Work in the fishing and fish-processing industry shows a clear differentiation according to gender, with the men traditionally doing the actual fishing while the women work at fish processing on shore. Many of the persons working on fishing vessels may be looked upon as unskilled; the deckhands, for instance, receive their training in the work on board. The navigators (captain, skipper and mate), the machine room personnel (engineer, machinist and stoker), the radio operators and the cooks all have different educational backgrounds. The main assignment is to fish; other tasks include loading of the vessel, which is done on the open sea, followed by the fish processing, which takes place to various stages of completion. The only common exposure of these groups occurs during their stay on board the vessel, which is in constant motion both while they are working and resting. Fish processing on shore will be dealt with later.

Accidents

The most dangerous work tasks for the individual fishers are related to the setting out and hauling in of the fishing gear. In trawler fishing, for example, the trawl is laid out in a sequence of tasks involving the complicated coordination of different types of winches (see “Major sectors and processes” in this chapter). All operations take place at great speed, and teamwork is absolutely essential. While setting the trawl, the connecting of the trawl doors to the warp (wire ropes) is one of the most dangerous moments, as these doors weigh several hundred kilograms. Other parts of the fishing gear are also too heavy to be handled without the use of derricks and winches while shooting the trawl (i.e., heavy gear and bobbings move freely around before being hoisted overboard).

The whole procedure of setting and hauling aboard the trawl, purse seine and nets is carried out using wire cables which pass across the working area often. The cables are at high tension, as there is often an extremely heavy pull from the fishing gear in a direction opposite of the forward motion of the fishing vessel itself. There is a great risk of getting entangled by or falling onto the fishing gear and thus being drawn overboard, or of falling overboard when laying out the fishing gear. There is a risk of crushing and trapping injuries to fingers, hands and arms, and the heavy gear may fall or roll and thus injure legs and feet.

Bleeding and gutting the fish are often done manually and take place on the deck or on a shelterdeck. The pitching and rolling of the vessels make injuries to the hands and fingers common from knife cuts or from pricks of fish bones and spines. Infections in wounds are frequent. Long-line and hand-line fishing involve the risk of wounds to fingers and hands from the hooks. As this type of fishing is becoming more and more automated it is becoming associated with dangers from line haulers and winches.

The method of managing fishing by limiting the amount caught from a restricted natural resource area also influences the injury rate. In some places pursuit quotas allocate to the vessels certain days when they are allowed to fish, and the fishers feel they have to go fishing at these times whatever the weather.

Fatal accidents

Fatal accidents at sea are easily studied through mortality registers, as accidents at sea are coded on the death certificates as water transport accidents according to the International Classification of Diseases, with an indication as to whether the injury was sustained while employed on board. Death rates from work-related fatal accidents among workers in the fishing industry are high, and higher than for many other occupational groups on shore. Table 1 shows the mortality rate per 100,000 for fatal accidents in different countries. The fatal injuries are traditionally classified as (1) individual accidents (i.e., individuals falling overboard, being swept overboard by heavy seas or being fatally injured by machinery) or (2) individuals lost as a result of vessel casualties (e.g., because of foundering, capsizing, missing vessels, explosions and fires). Both categories are related to the weather conditions. Accidents to individual crew members outnumber the others.

Table 1. Mortality figures on fatal injuries among fishermen as reported in studies from various countries

The safety of a vessel depends on its design, size and type, and on factors such as stability, freeboard, weather-tight integrity and structural protection against fire. Negligent navigation or errors of judgement may result in casualties to vessels, and the fatigue which follows long spells of duty may also play a role, as well as being an important cause of personal accidents.

Better safety records of more modern vessels may be due to the combined effects of improved human and technical efficiency. Training of personnel, proper use of flotation support apparatus, suitable clothing and the use of buoyant overalls may all increase the probability of rescue of persons in the event of an accident. More widespread use of other safety measures, including safety lines, helmets and safety shoes, may be needed in the fishing industry in general, as discussed elsewhere in this Encyclopaedia.

Non-fatal injuries

Non-fatal injuries are also quite common in the fishing industry (see table 2). The body regions of injured workers most frequently mentioned are the hands, lower limbs, head and neck and upper limbs, followed by the chest, spine and abdomen, in decreasing order of frequency. The most common types of traumas are open wounds, fractures, strains, sprains and contusions. Many non-fatal injuries may be serious, involving, for instance, amputation of fingers, hands, arms and legs as well as injuries to the head and neck. Infections, lacerations and minor traumas of the hands and fingers are quite frequent, and treatment with antibiotics is often recommended by the ship’s doctors in all cases.

