My Alaskan Adventure Part 3 – Juneau, Alaska
A day in Juneau turned into fresh-caught salmon, a rogue sea lion, and one of the wildest tour guide backstories I’ve ever heard. Joyce and I explored the hatchery, learned about dog-food-grade salmon, and went “fishing” with a guy who literally survived the bends. Spoiler: we left with 20 pounds of Alaskan salmon and zero romantic sparks.
When we disembarked the ship, Joyce and I had time to explore downtown Juneau. We came across a sign that read, “Husband Daycare. Need time to relax? Time to yourself? Want to go shopping? Leave him with us! We’ll look after him for you. You only pay for his drink!” I took a picture of Joyce pointing at the sign and texted it to everyone saying, “Found a place for Junka!!” (Our family nickname for my uncle.)
We booked an excursion with Chum Fun Tours to visit a salmon hatchery. Our tour guide, Taylor, had a fascinating backstory. He’d gone to school to become a nurse, but tragically, early in his career, two close friends died in the ER while he was working. He needed a break, so he started deep-sea diving. Then he obtained his commercial license. By pure happenstance, the two other commercial divers in Juneau retired, gifting him their contracts. Taylor now owns the only commercial diving business in Alaska.
A few months ago, he was diving to retrieve a dead body — yes, commercial divers can be hired to recover deceased people — and after locating and retrieving it, he got the bends on the way up. He was medevacked to the hospital. He’s fully recovered but can’t return to diving until the end of September, so he took up tour guiding in the meantime.
Like the dumb entitled white person I am trying not to be anymore, I asked Taylor if he was “native,” meaning originally from Alaska. He gently stopped me and clarified that “Native” means Native American — and no, he was not Native American, but yes, he was originally from Alaska. Insert shame-faced emoji.
Taylor explained the workings of the hatchery, including the surprising fact that this particular hatchery produces the most dog food for the Lower 48. There’s a species of salmon that isn’t great for human consumption, but it’s perfect for dog food, so they harvest it for that purpose.
After the hatchery tour, we took a bus to The Shack to purchase fishing licenses, then headed to the local pier — right outside the hatchery. A rope was tied across an area closest to the hatchery where humans were not allowed to fish. If you’re caught fishing past the rope, the fine is hefty. The fish stayed safely behind that line. Genius.
But… there was a sea lion.
He had no such fines and no such boundaries. He’d dive under, scare the salmon out, and then we’d get our chance.
Neither Joyce nor I caught anything, but Taylor did — and he handed off his pole to each of us in turn so we got to reel them in. We were allowed to keep what we “caught,” and for an extra fee, Chum Fun Tours processed and shipped our fish home. Yum.
There was an adorable couple from Manchester on the tour who were cruising on the Queen Elizabeth. The husband caught one salmon and kindly let us keep it. Taylor said each salmon yields about 6½ pounds. We went home with almost 20 pounds of fresh-caught salmon. Yaaas!
After the excursion, we grabbed a beer at the Alaskan Brewing Public House. Joyce had forgotten her sunglasses on the tour and told Taylor they were free for anyone when we got dropped off. Taylor found them, messaged Joyce, and brought them back to her. I secretly hoped he’d stay and share a drink — I thought he and Joyce would make a cute couple. They seemed to have a lot in common: riding motorcycles, fishing, flying helicopters, etc. Joyce, however, wasn’t interested. Boo hiss. So no drink.
