The Fisherman's Daughter

By Georgia Albert

When you live in Alaska, you have gotta be tough! The Fisherman's Daughter is the life and adventures of a young Alaskan native girl growing up in Alaska, having encounters with our great Alaskan bears and a huge monster octopus. Fishermen shooting at one another, hitting a reef and sinking into the frigid Alaskan waters, surviving the fire and the dangers of the many predators to the incredible encounter of meeting a man called Jesus!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098050573

Book preview

Chapter 1

When You Live in Alaska, You Gotta Be Tough!

My grandmother, who was my mom’s mother, was a Tlingit Indian woman born in Angoon (Killisnoo), Alaska. She was of the Deisheetaan Clan. When she was fourteen years of age, she was given in marriage to my grandfather. His father was Russian, and his mother was Tlingit from the Chookaneidi Clan of Glacier Bay/Hoonah, Alaska. I am told they had one of the biggest wedding celebrations in all the area. Grandfather came in canoes loaded with gifts for my grandmother’s hand in marriage. There was a special wedding song composed for them that I understand is still being used at gatherings today. After they were married, they began raising a family and moved to Sitka, Alaska. This is where my mom was born and grew up. Mom had memories of reading her school books to Grandmother to help her learn the English language better. In school, the children were forbidden to speak their native language and were punished if they were caught. For Mom, there were just too many painful memories, and she never finished school.

As for me, life began on a cold winter morning at a small government hospital in Juneau, Alaska. When the nurses saw me, they told my mother, What a beautiful baby you have! You know…you could put her up for adoption. Some nice family would be happy to grab her up in a minute! You see, the man, who fathered me was of the white race, so I was born fair-skinned and with a lighter hair color. In those days, that made a child more desirable for adoption.

Mom was young, and life was a party filled with lots of freedom, drinking, and fun! Such as many of our young people still do today. Mom was in a relationship with my paternal father when she became pregnant with me. They remained together until one day, he was arrested for selling heroin and was sent to prison. Mom was unable to keep in touch with him after that and found herself all alone. Eventually, she moved to Juneau, where I was born. Much later in life, Mom told me about him and that his name was Gerald, but I never saw him or met him. My only knowledge of him was what my mother had told me of him.

I say none of this to degrade my mother in any way. Alcoholism can be a horrible bondage, but it does not make that person any less than another. She was my mother, and I loved her very much. I was never ashamed of her; we shared a very close bond together. Although she did not think so, I thought she was a very beautiful woman. She was my beautiful mom!

In this new place, Mom eventually met Mike who befriended her and cared for her during her pregnancy. He was a gambler, and Mom could always find him at the gambling parlor. Mike used to let her sleep in his apartment when he was not there, and he treated her well, so she felt that she could trust him. Mike was at least twenty-plus years older than Mom, but he soon became a close and trusted friend for her. Being in her condition, she needed that security and protection.

When Mom was ready to come home from the hospital, Mike came to pick her up and noticed she was empty-handed. Where’s the baby, he asked.

Mom said, I left her there! They said they could find a good home for her.

He quickly turned her around and said, No, no…you don’t want to do that! Let’s go get the baby. We can get married and raise her together!

They went back to the hospital to collect me, and Mike signed my birth certificate, stating that he was my father. Now, he was my dad. They got married, and we became a family! Mike continued to give Mom a lot of support and encouragement, until she was able to walk away from the alcohol and never drink again.

Dad was also a fisherman, and he was living on a small fishing boat from the time I was born. My crib started off as a little hammock swaying over their bed. Dad was the skipper, the cook, and the provider. Mom took care of all the scrubbing and cleaning that needed to be done. On a boat, there was no wasted space. You only kept what was needed, and everything had to be kept in its own place. You can be sure that Mom made a point of always keeping our home tidy, in order, and clean. Thus began my life as the fisherman’s daughter!

During the winter months, Dad would work as a cook in a local restaurant. Mom would occasionally take on a job as a dishwasher there for extra spending money. Then there was the gambling hall for evening entertainment, with the never-ending chance of trying to double their money. This is where Mom and Dad spent most of their time. When I got older, I learned I could always find them at the gambling hall if I needed them.