Table 2. The most important jobs or places related to risk of injuries

Morbidity

Information on the general health of fishers and overviews of their illnesses are mainly obtained from two types of reports. One source is the case series compiled by ships’ doctors, and the other is the medical advice reports, which report on evacuations, hospitalizations and repatriations. Unfortunately, most if not all of these reports give only the numbers of patients and percentages.

The most frequently reported non-traumatic conditions leading to consultations and hospitalization arise as a result of dental conditions, gastro-intestinal illness, musculoskeletal conditions, psychiatric/neurological conditions, respiratory conditions, cardiological conditions and dermatological complaints. In one series reported by a ship’s doctor, psychiatric conditions were the most common reason for evacuating workers from trawlers on long-term fishing voyages, with injuries only coming in second place as a reason for rescuing fishers. In another series the most common illnesses which necessitated repatriation were cardiological and psychiatric conditions.

Occupational asthma

Occupational asthma is frequently found among workers in the fish industry. It is associated with several types of fish, but most commonly it is related to exposure to crustaceans and molluscs—for example, shrimp, crabs, shellfish and so on. The processing of fishmeal is also often related to asthma, as are similar processes, such as grinding shells (shrimp shells in particular).

Hearing loss

Excessive noise as a cause of decreased hearing acuity is well recognized among workers in the fish-processing industry. The machine room personnel on the vessels are at extreme risk, but so are those working with the older equipment in fish processing. Organized hearing conservation programmes are widely needed.

Suicide

In some studies on fishers and sailors from the merchant fleet, high death rates because of suicide have been reported. There is also an excess of deaths in the category where the doctors were not able to decide whether the injury was accidental or self- inflicted. There is a widespread belief that suicides in general are underreported, and this is rumoured to be even greater in the fishing industry. Psychiatric literature gives descriptions of calenture, a behavioural phenomenon where the predominant symptom is an irresistible impulse for sailors to jump into the sea from their vessels. The underlying causes for the risk for suicide have not been studied among fishermen particularly; however, consideration of the psychosocial situation of the workforce at sea, as discussed in another article in this chapter, seems a not unlikely place to start. There are indications that the suicide risk increases when the workers stop fishing and go ashore both for a short while or definitely.

Fatal poisoning and asphyxia

Fatal poisoning occurs in incidents of fire on board fishing vessels, and is related to inhalation of toxic smoke. There are also reports of fatal and non-fatal intoxication resulting from the leak of refrigerants or the use of chemicals for preserving shrimp or fish, and from toxic gases from the anaerobic decay of organic material in unventilated holds. The refrigerants concerned range from the highly toxic methyl chloride to ammonia. Some deaths have been attributed to exposure to sulphur dioxide in confined spaces, which is reminiscent of the incidents of silo-filler’s disease, where there is exposure to nitrogen oxides. Research has similarly shown that there are mixtures of toxic gases (i.e., carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen sulphide and carbon monoxide), along with low partial pressure of oxygen in holds on board ship and on shore, which have resulted in casualties, both fatal and non-fatal, often related to industrial fish such as herring and capelin. In commercial fishing, there are some reports of intoxication when landing fish that have been related to trimethylamine and endotoxins causing symptoms resembling influenza, which may, however, lead to death. Attempts could be made to reduce these risks through improved education and alterations to equipment.

Skin diseases

Skin diseases affecting hands are common. These may be related to contact with fish proteins or to the use of rubber gloves. If gloves are not used, the hands are constantly wet and some workers may become sensitized. Thus most of the skin diseases are contact eczema, either allergic or non-allergic, and the conditions are often constantly present. Boils and abscesses are recurrent problems also affecting hands and fingers.

Mortality

Some studies, although not all, show low mortality from all causes among fishermen as compared to the general male population. This phenomenon of low mortality in a group of workers is called the “healthy worker effect”, referring to the consistent tendency for actively employed people to have more favourable mortality experience than the population at large. However, due to high mortality from accidents at sea, the results from many mortality studies on fishermen show high death rates for all causes.

