We had a longish paddle ahead of us, 32 km it turned out. To avoid currents in the Lipinsky strait we started early 0745, so we figured we would still make the shop in Elfin Cove
And while the wind and currents were favourable just as we started that did not last. In the Lipinsky inlet we got strong head winds. A tunnelling effect as the wind came in from the Pacific.
A hard paddle. In particular for Karianne who is still recovering from av broken shoulder back in February.
We divided the day into three stages and it worked just fine.
Elfin Cove is a small fishing community (ten or so inhabitants during winter and maybe a couple of hundred during summer).
It is also a divided community between the recent recreational charter fishing businesses and the traditional fishermen and women.
The recreational businesses is growing buy buying up properties as and if members of the traditional community leaves. So little or no new recruitment to that community..
And then the traditional community gets below critical size fa school (happened decades ago) and the local fishermen’s association has bought the shop and pays the salaries of the two ladies tending it over summer. But even that is becoming a stretch as the traditional community shrinks.
The lodges and charters bring their own stuff and costumers by boat from Juneau.
How do we know all this? Because we were lucky enough to meet Debra and Bobo, two of the Elfin Cove’s fisherpersons, out at White Sulphur springs on Sunday.
They were there with their daughter in law Amy and two grandkids.
When we heard they were based in Elfin Cove we asked if there was any place to camp. No problem you can camp on our ground they said, just come all the way to the bottom of the cove.
And so we did and got a warm greeting, a fine place to pitch the tents and an invitation for dinner to boot.
The menu? Freshly caught fish. Obviously. But also freshly harvested salad from Debra’s vegetable garden. Less obviously.
Debra has been based up here as a fisherwoman for fifty one years and Babo a similar time. Debra is from New Jersey and Babo from Indiana. They met up here each fishing from their own boat. But Babo had a stove on his…, and the rest is history. Including two sons Rylan and Taiga, brought here in Elfin Cove and who are also fishermen with their own boats and one daughter in law who is also a fisherwoman with her own boat. So five boats to the family fleet.
And four-five months of 18 hour days in summer early autumn and then these years they winter in southern climes. Except one some and daughter in law who winters in Juneau.
Jake, a family friend and teacher from Juneau also joined in for dinner with his two daughters. Two sons and one daughter in law were out fishing.
And so we got to hear about life here now and before. And we also got a lot of advice from fifty years of outdoor life up here. Debra has paddled the exact same route we had decades ago in a Klepper folding kayak. And they have paddled a lot also in Glacier Bay.
After a long meal and conversations accompanied by the four kids’ laughing on the trampoline it was time to get in the tents.
A very memorable day. Even more for the hospitality than the paddle. And the paddle would have been quite memorable all by itself.
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