Bellana
From early childhood days my cousin Jon and I expected to go to work in the fish boats as soon as we were able. Never missed a chance to walk the docks painting elaborate fantasies for ourselves about adventure on the fishing grounds, pay for the boat the first year. . .
Boats struck our fancy about the same way as those girls at church, long before we knew why, some of them seemed ever so much more interesting than others. Our ideal boats would have run along the lines of these photo archives: mosquito fleet steamers, stout fishing boats, tough tug boats, and cool yachts.
The small ships in which we found employment our first summer out of high school did not resemble our ideas of marine beauty.
Kayak and Bearing hardly qualified as boats in our eye. Plywood and framing lumber shed built stem to stern, stuff and junk piled everywhere. At first Jon and I thought they were a single barge like craft with an offset round conning tower making it impossible to tell front from back. If it had a front or back. Wish I had a picture of Kayak laying in Big Creek at low water, no water that is, the day they flew four of us kids down there summer of sixty six. Desolate.
An adventure in the Unalakleet, worn out hunk of junk that reeked of stale diesel oil and rust, landed me in the Bearing canning red salmon up river a ways from Naknek that year. Fish camp consisted of the cannery boat with an old wooden freighter named the Bellana rafted along side. Several wooden drift net boats clustered around, fishermen living on the Bellana. We stacked her cargo deck three quarters full with the red salmon pack.
The older guys referred to her as a Puget Sound freighter, called it the banana boat said it used to carry freight between Bellingham and Anacortis. The boat fascinated me no end. Somewhat of an ugly duckling compared to the mosquito fleet racers, she must have hailed from the same era, before the outports in our area were connected with decent roads. In the cannery, crafted from a world war two warship, one felt a sense of connection to conflict and war. In the Bellana one felt connected with warmer memories of the simpler times we had heard about from our parents childhood stories.
Last week of July the fishermen flew out and the boss told me and a couple other guys to move our stuff over to the Bellana. Happiest day of the year.**
.
Can almost taste the scene. Thick white paint in the galley, puff of diesel from the stack when she backs down, hiss from the black oil fired range; coffee and Nestles chocolate powder in heavy cups fresh ocean wind on deck, smell of cased canned salmon bare bulb lit cargo deck. Drifting in the dark waiting our turn to offload the summers pack on an Alaska Steam Ship freighter a few miles offshore later that night.
Row of neat little staterooms on either side of the deck house, two bunks each, tiny closet wash basin in the corner, drop window still a fragment of leather strap long sinse painted shut. Big galley across the back, wheel house and captain's cabin above. Skipper ran that thing through thick fog from Big Creek to Unimak pass with nothing but a old style flasher fathometer and compass. Knew exactly where we were every minute of the trip.** In my eyes old Gene Mason was god.
Retired tug boat skipper, company flew him in to run the boat south because he had the license and experience. One little glitch, the other partner in the company hired two other guys, father and son fisher team to run the boat as far as Yakutat. Wife of the younger ran the galley, good food and lots of it kept us kids happy, but there may have been tensions on the bridge. "Didn't fly all the way out here to nursemaid those two" the old boy could be heard muttering as he climbed down the ladder from the wheel house.
Not sure who was at the helm when a mishandled spring line up on the ship caused us to careen into the anchor chain with a timber shuddering crunch before circling around for another approach. One kid up on deck told us later he thought the boat would go between the ship and the anchor chain. On the cargo deck we just heard shots and curses from above, felt the old tub groan and creak against the ship, big yellow cat in the engine room straining at every bolt trying to back out of the hole.
Worked all night and into the next day before settling into the galley for a huge breakfast while the boat chugged south toward Big Creek. Trip didn't last long that day. Still eating when we noticed that the guys up in the wheel house seemed to be turning first one way then another, then the unmistakable feeling of the keel coming to rest in the sand. Big tides and large flat areas in that country, and the skipper had failed to get the boat into deep water and we were stuck aground for next six hours. Climbed down to the sand and played around thinking it all great fun.
Lives are lost in the bay when the sea rolls across the flats swamping a stranded boat before she has a chance to float up with the tide. Mild weather that day, and by last light Gene dropped anchor five miles outside Big Creek. Cable singing with the swell I asked him if she will hold. "That anchor would hold Livathian" turned away to his cabin without another look around. Didn't know if he meant it to be a bible reference of a famous ship.
Anchor held. Sometime later, not quite daylight we were awakened to beating on all the doors accompanied by Jack's unmistakable high pitch voice, chopping out curses with nervous fury. Us kids hit the deck in a hurry. Old Gene shuffled out of his cabin saw we were still safely in deep water, turned away without a word.
