Lance Kramer describes himself as an avid outdoor enthusiast. The 52-year old is a fan of traditional hunting methods fishing, trapping and fishing. His house is located close to the ice, in which many Kotzebue residents catch sheefish. This gives him a bird’s eye view of the area to determine when fish are catching up.
“I am able to watch the world every single day, you know from my windows,” Kramer said. “My barometer is my binoculars. If they’re dragging the binoculars up, then it’s time to leave. If they’re not, just stay in and enjoy a cup of coffee.”
Kramer is one of the many that live and work in the Alaskan Northwest Arctic who depend on sheefish for their diets. Fish, as of now are abundant. Food storage facilities of the residents are full with them following another great season. However, scientists warn that it won’t always be that way. They believe that warming water and the permafrost melt could result in a decline in population. It’s a double whammy to an area already struggling with declining populations in another major food source caribou.
“When you don’t have meat in your freezer throughout the year Sheefish is an incredible reprieve” Kramer said. Kramer.
“Sheefishing is a scientific discipline’
Sheefish, also known as sii is a type of whitefish that can only be found in specific waters in the Northern Hemisphere. In Alaska they are found throughout areas like the Yukon as well as the Kuskokwim drainage zones. Within the Northwest Arctic, their spawning locations are in their upper Kobuk as well as the Selawik rivers. Sheefish in this region are much larger than those found elsewhere within the State. A single fish can be 3.5 feet and weigh up to 60 pounds.
One fish will feed the entire family. They are prized for their flavor. The flaky white meat is sweet and oily, that makes it a great choice for numerous recipes.
“There’s plenty of ways to enjoy them,” Kramer said. “It’s similar to Forrest Gump. Did you remember how he spoke about shrimp?”
Kramer as well as many others from the area is a fisherman who uses a mix of traditional methods and modern technology. He uses a snowmachine to get up to the ice and employing an auger, drills a 10 inch hole. He searches for the “wedge” inside the brackish waters, which is where fresh and salt water meet. In winter, sheefish are more likely to stay in the relatively warm freshwater and occasionally venture into colder marine waters to search for their next meal.
“Sheefishing is an art,” he said.
For catching species, Kramer uses a jig — a handle bent approximately a foot long, with a hook and line connected. Sheefishing is generally done with nets or jigs instead of the reel and rod that is commonly used by anglers in sports fishing. Kramer utilizes Inupiaq words to describe his jig. The aulasuan handle, or jig is constructed from wood or ivory from walrus. For the ipiataq, or fishing line, Kramer employs an extra heavy-duty, test line that weighs 80 pounds and is connected to the niksik or hook. Kramer says he’s addicted what Kramer calls “the the tug” — the initial sensation of hooking a sheefish onto the line.
“It’s directly connected between the energy that comes from that amazing sheefish and your hands,” he said. “It’s it’s the power.”
A threat from the melting of permafrost
Although sheefish are plentiful now but they are at risk due to warming Arctic temperatures, says Bill Carter, a fish biologist from the Selawik National Wildlife Refuge, situated in Kotzebue. The focus of his work is the habitat of the lake in the refuge. For the past eight years He and a team consisting of Fish and Wildlife colleagues studied potential threats to sheefish, the permafrost melt slump.
“It’s basically a huge mudslide that has occurred on a slope facing south. It has begun to melt into water, transforming what was once firm ground into concrete and mudwhich is basically concrete that has been wet,” Carter said.
In the event of a slump, water turns cloudy and full of sediment, which could suffocate the eggs of the sheefish that are spawning. Sheefish are a fish that live long. It takes about 10 years for sheefish of the Northwest Arctic to reach sexual maturity. This means that dangers to spawning may cause more lasting effects.
According to Carter the report, there were many slumps throughout the region. One of the most alarming of them was on Selawik River — about 10 miles downstream from the Sheefish spawning grounds was a massive one.
“[It was] a little over 500 million cubic metres, that’s roughly the size of a 25-story structure with a footprint that is the size of a football pitch,” said Carter. “That’s the result of it. This is a huge area with more than a half mile wide.”
He added that there are a few more permafrost-thaw slumps within the region.
Kramer admitted that he faces similar concerns to Carter. He believes that in addition to rising temperatures and harmful algae blooms, permafrost melt slump could pose a risk for sheefish in the coming years. Carter along with a team of scientists are preparing the beginning of a two-year research project this summer to investigate how the thaw slump affected the population of sheefish.