The mortality from ischemic heart diseases is either elevated or decreased in studies on fishermen. Mortality from cerebrovascular diseases and respiratory diseases is average among fishermen.

Unknown causes

Mortality from unknown causes is higher among fishermen than other men in several studies. Unknown causes are special numbers in the International Classification of Diseases used when the doctor who issues the death certificate is not able to state any specific disease or injury as the cause of death. Sometimes deaths registered under the category of unknown causes are due to accidents in which the body was never found, and are most likely water transport accidents or suicides when the death occurs at sea. In any case an excess of deaths from unknown causes can be an indication, not only of a dangerous job, but also of a dangerous lifestyle.

Accidents occurring other than at sea

An excess of fatal traffic accidents, various poisonings and other accidents, suicide and homicide have been found among fishermen (Rafnsson and Gunnarsdóttir 1993). In this connection the hypothesis has been suggested that seamen are influenced by their dangerous occupation towards hazardous behaviour or a hazardous lifestyle. The fishermen themselves have suggested that they become unaccustomed to traffic, which could provide an explanation for the traffic accidents. Other suggestions have focused on the attempts of fishermen, returning from long voyages during which they have been away from family and friends, to catch up on their social life. Sometimes fishermen spend only a short time ashore (a day or two) between long voyages. The excess of deaths from accidents other than those at sea points to an unusual lifestyle.

Cancer

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which among other things has a role in evaluating industries in respect to the potential cancer risks for their workers, has not included fishing or the fish-processing industry among those industrial branches showing clear signs of cancer risk. Several mortality and cancer morbidity studies discuss the cancer risk among fishermen (Hagmar et al. 1992; Rafnsson and Gunnarsdóttir 1994, 1995). Some of them have found an increased risk for different cancers among fishermen, and suggestions are often given as to possible causes for the cancer risks which involve both occupational and lifestyle factors. The cancers which will be discussed here are cancer of the lip, lung and stomach.

Cancer of the lip

Fishing has traditionally been related to lip cancer. Previously this was thought to be related to exposure to tars used to preserve the nets, since the workers had used their mouths as “third hands” when handling the nets. Currently the aetiology of lip cancer among fishermen is considered to be the joint effect of exposure to ultraviolet radiation during outdoor work and smoking.

Cancer of the lung

The studies on lung cancer are not in accord. Some studies have not found increased risk of lung cancer among fishermen. Studies of fishermen from Sweden showed less lung cancer than the reference population (Hagmar et al. 1992). In an Italian study the lung cancer risk was thought to be related to smoking and not to the occupation. Other studies on fishermen have found increased risk of lung cancer, and still others have not confirmed this. Without information on smoking habits it has been difficult to evaluate the role of smoking versus the occupational factors in the possible cases. There are indications of the need to study separately the different occupational groups on the fishing vessels, as engine room personnel have elevated risk for lung cancer, thought to be due to exposure to asbestos or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Further studies are thus needed to clarify the relation of lung cancer and fishing.

Cancer of the stomach

Many studies have found elevated risk of stomach cancer in fishermen. In the Swedish studies the risk of stomach cancer was thought to be related to high consumption of fatty fish contaminated with organochlorine compounds (Svenson et al. 1995). At present it is uncertain what role dietary, lifestyle and occupational factors play in the association of stomach cancer with fishing.

Back

The term musculoskeletal disorders is used collectively for symptoms and diseases of the muscles, tendons and/or joints. Such disorders are often unspecified and can vary in duration. The main risk factors for work-related musculoskeletal disorders are heavy lifting, awkward work postures, repetitive work tasks, psychological stress and improper job organization (see figure 1).

Figure 1. Manual handling of fish in a fish-packing plant in Thailand

In 1985, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued the following statement: “Work-related diseases are defined as multifactorial, where the work environment and the performance of work contribute significantly; but as one of a number of factors to the causation of disease” (WHO 1985). There are, however, no internationally accepted criteria for the causes of work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders appear in both developing and developed countries. They have not disappeared despite the development of new technologies permitting machines and computers to take over what was previously manual work (Kolare 1993).

Work aboard vessels is physically and mentally demanding. Most of the well-known risk factors for musculoskeletal disorders mentioned above are often present in the fishermen’s work situation and organization.

