. He goes to school in Anchorage during the rest of the year. He is working hard with the rest of the crew in a small 28-foot boat. I wonder if he wonders if I am doing enough to ensure he can catch fish. Maybe that’s my own wondering? I have a need to work hard to do the best I can, as does any parent, to ensure that my children have a choice in life. When it comes time for my five children to want to come home and be Unangan, they need to have something to come home to. It seems a daunting task. The commercial fishing industry and all its culture is so big, wealthy and powerful compared to the people on the Pribilofs. But talking with the other crew on our ship I have hope. Hope that we will prevail in protecting the Bering Sea’s resources. Hope that we can and will make a difference. Hope that one-day before too much longer my son will know that I am doing well in my work.

Again the weather is chilly, for July standards, and misty. Maybe for good reason. The seals need this kind of weather to survive and be comfortable. The birds seem to be happy. And the people are opening their homes to us. We, Greenpeace, are welcome. As we prepare for our community meeting this evening, we cannot know for sure who will come or what will be said. We all need help; help in supporting one another’s work and efforts. A little encouragement goes a long way, and we accept any crumb that falls our way. But today is a holiday, a time to put aside our worries for a bit and meditate on the blessings we have. Tomorrow will soon be upon us, and my son will be going out for another trip. I need to rest today for I know the challenges of tomorrow will still be there and I must be clear of mind and spirit to ensure there are fish to catch and families to feed.

- George

Note: George was born and raised on the Pribilof Islands, is Aleut (Unangan) and has worked on environmental issues with the Bering Sea for almost 30 years.