DAN LAMONT PHOTOGRAPHY/MULTIMEDIA

At Sea

This gallery reflects my endless fascination with boats, the sea and our relationship to the marine environment. These images were made in the Alaska documenting the North Pacific salmon and pollock fisheries.

The factory trawler Pacific Glacier on the Bering Sea fishing grounds.
   
Aboard the factory trawler Pacific Glacier, a crewman directs some of a 250 ton net-full of pollock towards an opening in the deck leading to the onboard processing facility. Fillets processed and frozen on board are shipped world-wide.
   
The Alaska pollock fishery is the largest U.S. fishery by volume. Annual catches from 2000-2009 have averaged 2.9 billion pounds. Alaska pollock makes up over 40% of the global whitefish production.
     
  
The Alaska pollock fishery is the largest U.S. fishery by volume. Annual catches from 2000-2009 have averaged 2.9 billion pounds. Alaska pollock makes up over 40% of the global whitefish production.
   
The bosun's mate aboard the factory trawler Pacific Glacier expresses the affection fishermen feel for pollock, which comprise the largest fishey byb volume in the United States
   
Aboard a fishing vessel on the Bering Sea, a fisherman displays a freshly caught Alaskan pollock.
     
  
Aboard a fishing vessel on the Bering Sea a fisherman shows the anxiety brought on by an aproaching winter storm packing hurricane force winds and 40 foot seas.
   
At the docks of Seafood Producers Coop a crew member unloads totes full of salmon caught and delivered to outlying harbors then brought to Sitka for processing.
   
At the docks of Seafood Producers Coop a crew member unloads totes full of salmon caught and delivered to outlying harbors then brought to Sitka for processing.
     
  
A crewman on a salmon troller unloads his vessel at the Seafood Producers Coop in Sitka Alaska.
   
At the Seafood Producers Cooperative plant in Sitka Alaska, salmon, halibut and black cod caught in the still pristine Gulf of Alaska are delivered by the owner-fishermen to be rapidly processed using state of the art machinery. The fish is then shipped world-wide.
   
At the Seafood Producers Cooperative plant in Sitka Alaska, salmon, halibut and black cod caught in the still pristine Gulf of Alaska are delivered by the owner-fishermen to be rapidly processed using state of the art machinery. The fish is then shipped world-wide.
     
  
At the Seafood Producers Cooperative plant in Sitka Alaska, salmon, halibut and black cod caught in the still pristine Gulf of Alaska are delivered by the owner-fishermen to be rapidly processed using state of the art machinery. The fish is then shipped world-wide.
   
At Seafood Producers Coop computerized filleting machines photographically evaluate each salmont fillet and custom trim each piece.
   
At Seafood producers Coop salmon is given a final hand trim to ensure quality after the pieces leave the filet machine.
     
  
At the Seafood Producers Coop in Sitka Alaska the highest quality whole salmon are cleaned and packed for rapid shipment to the lower 48 states. A salmon can be served in a restaurant in Seattle less than 48 hours after it was caught in Alaska.
   
At a National Marine Fisheries lab near the John Day dam on the Columbia River fisheries biologists test samples of blood from migrating junvenile salmon to determine the effect their passge through the dam might have on their metabolism.
   
A classic wooden salmon troller uses hook and line to catch salmon one at a time. The vessels, usually 30-50 feet in length, ply the sometimes storm tossed seas of the Gulf of Alaska typically crewed by either a single fisherman or a skipper and a deckhand. Some families do fish together in the summer months.
     
  
A crewman on a salmon troller hauls aboard a good sized silver or coho salmon. Of the various salmon species caught in the Gulf, coho are the second most prized after the larger king or Chinook salmon.
   
Fisherman Don Seesz cleans a freshlu caught coho salmon. Rapid and thorough cleaning of the fish immediately after they are caught ensures the highest quality.
   
Fisherman Don Seesz lands a coho salmon. His 44 foot boat trails some two dozen hooks at a time. A good three day trip can yeild upwards of 500 fish.
     
  
Dick Curran, skipper of the halibut longliner Cherokee has been fishing in Alaska since 1975.
   
Aboard the longliner Cherokee fishermen set the ground line that will hold the baited hooks on the ocean bottom. Halibut is a hook and line fishery.
   
Jay Stordahl and his son carry on a family tradition longlining for halibut in tthe Gulf of Alaska.
     
  
Like this young woman, many on the workers at the Seafood Producers Coop in Sitka Alaska come from countries of the former communist block. Working on seasonal permits they make around $12 per hour and are given rom and board. At the end of the season they return home with a substantial savings accumulated. The plant has in recent years been unable to attract enough American workers.
   
A salmon troller glides along Sitka Sound heading for ort to deliver a load of freshly caught fish.
   
A salmon troller heads into the harbor at Sitka, illuminated by yet another fantstic Alaskan sunset.
     
  
Mount Edgecumbe , a dormant volcano located at the southern end of Kruzof Island, Alaska, near Sitka as seen from the deck of a fishing vessel headed to sea.
   
A floating fisherman's cabin on Genoa Ba, Vancouver Island British Columbia.