Traditionally most fishery workers have been males. Swedish studies on fishermen have shown that symptoms from the musculoskeletal system are common, and that they follow a logical pattern according to the fishing and type of working tasks on board. Seventy-four per cent of the fishermen had experienced symptoms of the musculoskeletal system during the previous 12 months. The largest number of fishermen considered the motion of the vessel to be a major strain, not only on the musculoskeletal system, but on the individual as a whole (Törner et al. 1988).

There are not many published studies on musculoskeletal disorders among workers in fish processing. There is a long tradition of female domination in the job of cutting and trimming the fillets in the fish-processing industry. Results from Icelandic, Swedish and Taiwanese studies show that female workers in the fish-processing industry had a higher prevalence of symptoms of musculoskeletal disorders of the neck or shoulders than women who had more varied jobs (Ólafsdóttir and Rafnsson1997; Ohlsson et al. 1994; Chiang et al. 1993). These symptoms were thought to be causally related to the highly repetitive tasks with a short cycle time of less than 30 seconds. Work with highly repetitive tasks without the possibility of rotation between different jobs is a high risk factor. Chiang and co-workers (1993) studied workers in the fish-processing industry (men and women) and found a higher prevalence of symptoms of the upper limbs among those with jobs involving high repetitiveness or forceful movements, as compared to those in the same factories who had jobs with low repetitiveness and low-force movements.

As mentioned above, musculoskeletal disorders have not disappeared despite the development of new technologies. The flow line is an example of one new technique which has been introduced in the fish-processing industry ashore and on board larger processing vessels. The flow line consists of a system of conveyor belts which transport the fish through decapitating and filleting machines to the workers who seize each fillet and cut and trim it with a knife. Other conveyor belts transport the fish to the packing station, after which the fish is quick-frozen. The flow line has changed the prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms among women working in fish-filleting plants. After the introduction of the flow line, the prevalence of symptoms of the upper limbs increased while the prevalence of symptoms of the lower limbs decreased (Ólafsdóttir and Rafnsson 1997).

In order to develop a strategy for their prevention it is important to understand the causes, mechanisms, prognosis and prevention of musculoskeletal disorders (Kolare et al. 1993). The disorders cannot be prevented by new technologies exclusively. The whole working environment, including the work organization, has to be taken into consideration.

Back

Fisheries Bycatch and Discards

The capture of non-target species—termed bycatch (or in some cases by-kill)—ranks as one of the major environmental impacts of the global marine fisheries industry. Bycatch, the vast majority of which is “discarded” overboard, includes:

• marketable species that are too small or that are prohibited from landings

• species that are not marketable

• commercial species that are not the target of a species-specific fishery

• species that are not fishery related, such as sea birds, sea turtles and marine mammals.

In a major study done for the FAO (Alverson et al. 1994) it was provisionally and conservatively estimated that 27.0 million tonnes of fish and invertebrate life (thus not including marine mammals, seabirds or turtles) are caught and then discarded—much of it dead or dying—by commercial fishery operations each year. This is equivalent to more than one-third the weight of all reported marine landings in commercial fisheries worldwide, estimated at some 77 million tonnes.

In addition to the ethical issues associated with wastage, there is great public concern about the environmental impacts of discard mortalities, such as potential biodiversity loss and reduced fish stocks. Perhaps as many as 200,000 marine mammals are killed annually in fishing gear (Alverson et al. 1994). Gill net fishing is likely the most serious threat to many porpoise populations; at least one species (the yaquita in the Gulf of California) and several populations of harbour porpoise are nearing extinction due to this fishery type. The inadvertent capture and mortality of sea turtles, notably those associated with shrimp trawls and some long-line fisheries, is an important factor in the continued endangerment of various populations throughout the world’s oceans (Dayton et al. 1995). High numbers of seabirds are also killed in some fisheries; long-line operations kill many tens of thousands of albatross annually and are considered the major threat to the survival of many albatross species and populations (Gales 1993).

The issue of bycatch has been a major factor in the now negative public perception of the commercial marine fisheries. As a consequence, there has been much research in recent years to improve the selectivity of fishing gear and fishing methods. Indeed, the FAO (1995) estimates that a 60% reduction in discards could be achieved by the year 2000 if a major concerted effort is undertaken by governments and industry.

