Fishermen Bios

F/V Republic (291kb PDF file)

Dewey Torgeson, fisherman for 50 years, was born of Norwegian parents in Ketchikan, Alaska and learned the fishing trade from Norwegian-speaking fishermen down at the docks. He quietly spoke of his old-time fishing schooner, the Republic, over a cup of coffee in his comfortable galley. He and 25+ years deckhand, Harold Olsen, told stories about this proud vessel.

The Republic was built in the Strand shipyard in Seattle (the shipyard no longer exists but was located where the Locks are now) in 1914 out of the best wood around: high-elevation fir, air-dried for 7 years.

Torgeson bought the ship in 1975 and is only the fourth owner. The Republic has always had a good reputation, for fishing prowess, quality fish and being a safe boat. She’s hauled out every year, a necessity for any wooden vessel. Torgeson sells the best fish by fishing short trips and by being quick to ice the fish in the hold that has cooling coils in it.

The captain took another sip of coffee and shared a story he heard once that took place during World War II when the documented vessel was taken over by the government. Rumor has it that it had an encounter with a Japanese submarine near Coronation Island.

The 5-9 member crew these days has a different kind of excitement. They fish for halibut and black cod for 4 months, in Southeast Alaska, the Eastern Gulf of Alaska and all the way to the Aleutians. But this is easy compared to pre-IFQ (Individual Fisherman Quota) days. Back then they fished year-round.

F/V Christi-Rob (293kb PDF file)

Walt Pasternak sits easy in the captain’s seat in the wheelhouse of the Christi-Rob. And he should, he’s been fishing since the mid-70s, first as a handtroller out of a sailboat and several boats later, this troller/longliner. He’s been attracted to the fishing lifestyle from the beginning – loves the adventure, the independence, experiencing the ocean – all of it. Pasternak’s deckhand since 1999, Jeff Farvor, says, “It just gets inside you; it’s fulfilling. You get to do all those things that a lot of people just dream about, including providing all that food to the public.”

Asked what extra care they take of their fish, Walt replied, “We treat each one personal, like we’re going to eat that one.” Wife Megan adds, “We treat it like our own.” Their insulated fish hold has chilling plates which keep the ice good and cold so fish can be delivered fresh. When they fish black cod, they’re only out 2 days, halibut – 3-4 days and salmon – 1-5 days.

This caring is also seen in the importance they place on protecting the natural resources. Farvor commented that “commitment to stewardship is essential in this industry.” These three Alaskans don’t stop there. They’re all involved in the community of Sitka, especially in protecting commercial fishers’ interests.

They’re passionate about their home and their work. Farvor says this is the best place on the planet, he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. “I live in Alaska because I fish here, there should be that level of commitment.”

F/V Woodstock (903kb PDF file)

Ultimately, for Linda Behnken, it’s all about the sustainable health of our natural resources and what we leave for our children, and future generations. She and husband, Kent Barkhau, believe this fishing business is a good way to raise kids. Behnken says the children are a “part of their family business, they get to see what we do, understand the challenges, the fish, the ocean, so there’s a future for them.” This passion for thinking long term about the health of our fisheries and natural habitat is not only shared with their children, Hahlen and Rio, but it can be seen in her professional life, too.

Behnken first came here to see wild Alaska and earn college money back in 1982. It didn’t take long to find work crewing on a longliner for black cod and halibut. Nine years later, she had her Masters degree and her own boat, F/V Morgan, a troller/longliner. This experience on the water led to a nine year stint on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and being Executive Director of Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association since 1991.

This fishing couple loves Sitka for many reasons: its diverse, vibrant community, its independent fishermen who are there when you need them, being on the outer coast close to healthy fishing grounds. They love the hard, outdoor, physically-demanding work, the wildlife, the whales and its gorgeous scenery!

They feel good about the product they sell because they take special care of it. They bleed their fish right after stunning them, then wash, chill, then wash again and ice them carefully in their well-insulated fish hold, making sure that all surfaces the fish come in contact with are sealed and clean. They never keep them on board more than 3 days and the hold is cleaned after every trip. A healthy product with a sustainable future.

F/V Myriad (368kb PDF file)

It’s not often that you get to meet with someone who has invented a technique that is spreading industry-wide. It’s inspiring when you do. Dan Falvey, skipper of the F/V Myriad, and his deckhand figured out how to get ALL of the blood out of the belly of a salmon when it’s being cleaned, and that’s without scraping it with a “spoon,” the old method. I won’t go into all the details but what impresses me is the dedication to quality. Having the best end-product, the one that sits on our plate, requires constant vigilance and looking for new ways to do things even better.