Jack, owner captain admiral of this little fleet had heated words with the fisherman, skippers number two and three. Pissed big time over the grounding, and demanding that they run the boat into the creek to transfer cases over from the Kayak for shipment to Seattle in Bellana. Us kids stood close by; Jack scared the shit out of us. All three of our skippers held firm. They were not going to run the Bellana into Big Creek. Not that morning. Not ever.
Out gunned, jack climbed back down into his skiff where Jim relaxed against the outboard, smoking Lucky's tall black boots, they disappeared through the first light gloom off toward the beach. We went back to bed.
Later the Unakleet came bucking out to where we lay at anchor, backed down and tied alongside, hatch opposite the side loading door. Roller conveyors were set up across the gap, tilt up one moment down the next, squeak of truck tier bumpers. I have no idea how many salmon cases that boat could pack, nor how many cases the Kayak put up in Big Creek that year. Part of my memory wants to say several trips, maybe less, then one has to consider getting over the bar. Must have to have at least half tide. Asked old Gene about that, said "that boat doesn't draw enough water to wash your cock off."
Must have lived in Bellana for the better part of a week, which at age eighteen equals an average year these days. After the excitement at the steamer and a long day and night fucking around with loads of shit coming over the bar from the Big Creek camp, Gene pointed her south west, heading for the barn. Thick fog cleared just as we entered Unimak Pass, old boat rolling easily in a following sea. Me and a couple other guys tied long strings to soiled blue jeans, towed them in the wake while we shot the breeze on the narrow deck that ran around behind the house.
Running through the Shumagins at lunch time Gene motions out the open door, "went to Norway last year. Everyone always talks about how wonderful the old country is. Hell they got nothing there we don't got here, mountains coming down to the water." He seemed disappointed. Me on the other hand wondered if the palpable familiarity that country raised at the core of my being weren't genetic memory from ten thousand years of Norse lineage.
Built like a power scow, the Bellana had bluff bow and flat bottom designed to skim the shallows and and mud flats in the northern reaches of Puget Sound, probably go up and down the Skagit to Mount Vernon as well. Saw an old photo of Cove, on Vashon where my grand father Pete ran a feed business. A smaller version of the Bellana lay at the float, which Uncle Simon told me Pete used to haul grain in from Mount Vernon.
During the trip in the Bellana I didn't get to go up into the wheel house at all. One of the guys, couple years ahead of me got to stand watch with Gene, and the father son team did the other, six on six off for them. Me and this one kid who I hardly remember by now, were sent down into the cargo hold to lash down the dozen or more outboard motors from the fish skiffs at Big Creek so they wouldn't fly around when the boat got into rough water.
Engine room overhead extended to the upper deck, partitioned from the cargo hold with vertical timbers, probably three by twelve, space a foot apart, might have been chicken wire stretched across the openings. Salmon cases were piled from deck to overheat on four sides of the engine space and forward filling over half of the room. The head, a regular toilet in a cubical opening to the upper deck same as the staterooms, had an inner door that opened to the exhaust stack shaft, ladder leading down to the engine room deck. The big yellow cat diesel engine growled along with a deeper throated roar than the Jimmies in the cannery boats, another strike against the steel monsters in favor of warm wood Bellana. Guy always sees his current love through rose glasses.
I'm guessing but not far wrong saying that the engine room floor boards were about five feet below the level of the cargo deck. Didn't think of it at the time, but that room probably originally housed a boiler and steam engine of some kind, although just as likely it would have been one of the early diesels that needed lots of head room. Big enough space behind the engine for a big easy chair, work bench along the side opposite the ladder. Scuttle along forward between braces duck head under deck beams to a manhole under the fore-peak. Fun to ride along there, couple of port holes let in light, engines growl silenced by rows of canned salmon cases, sound of the hull rolling through the sea.
All too soon we felt the engine throttled back, bumpers lowered and the lurch of the boat nudging up against the Bearing, laying at anchor rafted up with Kayak. They told us we were in Geographic Harbor and to move our stuff back onto the Bearing. A single seiner had contracted with Jack for their fish, and we sat waiting for action with just enough crew to run the can line. Skipper named Bjorn flew in for the same reasons Gene Mason came out to run the Bellana. Fun times in the boat, only fired up the cannery for six or eight hours total during the entire twenty days we hung out in that country.
If I ever knew where the Bellana ended up after that I have forgotten. The company didn't use the boat again during the years I worked there, and it didn't tie up at the same dock on Lake Union any more. Clearly at the end of its useful life we probably didn't notice its passing, just another worn out hunk of junk.
** to be technically correct the happiest day came a few weeks earlier when Jack let me move into the Bearing instead of ride with him back to Kayak in this story.
**by the end of the summer they had started my training in this kind of navigation. Never got as good as old Gene of course
**guessing at the spelling Bellana
Boats struck our fancy about the same way as those girls at church, long before we knew why, some of them seemed ever so much more interesting than others. Our ideal boats would have run along the lines of these photo archives: mosquito fleet steamers, stout fishing boats, tough tug boats, and cool yachts.