Fish/Seafood Waste and Bycatch Disposal

Fish and seafood wastes can include the internal organs (viscera), heads, tails, blood, scales and wastewater or sludge (e.g., cooker juices, chemical coagulants used in primary treatment systems, oil, grease, suspended solids and so on). In many regions, most seafood-processing material from land-based industry is converted to fishmeal or fertilizer, with any remaining waste either dumped at sea, discharged into coastal waters, applied directly on land or landfilled. Waste from ship-based processing (i.e., fish cleaning) is comprised of fish parts (offal) and is invariably dumped at sea.

The impact of processed fish material on aquatic systems can vary widely according to the type of waste, the rate and amount of discharge, the ecological sensitivity of the receiving environment and physical factors influencing waste mixing and dispersion. The greatest concern involves the discharge of waste by processing companies into coastal environments; here the influx of excessive nutrients can lead to eutrophication and, subsequently, loss of local aquatic plant and animal populations.

The discharge of offal and bycatch from fishing boats can result in oxygen depletion of benthic (i.e., bottom) habitats if sufficient quantities accumulate on the seabed. However, discards and offal are considered factors contributing to the rapid growth of some seabird populations, though this may be to the detriment of less competitive species (Alverson et al. 1994).

Commercial Whaling

Commercial whaling continues to provoke intense public and political focus due (1) to the perceived uniqueness of whales, (2) to concerns about the humaneness of hunting techniques and (3) to the fact that most populations of whales—such as of blues, fins and rights—have been dramatically reduced. The current focus of hunts is the minke whale, which had been spared by the historical whaling fleets because of its small size (7 to 10 m) relative to the much larger “great” whales.

In 1982, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) voted for a global moratorium on commercial whaling. This moratorium came into effect with the 1985/86 whaling season and is scheduled to last for an indefinite period. However, two countries—Norway and Russia—maintain official objections to the moratorium, and Norway uses that objection to continue commercial whaling in the Northeast Atlantic. Although Japan does not maintain an objection to the moratorium, it continues whaling in the North Pacific and the Southern Oceans, taking advantage of an article in the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling which allows member States to kill whales for purposes of scientific research. Less than 1,000 whales are killed annually by the Japanese and Norwegian fleets; virtually all of the whale meat ends up in the Japanese market for human consumption (Stroud 1996).

Seafood Safety: Pathogens, Chemical Pollutants and Natural Toxins

Human illness can occur from ingestion of contaminated seafood through three main routes:

1. Raw, undercooked or poorly processed fish and shellfish that are contaminated by pathogens that can cause such diseases as hepatitis A, cholera or typhoid. Untreated or inadequately treated domestic sewage is the primary source of microbial pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria, in seafood; some disease-causing organisms can persist for months in or on fish or within the digestive tracts or gills of fish and shellfish. The health risks posed by these pathogens can be virtually eliminated with proper sewage treatment and disposal, monitoring programmes, proper food processing and preparation techniques and, most importantly, through thorough cooking of seafood products (Food and Nutrition Board 1991).
2. Consumption of seafood that has been contaminated by industrial chemicals such as mercury, lead and pesticides. The global nature and pervasiveness of environmental pollution means that a wide variety of industrial chemicals—such as pesticides and heavy metals (e.g., lead and mercury)—are typically found in seafood. However, the extent of contamination varies widely from region to region and between species. Of particular concern are those chemicals that can bioaccumulate in humans, such as PCBs, dioxins and mercury. In these cases, contaminant burdens (from a wide variety of sources, including seafood) increase over time to levels where toxic effects may be exerted. Though much remains to be understood concerning the effects on human health of chronic contaminant exposure, an impressive body of information suggests a clear potential for increased cancer risks, immunosuppression, reproductive impacts and subtle impairment of neurological development in foetuses and children. In a major report on seafood safety, the Institute of Medicine of the US Academy of Sciences (Food and Nutrition Board 1991) recommended—as have numerous environmental and human health organizations—that an active environmental stance aimed at pollution prevention would ultimately be the best means to avoid continuing human health problems and pollution disasters as a result of industrial chemicals.
3. Consumption of seafood contaminated by natural algae-related toxins, such as domoic acid, ciguatoxin and saxitoxin. A wide range of toxins are produced by various algae species, and these can accumulate in a range of seafood products, notably shellfish (the exception being ciguatoxin, which is found only in reef fish). Resulting illnesses include “shellfish poisoning”—either paralytic (PSP), amnesic (ASP), diarrhetic (DSP) or neurotoxic (NSP)—and ciguatera. Mortalities continue to result from PSP and ciguatera; no fatalities have been reported from ASP since its discovery in 1987, when three people died. There has been what appears to be an increase in toxic algal blooms since the 1970s, as well as changes in the distribution and intensity of fish and shellfish toxicity. Though algal blooms are natural events, it is strongly suspected that coastal nutrient pollution—mainly from fertilizers and sewage—is enhancing bloom formation or duration and thereby increasing the likelihood of seafood toxicity episodes (Anderson 1994). It is important to note that, unlike for pathogens, thorough cooking does not reduce the toxicity of seafood contaminated by these natural poisons.