Falvey came to Alaska in 1981 because he “always wanted to see it.” Not an uncommon phrase in Alaska. But this is no common fisherman. It only took a few years of being a deckhand to realize he could run his own boat. And the fascination of trying new ideas in his newfound career led Falvey to go to school in the late 80s to earn a degree in Resource Management and Policy. Fishing in the summer paid his way through school.

Commitment to the industry and to a high quality product led Falvey to convert to a Frozen at Sea (FAS) process in 2001. Let me explain what this means…the FAS fish is stunned in the water, brought on board, “pipette” cleaned to get the blood out, and flash frozen within minutes of hitting the deck. FAS fish are such high quality that the skin is still iridescent after thawing. That’s fresh. FAS fishers guarantee consistently perfect fish.

Falvey isn’t just committed to improving quality; he also has a family to support and the community of Sitka and future generations on his mind. He wants to help make a sustainable future for the resource. “We need to leave fish for future generations. We owe it to the kids to leave them something.” This fisherman knows he can take pride in what he’s done at the end of the day.

Terry Perensovich (1.02MB PDF file)

In the late 1970s, Perensovich had just graduated from high school and had a construction job when he heard about the great income one could make fishing. So he transitioned to fishing for halibut out of a Boston Whaler and hasn’t changed boats for over 30 years. This income was supplemented for many years with a shipwright business.

Terry loves the solitude this lifestyle brings though he usually has a deckhand, either wife Joanna or friend Joe D’Arienzo, who both have their own pounds to fish. Fishing trips involve camping on shore and are usually 3 days duration. The first day they set up camp and bait up. The second day they set the gear early, hand-haul in the afternoon, bait the gear and reset. The third day they haul in the morning. In the fall, they hunt while gear is soaking.

They have such small quotas to catch that fish are easily taken care of. They’re slung off over the side to bleed outside the boat; they’ll hang there until they’re done hauling the set. This prevents bruising and keeps the fish cold. In the summer, fish are iced in a tote. In the cold fall weather, when they combine fishing with hunting, the halibut will remain slung over the side overnight. Only once have they had a loss from a sea lion.

Perensovich has considered upgrading at various times to a larger boat but the low-stress operation is appealing. He always looks forward to the camping, fishing and hunting available in his own “backyard.”

F/V Carole D (293kb PDF file)

Commercial fishing has been a part of Frank Balovich’s life since he was 5 and he has the photo on board as a reminder of where he’s come from and what he inherited from his dad. When his father died, Frank took on his father’s fishing business and soon learned how different it was being a captain rather than crew. But with his hard working deckhands, Erik Jameson and Waylon Evans, and the Monk design 48’ steel Carole D underneath them, they’ve done well fishing for halibut, black cod, salmon and tanner crab.

Balovich loves the adventurous life on the ocean. He’s constantly awed by the scenery that is always different. And he’s always learning something, especially that you can’t take anything for granted, and “that you have to put your time into it, to understand what it’s all about – things change so much.” Frank is concerned about threats to the biomass and wants to make sure that if he ever has children there will be something to pass on to them.

One way Balovich contributes to this legacy is being careful at the roller. When they’re pulling a longline set, they try to shake the smaller fish and not use the crucifier, which is so efficient it usually kills the unwanted fish. They handle the fish as little as possible and don’t drop them. They make smaller 3-day trips and so don’t overload the boat. The fish are well-cleaned and iced.

Frank Balovich is in this for the long-haul, keeping a family tradition alive. Protecting the resources just makes good sense.

F/V Cherokee (290kb PDF file)

Fishing for a living skipped a generation but the Irish/Newfoundland fishing heritage found its way again in this family through Dick Curran in 1976. Curran grew up in New York, always wanted to go to Alaska for the adventure, finally did, and ended up commercial fishing in Southeast Alaska. He’s drawn to the independent lifestyle, being out on the ocean by yourself, enjoying thewilderness experience and making your own way in life.

The fishing port of Sitka has been his home since 1978. He finds the tight-knit community appealing and the proximity of halibut and black cod fishing grounds, and retailers who support the industry, convenient.

Being so close to where the fish are makes it simple to run short trips, which help him maintain a high-quality catch. His crew goes to great lengths to clean and ice the fish well in the insulated hold. And they fish shorter sets so there are fewer fish to handle. But if they happen to get a lot of fish, they stop hauling and catch up with the cleaning and icing. Curran doesn’t let fish pile up on deck.

