Fish-processing in Alaska
Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine
Monday, February 11, 2002 (518/155)
ISSN 1482-0471
By REVSCRJ
Don’t do it. It sucks. It REALLY sucks -- I mean there are better ways to get carpal tunnel than slitting open the bellies of thousands of salmon a day, believe me.
I was working on the processing line of a cannery where the "sweet shift" was when you got to sweep the blood and organs off the floor. Damn it felt good when all you had to do was shuffle around the guts on the cold cement floor. I got so numb to the presence of entrails that I used to squeeze the fish hearts to see the squirt-gun effect of the cold dead blood shooting out of them and think nothing of it.
I once saw a shrinking violet of a girl pick up a handful of intestines, throw them at a friend and laugh in a giddy-schoolgirl sort of way. I had fish scales bond to me like I had grown them myself.
Once I played hacky-sack with the decapitated head of a small salmon too young to be anything but a throw away. Don’t do it. It's not worth it -- trust me.
You work in a warehouse kept just below freezing for long hours and get soaked in icy bloody water. One time these HUGE king salmon came in -- heads bigger than a human's -- so big that they couldn't be processed by the regular line. A few of us get pulled aside to process them.
"Process them"... so I'm cutting the head off this one that is so big another kid has to hold the body while I saw and I hit the primary bloodline near the back. Suddenly, WHOOSH this fucking gout of thick black semi-coagulated gore washes out of it all over my slickers all the way down to my boots. Me and the kid react like you'd expect: "WHOA! THAT WAS FUCKIN' COOL!!"
Anyway, we get the heads off, the bellies slit and scraped when its discovered that the heads are too big to fit in the grinder. The foreman tells me, a girl and this Montana boy to reduce them to a size that will fit and hands us these huge heavy knives.
At first I try sawing into the skull, as do the other two, when I realize that it would be a lot easier if I just hack. So I lift the blade up over my head and start bringing it down with these hard aggro chops. I use all my strength, just whacking down into the bone, cartilage, and meat.
Eyes pop, bits fly all helter-skelter. I finish my portion of the heads and move on to help them finish theirs. By the end of the process I'd refined the motion into an almost wood chopping rhythm. I'm totally entranced in it. It's meditative. It's not like I am thinking about it, or really anything at all, I am simply the action of the metal passing through the head of the fish and I am perfecting the movement -- it's totally engrossing.
We finish and I look up to see this girl who had been using the "sawing" method the whole time and she's got this wide eyed, half disgusted look on her face. She looks at me, puts a contemptuous pucker on her mouth and says "You fucking psycho!"
I laugh, not understanding what brought it on, but Hell, I've been called things so dramatically worse that "psycho" is just funny.
So I head to wash up and take a break and I see myself in the mirror: bright yellow rain slickers covered head to toe in bits of meat. Patches of purplish black blood, stains bloody handprint smears across my chest. My hair is blackish red, my beard has rivers running through it. There are bits of brain half dried on my face.
Suddenly I'm out of my body looking at it almost horrified, but mostly fascinated by how grotesque and unfamiliar it looks. I mean the meat just don't look right like that! I stand there for a second shocked and then laugh like a sick dog's bark and heading out for a smoke, the taste of salt in my mouth like death.
Don't do it. Trust me. It'll change you forever.
This article has generated a tremendous amount of responses from Indian users.
All of these e-mails enquire about working in fish processing plants, where to get a visa, how to process the documents, how much one gets paid and a zillion other questions.
If you're about to write to us with any question related to your possible employment with a fish processing plant, don't.
In the event that despite our warning, you are still going to ask us about employment in the fish processing industry, we're not a fishery nor an employment centre. We're a magazine.
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Comments
7 comments found
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I read your article about fish processing because I am an Indian (from India) and there are a lot of companies here recruiting for fish processing jobs in Alaska. I am thinking of signing up inspite of the horrible conditions described by you.
Oh I understand.