Back

The Entangling Net: Alaska’s Commercial Fishing Women Tell Their Lives, by Leslie Leyland Fields (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996), is the story, based on the author’s own experience and interviews, of some of the women who worked as commercial fishers in the waters of the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Alaska surrounding Kodiak Island and the Aleutian Islands. The following excerpts capture some of the flavour of these women’s experience, why they chose this line of work and what it entailed.

Theresa Peterson

The last black cod season started May 15. It was two gals and two guys. The skipper wanted a crew that could bait gear fast; that was what he was looking for. ... To start out, all we were trying to do is turn hooks. Its a numbers game. Ideally you run 18,000-20,000 hooks a day. And so we’d have four people baiting at all times and one person hauling gear. The people baiting would rotate coiling the gear. We went back to the traditional way of fishing. Most Kodiak boats will let the gear fall into a tub, kind of on its own, then you bring that tub back and bait it. On the old halibut schooners they hand coil everything so they’re able to offspin every hook. They try to make a really nice coil so when you take it back you can bait it twice as fast. The first couple of days we looked at the time it was taking to bait the messy skates (the long lines on which the hooks are attached). I refuse to bait another skate like that, so then we all started hand coiling our own. When you do that you’re able to move from your baiting station. We really worked long hours, often twenty-four hours, then we go into the next day and work through that night until about 2:00 A.M. and the next day another twenty hours. Then we’d lie  down for about three hours. Then we’d get back up and go another twenty-four hours and a couple of hours down. The first week we averaged ten hours of sleep all together—we figured it out. So we joked, twenty-four on, one off.

I had never fished that hard before. When it opened, we fished Saturday, all through Saturday, all through Sunday and half of Monday. So well over fifty-six hours with no sleep, working as hard, as fast as high paced as you can push yourself. Then we laid down for like three hours. You get up. You are so stiff! Then we brought in a trip, just over 40,000 pounds in four days, so we virtually had been up those entire four days. That was a good load. It was really motivational. I make a thousand dollars a day. ... It’s the shorter seasons, the shorter longline seasons, are what are driving the boats back to these schedules. ... with a three-week season, you’re almost forced to unless you can rotate a person down (let them sleep) (pp. 31-33).

Leslie Smith

But the reason I feel lucky is because we were out there, a woman running a boat with an all-women crew, and we were doing it. And we were doing it as well as anybody else in the fleet, so I never felt intimidated in thinking, “Oh, a woman can’t do this, can’t figure it out, or is not capable of it” because the first job I ever had was with women and we did fine. So I had that confidence factor from the beginning of my deckhand career... (p. 35).

When you’re on a boat, you don’t have a life, you don’t have any physical space, you don’t have any time to yourself. It’s all the boat, the fishing, for four months straight...(p. 36).

I have a little bit of protection on some of the winds but pretty much I’ll get all of it. ... There’s also a lot of tide here. You dump these anchors off; you’ve got fifteen or twenty anchors, some of them three hundred pounders, to try to hold one net in place. And every time you go out there the net’s twisted in some different shape and you have to drag these anchors around. And the weather is not very nice most of the time. You’re always fighting the wind. It’s a challenge, a physical challenge instead of a mental challenge... (p. 37).

Beating the docks (going from boat to boat seeking a job) was the worst thing. After I did it for a while I realized that probably there’s only 15 percent of the boats that you even have a possibility of being hired on because the rest of them will not hire women. Mostly because their wives won’t let them or there’s another woman on the boat already or they are just flat out sexist—they don’t want women. But between those three factors, the number of boats you could get hired on was so slim that it was discouraging. But you had to find out which boats those were. That means walking the docks...(p. 81).

