Ice Fishing in Alaska
There are many fun things to do in the winter in Alaska. In the day and in the life of an Eskimo woman, you cannot go wrong when you take her ice fishing, she will love you for a long time.
This is me, Ina. Ever since I can remember as a young child, I loved to go ice fishing. There were days that my younger sister and I would get up really early in the morning, before anyone was awake, get ourself ready in warm clothing and off we would go from our house to the fishing site which was only a five minute walk away.
There was a time, before snow was on the ground, the ice was only about 4 inches thick that I would watch the pike through the ice, play with my lure. they would come swimming, hit the lure and circle around it before they would aim at it the third time around and bite with their sharp teeth. This is a memory that is stuck with me that I will always remember. Up to this day I know how they tease my lure before they bite into it.
I moved away from home for a while, went off to college and obtained my degree in Native American Studies. After about 20 years I moved back to Alaska from travelling to various cities in the United States and moving to various villages in Alaska to teach. I moved to Bethel which is about 40 miles from the village I grew up in.
The villages surrounding the hub town of Bethel contain about 600 to a thousand people. There must be about 56 villages surrounding the hub town. I now live in Bethel which allows me to travel to surrounding villages when the need arises. I have family and friends in various villages.
Many people from the surrounding villages come to the hub town of Bethel by either snow mobile or by boat in the summer. We have a couple of small shopping centers, unlike the huge malls that you see in the city. We see people coming and park their snow mobiles or atv (four wheelers) in front of the AC store or couple of the other one-stop shopping venues in town.
Back to my fishing. This photo was taken last year when i went fishing with my husband. This pike was pulling pretty hard, i knew it was going to be a big one. We went early one morning and had our "date" on the ice. This is my kind of date. You won't find anything better than going fishing in my opinion.
We travel from our nearby town for about a 25-30 minute truck ride on the river to go ice fishing. You should have some ice sticks we call; Manaqs. You also need to have a good lure and also some little black fish to add to your lure to catch the mighty Kuskokwim Pike fish. We go to a place called "Yuffaq", which is named after an old man from one of the villages.
The temperature on some days can be about -20, but here it was about +20 degrees fehrenheit. You need to dress in warm clothing and it is good to bring extra gloves because when you start catching about 10 or more pike, the gloves tend to get wet.
I would not trade a day of pike fishing for shopping in a mall. I love it and I am going to try and go out even today to see how many of these pike I can catch.
Eskimo, that I am, I normally filet them and hang them to dry. We let them dry and dip them in seal oil. Happy fishing yall'!!
About the Creator
Ina Pavila
My name is Ina Pavila. I am a Yupik Eskimo from Alaska. I love sharing our way of living in the day of the life of Ina Pavila. I am a budding author of Childrens books both in English and my language.
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