You must bear in mind that I am a white american- we whine like nobody's business so everything we say must be taken with a grain of salt. :). Good luck and watch your wrists if you want to use them for the rest of your life. Alaska, btw, is more beautiful than you can imagine. Treat it well
I've done fish processing for 4 seasons...I understand your disgust with the work environment. But you know I was on the glaze line! FREEZER RULES!!! What processing plant did you work at?
I worked @ transaqua on the peninsula- lovely area: right near Soldatna. Never touched the glaze... I slit bellies and seperated roe for the most part though we rotated pretty frequently. I hated the freezer. For the record.
<3 REVSCRJ
Processing is not a hard job I work on a floating processer near King Cove , AK ppsf.com You just have to get used to being bored. Its brainless work.
If you can lay around and pull on your Pole or rub your
Labia, you can process fish. No one is there to wipe your
nose or your ass or listen to your crying. Mom is not
there to wash the crap from the crotch of your shorts or
to feed you. What are you scared about. I've read the
story at the beginning of the site, gee go get a life.
You went to Alaska to Process Fish, Duh!!!! That consist
of cutting bellies open, maybe cutting heads or yet
filleting of fish. Did you think it was an all expense
paid trip to a Five Star Resort, I do not beleive you
where told that. Why are you trying to scare off the
people that could become winners in Life. Is it because
you are such a loser???
If you going to do this, do it for yourself. It will
give you a complete different outlook on your Life.
Tried going to school but feel it is a drag, go to Alaska
and Process Fish for a contract. Not only you will grow
up, but you will also realize that school was not that
bad. Also it is an opportunity in your life time to meet
people from all all around the World and learn how to be a
Survivor as well Team Player.
I'm an Alaskan Eight Year Vet. and Dam Proud of It!
"Some people are born to be ditch diggers"- some old bastard
>If you can lay around and pull on your Pole or rub your
Labia, you can process fish.>
Hemaphrodites of the world thank you for the rare aknowledgement.
>No one is there to wipe your nose or your ass or listen to your crying.>
Unfortunately this is not the case as I hear people piss and moan on a daily basis. This statement would be better directed at the legions of numbed-by-comfort middle class white collar folk dupes who think they "DESERVE" hot and cold running water.
>Mom is not there to wash the crap from the crotch of your shorts or to feed you.>
You and you mother seem to have had a "funny" relationship.
>What are you scared about.
Scared about? Oh "overpopulation leading to resource depletion and enviornmental collapse" and "the USA becoming the world's dirty-cop for 'everyone's good' leading to death and suffering on a massive scale"- y'know, the usual. If you mean "about fish processing" then 'nothing'- I said it sucked, not 'frightened'
>Why are you trying to scare off the
people that could become winners in Life.>
If someone bases life choices off of my experiances thats their biz., I am only conveying the fact that working in a freezer covered in blood and guts 12+ hour shifts SUCKS ASS! Get a Burger King job before you go do that crap- but thats just my opinion.
>Is it because
you are such a loser???>
So in your book a winner ends up with carpal and a dead end, no security, chronic back problems, no benefits, and job that will dry up once the salmon are at last overfished. You should go hang with all the Oregon Logger "winners"- yall would get along well at the unemployment line being team survivors not wiping eachother's noses, or listening to eachother's crying etc.
>Not only you will grow up, but you will also realize that
school was not that bad.>
So will developing a crack habit and turning tricks for hits but I wouldnt suggest it as a life choice.
>Also it is an opportunity in your life time to meet
people from all all around the World>
-better to peddle flowers for Hare Krishnas in an International Airport, if that is what you are after.
>as well Team Player.>
To quote Repo Man: "Fuck that"
The processing line isnt about teamwork its about turning off your mind, freezing your body, and numbing your soul- GO TEAM!!
>I'm an Alaskan Eight Year Vet. and Dam Proud of It!
Better you than me.
<3 REVSCRJ