Slime Line: Adventures In Fish Processing

by Jesse Myner

From the blood and guts fish disassembly on the slime lines, to the dock crews that unload the fish from the boats, these are the true stories of the Filipinos, Mexicans, Africans, ex-cons and other derelicts from the Lower 48, who come to Alaska each summer to work as fish processors during the three month salmon season.


Set at a cannery in a small town in southern Alaska, meet One-Eyed Eddie, Al the crew chief, the half-wit Keith, Menter the Iraqi, Jorge, Francisco, Boots and others. Read of dangerous, backbreaking work inside and outside the cannery, 20 hour days for weeks on end, forklift and machinery accidents, drunkenness and drug use, rapes, assaults, and one very violent death on the dock.


Included are appendices containing practical information


-Types of fish and long line fishing
-How much you can expect to earn during salmon season and other fishing seasons (pollock, herring, black cod, halibut, and pacific cod)
-How to secure unemployment compensation after the season and maximize your benefits
-How to get hired as a deckhand on a commercial fishing boat
-A list of land-based and floating processors in Alaska and Washington

ebook

First published April 29, 2012

About the author

Following a good five year run as a futures trader, Jesse Myner does what he wants and goes where he wants to. He has lived in Paris, Budapest, Croatia, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Miami. He currently splits his time between Bogotá and Alaska, where he works as a longline fisherman.

"Gathering Chestnuts" at Red Fez

"In Patagonia" at Literary Orphans

"Las Chinches" (bed bugs) at Red Fez

"A Man In Uniform" at Postcard Shorts

"The Fish House" at The Legendary

"La Guajira, Colombia" at Specter Magazine

"Las Pampas" at In Between Altered States

"Joe" at Reality House

"Regarding the story 'Gathering Chestnuts'" at Holler Presents

"Butch Cassidy" at Birdville Magazine