Oregon to Alaska to Oregon to L.A.

After a heavily anticipated yet undetermined launch date, Kyle David Fischer, formerly 29 years of age, has finally catapulted his very first blog into the binary history books. Though hardly laudable, it is probably worthy of a quick glance from time to time, if for no other reason than to check up on how much money I have spent to date on my education (the first week of school cost roughly $1,134.62, but this included my very own AFI Conservatory Production Safety Handbook, which cannot be purchased in stores). This should make you feel better about your financial situation.

But all good stories must never get ahead of themselves, so I'll start with my experience in Alaska before I made the pilgrimage to Hollywood.

I arrived at the newly remodeled South Naknek Airport on June 18 (Click on the pictures to make them bigger).










I promptly chartered a Trident Seafoods van to the cannery, where I found a 1963 Dodge army pickup and loaded it full of food that was shipped up earlier that month on a barge from Seattle.



Later a plane buzzed the cabin, which indicated that I should meet the pilot at the airport in order to unload a new 4-wheeler which we had scheduled to be delivered.









I moved all the supplies into the main cabin, which is the one on the right in the picture on the left. The crew cabin is on the left. Our fishing site is straight out from the cabin.


The fishing was wonderful. We caught a little over 130,000 pounds.

Wild Alaskan Sockey Salmon!

Our boat after we "round hauled" our net. This catch was about 2,300 pounds.

Sockeye (AKA Red Salmon) caught in the 50 fathom Gillnet.

Our net fishing at dawn. Probably about 4 a.m.


This vessel is the 'Karen Kay'. It was a fish tender that we delivered our fish to. The guy in the middle is operating the hydraulics for the crane that hoists the fish into their hold. We put our fish in brailers which can hold about 600-800 pounds of fish a piece.


The net rack. This is where we mended and stripped nets.


The bay at night. Probably about 3 a.m.


In rare circumstances, we found time to wash the fish scales and the 3 day accumulation of general filth off of ourselves in the steam bath.


Babysitting the net in the wee hours.



This is the day we reached 100,000 pounds. The broom indicates that we swept the ocean.



When the season was over I had a week in the cabin by myself, cleaning up, winterizing the cabin, cutting down lots of trees, avoiding bears, and reading. Note the magic spewing from the Annie Dillard book.

I decided to take a few more days to hang out in Alaska before confining myself to a southern California prison of smog, tall buildings and terrible traffic. So I chartered a float plane to Brooks Camp. This is an area where 70 bears came to fish during the peak Sockeye run at Naknek Lake. Below are pictures from my experience.

This is basically the first picture I took after I landed in the plane that you see in the background.


Don't worry mom, there was an electric fence surrounding the camp site. It was about 4 feet high, so no bears could EVER get in.


These were the cleanest clothes I had. They really didn't smell that bad.


Near the Valley of 10,000 smokes.

A bear. A big bear.

Fishing in the falls. Bears will consume 10-20 salmon a day to get ready for the winter. At an average of 7 pounds per Salmon, that's a lot of food.

No, that's not where pilots typically park their planes.

If you've never been to Alaska, you need to go. If you would like to go and want a traveling partner, just let me know.

So now I am down in Los Angeles. Rheanne and I have been keeping each other company when we both have a free minute in the day. Rheanne found a great job at Trader Joe's, so I get a discount on really good food!

My roommate and I finally found an apartment. It's a perfect location, about 3 blocks from school and worth the wait. Rent for the place is $1,900 a month. Pretty average around here unfortunately. My last place with Kevin was under $700. Yikes! I'll write about school in my next post, so buckle up and get ready. But until that day comes, keep your ear to the grindstone.