Читать книгу Never Cry Halibut. and Other Alaska Hunting and Fishing Tales онлайн

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FISHEMATICS

I REMEMBER when I began to realize the danger of combining math with fishing, something Today’s Journal of Fishermen’s Accounting calls “fishematics.” I’d just exited a floatplane at the Elfin Cove dock and shaken hands with Joe Craig, with whom I’d signed on as a deckhand for the summer.

“If you tell anyone our catch numbers, I’ll put you on shore to fend for yourself,” he warned half-jokingly as we climbed aboard the Njord. I was bad with numbers—which, not long after, I learned made me much more likely to become an expert in fishematics. I’d taken the same math class every year in high school and never passed. My poor teacher had burst into tears several times when trying to convey complicated mathematical formulas like counting to me. I’d grunt, hit my desk with a stone, grab a spawned-out salmon I’d found on my way to school, and offer it to her try to make her feel better.

Naturally, with my dim wits and Joe’s good humor, we became great friends. He didn’t even get annoyed when he’d ask how many salmon we’d gotten after a pass and I could only shrug if the count exceeded ten. He’d always laugh when he asked me to measure a halibut and I spread my hands apart however long in estimation. Sometimes, he’d let me out on the shores of Yakobi and Chichagof Islands to run around and play with the local brown bears. I was in heaven. Finally I’d entered a world where math was viewed for what it was: a crime against humanity.