{"id":22388,"date":"2016-07-21T00:24:17","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T07:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/broken-ice-machine-stalls-business-for-village-fishermen\/"},"modified":"2016-07-21T00:24:17","modified_gmt":"2016-07-21T07:24:17","slug":"broken-ice-machine-stalls-business-for-village-fishermen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/broken-ice-machine-stalls-business-for-village-fishermen\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken ice machine stalls business for village fishermen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BETHEL \u2014 <\/strong>Dozens of fishermen from two villages on the Lower Yukon River are demanding Maserculiq Native Corporation fix the villages\u2019 broken ice machine, which has impeded their business.<\/p>\n<p>About 48 commercial fishermen in Marshall and Russian Mission rely on the ice machine. Some have already missed out on several commercial fish openings since the machine\u2019s compressor went out two weeks ago, KYUK-AM reported (http:\/\/bit.ly\/2at1cXB).<\/p>\n<p>Maserculiq owns the machine, but has not paid the $15,000 needed to get it fixed. Fishermen and shareholders are expected to meet with the native corporation to urge them to address the problem.<\/p>\n<p>Marshall commercial fisherman Leonard Fitka Sr. has missed two fishing openings since the machine stopped working, and has been boating 4 \u00bd hours to fetch ice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFishermen are working harder, staying up longer, (spending) more time away from family. It\u2019s hurting the economy,\u201d Fitka said.<\/p>\n<p>Since the machine broke, Marshall fishermen have been forced to stop fishing altogether or boat the 60 miles back and forth to get ice from St. Mary\u2019s-based Boreal Fisheries. Fishermen in Russian Mission have to travel even further.<\/p>\n<p>Boreal owners Randy and Edna Crawford said they can buy chum from fishermen, but only with the right ice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has to be flake ice,\u201d Edna Crawford said, \u201cbecause that\u2019s the only way you\u2019re going to keep the temperature of the fish down, especially with the weather we\u2019ve had over here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Myron Edwards, a commercial fisherman in Russian Mission, has weighed his options and said he doesn\u2019t think he will make a profit by making the journey to Boreal for ice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re not too sure how we\u2019re going to do this,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cSome of us don\u2019t have enough money to pay for gas to pitch in for one boat to go all the way up to Boreal to pick up ice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maserculiq\u2019s CEO and board members did not respond to messages left by KYUK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BETHEL \u2014 Dozens of fishermen from two villages on the Lower Yukon River are demanding Maserculiq Native Corporation fix the villages\u2019 broken ice machine, which has impeded their <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/business\/\">business<\/a>. About 48 commercial fishermen in Marshall and Russian Mission rely on the ice machine. Some have already missed out on several commercial fish openings since the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-22388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22388"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=22388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}