Winter weather often would get so severe; we would have to move from the boat to an apartment at times, just long enough to get us through the worst of the winter weather. There would be so much snow downtown it would be piled up alongside the parking meters, making a solid wall of snow, leaving no place for cars to park. Young people often made light of it using the walls as a fort and throwing snowballs at each other across the streets.

Because of the abundance of snow piling up, the sidewalks got very narrow for foot traffic. It became a single-file-only path. To pass someone, you had to grab elbows and do the doe see doe to exchange places! Doorways had to be cut out of the snow mounds at each end of the crosswalk sections to make an opening for pedestrians to cross the streets.

At times, high winds would often range anywhere from gusts of thirty to one hundred miles an hour. If you were on the street, you could get blown down the street or possibly get hit with some flying debris. This kind of winter weather was quite normal in those days.

There was a report of a local native woman trying to cross the street to get to the restaurant and getting caught in a strong gale of wind. As she was being blown down the street, she grabbed ahold of a parking meter and held on. Her legs whipped out from under her, and she looked like a flag whipping in the wind! Locals were watching from inside the restaurant unable to help because of the powerful wind. That lady must have had some powerful strong arms to hang on like she did! When the wind calmed down, people quickly ran out to assist her into the restaurant.

Another report told of a man crossing the street at the corner, and it was so slippery that he fell on the ice onto his hands and knees in the middle of the road into oncoming traffic. At the same time, he was being blown down the road, still on his hands and knees! He went down the street a good two blocks before he was able to grab onto something secure and get himself up to safety.

In the harbor, the water would freeze, and the seagulls would be walking around on the ice or just sitting together in a huddle. A cold misty fog would be coming up from the water, which gave it the appearance of smoke. Boats would be covered in ice and barely visible through the fog. The Coast Guard would have to send out their ice-breaking vessel to break up the ice in the channel. Often, a huge iceberg would be seen drifting down the channel, as it passed under the city bridge coming down from the Mendenhall Glacier.

Sometimes, during the winter, there would be high winds and rough waters in the harbor. The water would wash up over the float, causing ice to build up on the top. This made it very difficult and slippery to walk on the float. If you were not careful, you could easily slip off into the water. Often, it would be so severe that a boat line would break loose, and the boat would drift off into the channel. The Coast Guard would then have to go and retrieve it. Freezing temperatures would also cause ice to build up on the boats, making them dangerously heavy in addition to the snow. If this was not maintained regularly, the weight alone could cause a boat to capsize and sink, which did happen a few times to small vessels that were not taken care of.

Living aboard a boat during such weather could prove to be very cold and challenging. Boats were not insulated well like a house. Even if you had a stove going, your blankets would be frozen to the wall in the morning. And God forbid, if you should run out of oil during the night! In addition, there was always the concern of slow leaks in the boat. We always had to make sure we pumped the boat at least once every day, or we could wake up to ice-cold, ankle-deep water when you stepped out of bed in the morning. There was never a dull day for the life of a fisherman!

Chapter 2

The Fire

Winter was here again so we were back in a small apartment for a few months. I was about a year old now, just learning to toddle around when Mom was putting me down for a nap on the sofa.

Mom and Dad were at the table with some friends having dinner when someone said they smelled something like wire burning. As they looked around, they noticed a small dark spot on the ceiling near the light over the table. Dad went to get the fire extinguisher, and one of the men went to get some water in case it was needed for a fire.

Suddenly, a stream of fire was shooting across the ceiling like lightning! Then the fire erupted and broke out as an explosion from the ceiling! Immediately, the whole room was engulfed in flames! Dad yelled at Mom, Get out of the house…Run! In a panic, everyone stampeded out of the apartment to safety! Yelling to the neighbors, Fire, Fire!

There was a bar across the street that the residents of the apartment took shelter in. The weather was freezing cold outside, and the wind was howling. By the time the fire trucks arrived, the whole building was engulfed in flames. They fought feverishly to put out the fire, but the wind kept fanning the flames. The freezing weather was turning their water into ice