ALASKA'S SEAFARING MARAUDERS
NOT YOUR AVERAGE LONG JOHN SILVERS
Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boats
In some places in Southeast Alaska, the Canadian Government has facilitated a small growth industry for small-boat operators. For towns like Stewart, B.C., which is across the Portland Canal from Hyder, and thus across the international boundary, the citizens do not understand why they must pay twice as much for gasoline and four times as much for cigarettes.
Many folks in Stewart consider it a public service that enterprising boat operators will make bulk purchases on the American side and deliver the goods to Canadian customers for a fee. I understand that there is also a brisk trade in guns fueled by the Canadian Government's paranoia about handguns.
DOPE
My information sources say that dope smuggling by boat in Alaska is no big deal and that most of the traffic is for onboard consumption. There is a significant amount of cocaine being used by commercial fishermen, particularly in the fisheries that reward the crews for going days without sleep. The results are dangerous people working in a dangerous environment. More than once I have gone to the bridge of a fish tender to tell the skipper to get some space cadet off the crane before he knocked all the antennas off my boat or mashed one of my crew.
I have heard tales of Foreign Catcher Vessels transferring large quantities of cocaine to Alaskan fishing vessels for delivery to shore-based distribution systems. I have seen no evidence and cannot confirm this as fact. I have also heard of cruise-ship crew members throwing packages of dope overboard tied to a buoy on dark nights. Modern electronics make it easy for communications between smugglers and for the location of contraband.
FISH
The Federal Government, including National Marine Fisheries and the Coast Guard, are on the lookout for the catching and transport of illegal fish. Anecdotal information indicates the volume is in the millions of tons and honest fishermen hope the Coasties nail them all. On a smaller scale, greed often drives fishermen to cheat on regulations. During a closed period in Bristol Bay, I got up in the middle of the night and saw three boats rafted up together with their deck lights on. I later learned that one of them had a refrigeration system and was storing illegally-caught fish from the others until after the next fishing period opening.
RUSSIAN SMUGGLING
A fan from Norton Sound tells me there used to be a brisk trade in contraband across the Bering Sea and particularly between Big and Little Diomede Islands before the communists got so hard-nosed and put a couple of the genial Alaskan smugglers in the brig (sailors' name for jail). Maybe peristroika will allow the rekindling of this traditional cottage industry.
MAMMAL BODY PARTS
I was fishing for herring one year and happened across information about smugglers hiding walrus ivory by tying it to a buoy that was set to be just below the surface at low water (low tide). The vessel that dropped the contraband then gave the LORAN coordinates to the pick-up vessel. A friend with Fish and Game told me about getting a tip that a fishing boat had walrus heads on board. He boarded the vessel and spent hours searching to no avail. Finally as he was about to leave he noticed some clear nylon line tied to a starboard side cleat. Well, you know the rest of the story: the walrus heads were tied to the line.
I also heard a marvelous story of an enterprising Alaskan who was selling "bear" gall bladders to anxious Asian clients. He was obtaining the ''bear'' gall bladders from a friendly Iowa pig fanner. The Alaskan entrepreneur got out of this lucrative business when his client was found with a nine-millimeter hole in his head.
The value of smuggled goods is generally the result of some self-serving decree by a local government. Seamen tend to ignore the laws of landsmen, and smuggling most goods is considered an honorable and even beneficial profession. The exceptions are smuggling dope, booze to drunks, body parts of endangered species, and slaves. Everything else is considered fair game for many seafarers.
