June | 2022 | Alaska on my mind...

Monthly Archives: June 2022

Once A Month Canning, June/Salmon

June 30, 2022 – 9:00 am
Posted in Alaska, canning, food
Tagged Alaska life, canning, food, food security, once month, preserving, pressure canning
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June is always salmon canning season. It seems a little redundant posting about it. But here goes.

I canned three cases of fresh sockeye salmon for human consumption. I also canned 5 jars for the hound dog. I’ve reserved two gallon bags of scraps, skins and bones for more dog food at a later date. Which should get her a full case+.

For the dog food I simply raw pack meat scrapes, bones, skins and a tiny piece of egg sack, no salt. I process it the same as human food, 11# for 110 minutes. To serve it I open the jar, stir it up and place a couple spoonfuls into her regular dry dog food. It adds flavor and nutrition and she loves it.

I had high hopes of utilizing all of our camp’s fish waste this year but with the crazy schedule and setup that just didn’t happen. I had planned to put a big pot on the fire and just make a soup of carcasses, heads and scraps to cook down and hot pack into jars for the Panda Bear. Maybe next year!

For the human food I filet the skin off my fish and roll the filets into cylinders to place into jars. I put in a little salt, 1/2 tsp maybe. Sometimes I put jalapeno peppers or chipotle peppers like I did this year! Can’t wait to give those a try. On e the canner is full (it holds two cases completely full) I process as mentioned above.

I’m so very thank for this big ole canner. It’s been very helpful!! I can preserve a lot of food fairly fast. I also prefer it to the lighter weight aluminum canners.

Back to the Real World

June 29, 2022 – 3:18 pm
Posted in Alaska, fishing, Uncategorized
Tagged adventure, alaska, Alaska life, fishing, salmon, Setnet, setnetters, solstice sisters
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Fishcamp recap.

I had a hard time getting up Monday morning. No alarm for nearly 2 weeks, naturally waking is nice! Sleeping to ocean sounds is also nice. Neither of those things are happening anymore . 😂

Although technically not fishcamp related the Solstice Sisters headed to Homer on Sunday, which has become a tradition at least once a year when things are normal. We went for brunch and tried to get home at a decent hour. It was glorious. Doing the tourist thing on the Spit: eating at quaint little cafes and food trucks; shop hopping little boutiques and charter shops; and one cannot forget a pitstop at The Salty Dawg.

Fishcamp was different this year. The emergency orders restricting our fishing between 11:00 am and 5:00 pm essentially gave us about 5 days of actual fishing, for at least 20 mins. We had nets in the water whenever we legally could and we caught 1/3 of the number of fish we normally do. That’s not going to last the year but at least we didn’t come home empty handed. Our household allowance is 75 fish, we came home with 29. Just means we need more halibut. 😎 In total we caught 125 fish, split between 6 permits.

Good food and drink is always a part of our adventures.

I processed three cases of salmon in the beach. Came home and put 8 fish in the freezer for later processing and smoked 6. I tried a new brine, just salt and pickling spice. Smoked for about 6 hours. We’ll see how we like it. Then we’ll do more later.

Even with all the differences and split camps and odd vibes, it was nice to spend time with my peeps. The beach was not as crowded, no rowdy dudes to contend with, few beach racers and poorly behaved people made for a more peaceful beach time.

We also learned new things (Thing 1 got to observe a commercial setnet operation with Mrs Jane and learned about assembling a new net), met new people and had new experiences! Always good things. And we day dreamed of what we could do if this happens again…. Go hiking, camping, fishing, etc somewhere else. It would be more affordable probably!