Picture: A man who was net fishing gave us a trout because he was only interested in salmon. It was delicious!

Dutch Harbor is on an island called Amaknak, which is host to most of the businesses, such as grocery stores, warehouses, chandleries, service station, phone company, port, and a number of large sea food canneries. The residential district is across the bridge on Unalaska Island. Unalaska has a "Front" Beach located one street off the main street where residents participate in many activities, including fireworks and the 4th July parade. There is a classic Russian Orthodox Church also on Front Beach. We did not see any signs of services at the church and assumed it is more of an historical landmark. It has a large lawn full of wild flowers and a graveyard with Russian Orthodox crosses. It is situated at a prime location overlooking the harbor.

We ventured down the Front Beach Street and watched a family (father, mother, daughter and her husband) fishing off the beach. They had a net stretched out from the beach with a buoy attached to far end. There was an aluminum boat tied to a line on top of the net. When a fish got caught in the net the floats would bob up and down and one of the family would use the boat to go out and harvest the fish before the harbor seals steal it and probably damage the net as well. The family live right across the road from the beach so whenever they get one or two fish, they take it straight home where the wife and mother-in-law cut them up and process them. It was like a team-family project.

The fisherman is a native Aleut. His dad was Caucasian while his mom was native. He said during that time, it was illegal for a Caucasian to marry a native unless he got permission from a superior officer. Obviously his dad got permission to marry his mother. He also talked about stories that he heard from his dad about WWII. He said a division of soldiers were trained to serve in Africa but were sent to Dutch Harbor instead. Evidently the military men were not prepared for the severe cold climate. His dad said that many men died on the hill just going out to the latrine (toilet); they were frozen to death! I could imagine that because the harbor master said last winter, a hundred-seventy mile-an-hour wind went through the harbor and did immense amount of damage. Burr!