Doing something real.

Yesterday I caught 3 sockeye salmon, filleted them and rubbed my own recipe of brine on them and laid them out in the fridge. Today I went and cut down an alder tree and sawed it into small chunks and then split those chunks into chips. I lit some charcoal and put it into the smoker, threw some alder chips on top, and then set the fish on the rack. Then I continued to saw and split the rest of the tree and now I have a decent size bag of alder chips waiting for the next fish.

I feel a bit Thoreauish right now because I did something myself, something that will feed myself and my family, and I didn't need any help. I could have run to the store and bought a bag of chipped alder, or used an electric smoker. I could have bought salmon, or even bought smoked salmon, but there is a pleasure and satisfaction that comes in doing something one's self. I told my wife that the next step is to learn to make charcoal myself.

There is something about knowing how to find food from nature and provide for your family that way. Not that fishing is anything new to me, but I have started dip-netting (which is legal here in Alaska). That is standing chest dip in the river with a 4 ft. diameter net and basically scooping fish out of the water. It's not quite that simple or that easy, but that is the gist of it. Dip-netting is a much more reliable way to get fish because you do it at the peak of the salmon run and there are hundreds of thousands of fish that swim up the river each season. Thus far I have caught fifteen. I am allowed 50 more and though I don't plan on getting that many I really like the idea of having that much food safely stored away for winter. Not to mention that this is wild Alaska salmon, high is those great oils, fresh preserved with no chemicals. You can't get healthier food than this!

I'm reminded of a personal hero of mine, Dick Proenneke (author of One Man's Wilderness) who said, "Too many folks just work on parts of things, doing something to completion. That suits me."

We should all try to do more things to completion. I love learning something new that I can do to provide for my family. Growing the garden is nothing new, and we are anxious to buy land where we can put in a large garden and greenhouse to grow much of the produce that we use. This fall I am going to work hard to go out and find a legal moose to pack in the freezer. I can just imagine the feeling of having a few hundred pounds of meat in the freezer waiting to be eaten this winter.

Our next goal is to learn to raise chickens. This will probably also have to wait until we have our own land, but we want to be able to have the eggs and meat on hand. Eventually, this home will include sheep. Then my dear wife can post a blog about the satisfaction of sheering, dying, spinning, and knitting a sweater.

At least for Jenni and I life seems to be much happier when we are doing things, rather than buying or having things. The next project I have is building my own smokehouse. I've been using a friend's but I have gotten a hold of four oven racks and I think I can build a good smokehouse so it's always on hand.