“Quality” is what’s foremost in this captain’s mind; less emphasis on production and quantity, and more on taking care of the fish.

F/V Kariel (1.31MB PDF file)

Southeast Alaska in the mid- seventies saw many a young person arrive with dreams of making a quick living on the sea, and Steve Fish was no exception, though it was also the attraction of this place where land meets sea that brought Fish to Alaska in 1974. And he learned by the end of his first season that it would take more than the three months to make that “quick” living.

At nineteen, Fish says, “I was looking for that independence from imposed routine.” He also liked the idea of relying on his own resources and “working within the confines of nature: weather, resources, working in seasons, quotas, caprices of market - everything changes,” he says, “I like change”.

Later, when his growing family and economics changed his priorities, he moved from the remote fishing village of Port Alexander to the hub community of Sitka. This new home provided good winter fishing grounds and more school opportunities for his three children.

Fish’s approach to fishing is to try to respect every fish and keep it at it’s best value. He and his crew bleed every fish, which is unusual on a refrigerated sea water (RSW) boat. Value is important to Fish and his methods are flexible. If the weather is stormy, he will ice his halibut and black cod (though not together) so as to avoid scale loss.

Fish has served on the board of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, including two years as Chair, and is currently president of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association.

F/V Tammy Lin (1.32MB PDF file)

Sitka and commercial fishing areGeorge Eliason’s passion and he comes by them naturally. Born and raised in the “Paris of the Pacific,” his dad,Richard “Dick” Eliason, took him out fishing in the summers starting when he was around 10 years old. Fifteen years later, when he was crabbing commercially, he bought the Anna J from his dad.

These days Eliason focuses on trolling and longlining on his freezer boat, theTammy Lin. When asked what he loved about his job he said, “I love fishing and everything about it: the partnerships, the thrill of the hunt and catch, being my own boss.” He feels just as passionately about Sitka where 90% of his family still lives and where the fishing grounds are so close to town.

One of the benefits he’s enjoyed is continuing the family tradition of fishing with his three children. Each started fishing when they were eight and today his two sons still take time off to participate in summer fisheries.

Eliason takes his business seriously and sets a high standard for those just starting out. Every fish is handled with care. Longline fish are bled and on ice within a half hour. Troll caught salmon are bled by cutting the gill rakers, processed on board and down in the -45 degree hold within one hour. It’s kept so cold that it’s not unusual for a fish’s core temperature to drop to -37 degrees, which keeps them at peak quality.

Quality is so important to Eliason that he will even keep two of his four lines out of the water if he is behind processing the fish. He follows the strict cleanliness guidelines set out by various government agencies, even putting chlorine in the glaze water. His crew knows that the final product can be traced back to their boat. Keeping focused on producing a consistent quality product will always be important to this Southeast fisherman.

F/V Born Again (644 kb PDF file)

Matt Lawrie is not the first fisherman to work on Alaskan waters with a college degree, and he won’t be the last. What makes a young man work hard in college and then choose to live on a troller? In this own words, “being my own boss, freedom to make my own decisions, out on the water, owning a business that produces a tangible, high quality, unambiguously good product. It’s simple - producing something to eat - it’s satisfying.”

Lawrie was introduced to commercial fishing as a boy fishing with his dad, Stephen Lawrie, and their family. He didn’t envision being a fisherman, it kind of happened by default - deckhanding for dad as a teen then buying his first boat at 20, fishing in summers to help pay for college, then...well, you know the rest.

This freezer boat follows industry standards for a high quality product. Here’s the process: fish caught at the peak of its life cycle, landed, bled, headed, pressure bled, gutted, residual blood and sea lice removed using vacuum, clean nape of neck, blast freeze to -30F core temperature within 1/2 hour or so of being caught, before rigor mortis sets in and held at that temp for the duration. Glaze in salt water solution with a little bleach which protects from frost bite. Fish are stacked and covered with a tarp. He says this is the highest quality seafood he’s ever seen, especially salmon.

Sitka has always been a fishing community, whether catching some for your own table or to sell. And down on the docks or out with the fleet there’s a shared bond that’s been there for generations, passed down from parent to child, captain to deckhand. Lawrie likes the people in the industry, they’ve been a part of his life for a long time. When he came back from his years at college he saw this and wanted to be a part of it. Now you can find him at a local coffee shop, on his boat or out on the water living the lifestyle.