Martha Sutro

I was thinking about the question you asked earlier. Why women are increasingly drawn to this. I don’t know. You wonder if there are increasing numbers of women coal mining or trucking. I don’t know if it has something to do with Alaska and the whole lure of being able to partake of something that formerly was withheld from you, or maybe its a breed of women who have been raised or somehow have been grown up to understand that certain barriers that supposedly were there are not legitimate. Even withstanding all the dangers, it’s an important experience and it’s very viable, very—I hate to use the word “fulfilling,” but it is very fulfilling. I loved, I loved getting a string of pots over perfectly and not having to ask anyone to help me with one of the doors once and getting all the massive wads of bait that you sort of swoop under the pot in the middle. ...There are elements to it you can’t find in any other type of experience. It’s almost like farming. It’s so elemental. It calls on such an elemental process. Since biblical times we’ve been talking about these kind of people. There’s this ethos surrounding it that’s very ancient. And to be able to go to that and draw on it. It gets into this whole mystical realm (p.44).

Lisa Jakubowski

It’s very lonely being the only woman on a boat. I make a point of never getting involved with guys on a romantic level or anything. Friends. I’m always open to friends, but you always have to be careful that they don’t think it’s more. See, there are so many different levels of guys. I don’t want to be friends with the drunkards and cocaine addicts. But definitely the more respectable people I became friends with. And I have maintained male friendships and female friendships. There’s a lot of loneliness though. I found out that laugh therapy helps. I go out on the back deck and just laugh to myself and feel better (p. 61).

Leslie Leyland Fields

Each (woman) asked only for equal treatment and equal opportunity. This doesn’t come automatically in a job where you need the strength to land a swinging 130-pound crab pot, the endurance to withstand thirty-six straight hours of work without sleep, the moxie to run a 150-horsepowered seine skiff at full speed near reefs, and special hands-on skills like diesel engine repair and maintenance, net mending, operating hydraulics. These are the powers that win the day and the fish; these are the powers fishing women must prove to disbelieving men. And not least of all, there is active resistance from an unexpected quarter—other women, the wives of men who fish (p. 53).

This is part of what I know of being a skipper. ... You alone hold the lives of two, three or four people in your hands. Your boat payments and insurance costs run you in the tens of thousands every year—you must catch fish. You manage a potentially volatile mix of personalities and work habits. You must have extensive knowledge of navigation, weather patterns, fishing regulations; you must be able to operate and repair to some degree the array of high-tech electronics that are the brains of the boat. ... The list goes on.

Why does anyone willingly hoist and carry such a load? There is another side, of course. To state it positively, there is independence in skippering, a degree of autonomy seldom found in other professions. You alone control the life within your ark. You can decide where you are going to fish, when the boat goes, how fast it goes, how long and hard the crew will work, how long everyone sleeps, the weather conditions you will work in, the degrees of risk you will take, the kind of food you eat... (p. 75).

In 1992, forty-four vessels in Alaska sunk, eighty-seven people were rescued from sinking vessels, thirty-five died. In Spring 1988 forty-four died after ice fog moved in and consumed boats and crew. To put those numbers in perspective, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reports that the annual death rate for all U.S. Occupations is 7 per 100,000 workers. For commercial fishing in Alaska, the rate jumps to 200 per 100,000, making it the most deadly job in the country. For crab fishermen, whose season runs through the winter, the rate climbs to 660 per 100,000, or almost 100 times the national average (p. 98).

Debra Nielsen

I’m only five feet tall and I weigh one hundred pounds and so men have a protective instinct toward me. I’ve had to surmount that my whole life to actually get in and do anything. The only way I’ve been able to get past is by being quicker and knowing what I’m doing. It’s about leverage. ... You have to slow down. You have to use your head in a different way and your body in a different way. I think its important that people know how small I am because if I can do it, it means any woman can do it... (p. 86).

Christine Holmes

I really believe in the North Pacific Vessel Owner’s Association, they offer some really good courses, one of which is Medical Emergencies at Sea. I think anytime you take any kind of marine tech class you’re doing yourself a favor (p. 106).

Rebecque Raigoza

Developed such a sense of independence and strength. Things I thought I could never do I learned I would do out here. It’s just opened a whole new world for myself as a young woman. becoming a woman, I don’t know. There are so many possibilities now because I know I can do “a man’s job,” you know? There’s a lot of power that comes with that (p. 129).

Copyright 1997 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with the permission of the University of Illinois Press.

Back