Juneau ranked 41st in the U.S. for seafood production by weight in 2016, with the town\u2019s 396 commercial permit holders pulling down 16.7 million pounds of seafood worth $22.5 million, according to statistics from the Commercial Fishery Entry Commission.<\/p>\n
But the town\u2019s gillnetters, seiners, crabbers, trollers and longliners are more than economic engines. They\u2019re parents, daughters, sons, brothers and sisters who work dangerous jobs.<\/p>\n
The annual Blessing of the Fleet, which took place Saturday at the Commercial Fishermen\u2019s Memorial in downtown Juneau, seeks to honor those who have given their lives to harvesting the seas and to safeguard those who still do.<\/p>\n
Facing the memorial and a crowd of about a hundred, event organizer Carl Brodersen read each of the 247 names engraved on the granite memorial. Each dedicated their lives to commercial fishing. Forty-seven of the memorialized died at sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cHarold Oluf Fossum, Leroy Harold Martin, Frederick G. Martin, Andre Beaton, Rodney P. Selvig, Marc Livingston, Keith Lapiene,\u201d Brodersen read. \u201cBob Younger, Bruce Gleason, Mark and Christine Brodersen, Dota E. Brown, Reuel \u2018Red\u2019 Fleming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some raised their hand in salute as names of friends and family were read. Girl Scout Troop 4018 handed out flowers.<\/p>\n
The event is the town\u2019s way to pay tribute to the enduring and culturally-significant industry.<\/p>\n
Boats lined up in behind a cruise ship dock to receive the blessing.<\/p>\n
The F\/V Marsons, skippered by Chris McDowell, was the first boat to be blessed and held the honors of the Laying of the Wreath, a ceremonial offering of flowers to the sea.<\/p>\n
Friar Gordon Blue of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church blessed the vessels, each on their way to what they hope will be a productive and safe season. Acting as a volunteer with the church, Michael Grubbs assisted Blue by flinging holy water toward the boats.<\/p>\n
In line for a blessing was the F\/V Sentinel, skippered by Juneau\u2019s Sam Miller. Miller has been fishing since childhood. At 48 years old, he\u2019s worked many of Southeast\u2019s fisheries.<\/p>\n
He goes to the blessing every year he can, though sometimes work prevents him from attending.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a lot of friends on that wall, so it means a lot to me,\u201d Miller said. \u201cMatter of fact, I had on my boat today a widow of one of my good friends that\u2019s on the wall. Her husband died about 15 years ago fishing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller\u2019s three children also fish. One of his sons took over his old boat, the Lucky J\u2019s, which he works during the salmon gillnet season.<\/p>\n
Sick of gillnetting, Miller\u2019s daughter decided to take a fishing job this summer out of Elfin Cove, a small fishing community west of Juneau and close to productive commercial trolling grounds.<\/p>\n
It can be hard sometimes, Miller said, to have nearly his entire family working such a dangerous job.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re always worried, but it\u2019s the worry that brings you back alive. If you don\u2019t worry, you\u2019re not being cautious. You have to respect the ocean,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Commercial fishing is one of the state\u2019s deadliest professions, but fishing-related deaths have declined in recent years. From 1990-2008, one-third of all work-related deaths in Alaska occurred to fishermen, according to statistics from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.<\/p>\n
But that rate has decreased 42 percent since the early 1990s. In 1990, 1991 and 1992, more than thirty fishermen died each year. That number hasn\u2019t topped 15 since 2008.<\/p>\n
The Commercial Fishermen\u2019s Memorial will include six new engravings in 2017: Maurice \u201cPug\u201d Nelson, Lester \u201cSpike\u201d Henkins, Rocky Lee Reed, Paul Dayton Fredrick, Steve Erickson and Mark J. Burger.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Kevin Gullufsen at 523-2228 or kevin.gullufsen@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Juneau ranked 41st in the U.S. for seafood production by weight in 2016, with the town\u2019s 396 commercial permit holders pulling down 16.7 million pounds of seafood worth $22.5 million, according to statistics from the Commercial Fishery Entry Commission. But the town\u2019s gillnetters, seiners, crabbers, trollers and longliners are more than economic engines. They\u2019re parents, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":32416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32415","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\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32415"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}