The small ships in which we found employment our first summer out of high school did not resemble our ideas of marine beauty.
 |
| Phil told the boats were processors. Process what, must be mink feed or fertilizer. |
An adventure in the Unalakleet, worn out hunk of junk that reeked of stale diesel oil and rust, landed me in the Bearing canning red salmon up river a ways from Naknek that year. Fish camp consisted of the cannery boat with an old wooden freighter named the Bellana rafted along side. Several wooden drift net boats clustered around, fishermen living on the Bellana. We stacked her cargo deck three quarters full with the red salmon pack.
The older guys referred to her as a Puget Sound freighter, called it the banana boat said it used to carry freight between Bellingham and Anacortis. The boat fascinated me no end. Somewhat of an ugly duckling compared to the mosquito fleet racers, she must have hailed from the same era, before the outports in our area were connected with decent roads. In the cannery, crafted from a world war two warship, one felt a sense of connection to conflict and war. In the Bellana one felt connected with warmer memories of the simpler times we had heard about from our parents childhood stories.
Last week of July the fishermen flew out and the boss told me and a couple other guys to move our stuff over to the Bellana. Happiest day of the year.**
 |
| Bellana ca 1962 - 64 in Lake Union. Hard to see behind the tree the original structure to lift cargo from the main deck to the upper. Garage door size hatches on either side, closed with heavy planks allow for loading and unloading at lower docks or from boats. We transferred salmon cased from Unakleet through one of these hatches. All cargo carried on the main deck. |
Can almost taste the scene. Thick white paint in the galley, puff of diesel from the stack when she backs down, hiss from the black oil fired range; coffee and Nestles chocolate powder in heavy cups fresh ocean wind on deck, smell of cased canned salmon bare bulb lit cargo deck. Drifting in the dark waiting our turn to offload the summers pack on an Alaska Steam Ship freighter a few miles offshore later that night.
Row of neat little staterooms on either side of the deck house, two bunks each, tiny closet wash basin in the corner, drop window still a fragment of leather strap long sinse painted shut. Big galley across the back, wheel house and captain's cabin above. Skipper ran that thing through thick fog from Big Creek to Unimak pass with nothing but a old style flasher fathometer and compass. Knew exactly where we were every minute of the trip.** In my eyes old Gene Mason was god.
Retired tug boat skipper, company flew him in to run the boat south because he had the license and experience. One little glitch, the other partner in the company hired two other guys, father and son fisher team to run the boat as far as Yakutat. Wife of the younger ran the galley, good food and lots of it kept us kids happy, but there may have been tensions on the bridge. "Didn't fly all the way out here to nursemaid those two" the old boy could be heard muttering as he climbed down the ladder from the wheel house.
Not sure who was at the helm when a mishandled spring line up on the ship caused us to careen into the anchor chain with a timber shuddering crunch before circling around for another approach. One kid up on deck told us later he thought the boat would go between the ship and the anchor chain. On the cargo deck we just heard shots and curses from above, felt the old tub groan and creak against the ship, big yellow cat in the engine room straining at every bolt trying to back out of the hole.
Worked all night and into the next day before settling into the galley for a huge breakfast while the boat chugged south toward Big Creek. Trip didn't last long that day. Still eating when we noticed that the guys up in the wheel house seemed to be turning first one way then another, then the unmistakable feeling of the keel coming to rest in the sand. Big tides and large flat areas in that country, and the skipper had failed to get the boat into deep water and we were stuck aground for next six hours. Climbed down to the sand and played around thinking it all great fun.
Lives are lost in the bay when the sea rolls across the flats swamping a stranded boat before she has a chance to float up with the tide. Mild weather that day, and by last light Gene dropped anchor five miles outside Big Creek. Cable singing with the swell I asked him if she will hold. "That anchor would hold Livathian" turned away to his cabin without another look around. Didn't know if he meant it to be a bible reference of a famous ship.
Anchor held. Sometime later, not quite daylight we were awakened to beating on all the doors accompanied by Jack's unmistakable high pitch voice, chopping out curses with nervous fury. Us kids hit the deck in a hurry. Old Gene shuffled out of his cabin saw we were still safely in deep water, turned away without a word.
Jack, owner captain admiral of this little fleet had heated words with the fisherman, skippers number two and three. Pissed big time over the grounding, and demanding that they run the boat into the creek to transfer cases over from the Kayak for shipment to Seattle in Bellana. Us kids stood close by; Jack scared the shit out of us. All three of our skippers held firm. They were not going to run the Bellana into Big Creek. Not that morning. Not ever.
Out gunned, jack climbed back down into his skiff where Jim relaxed against the outboard, smoking Lucky's tall black boots, they disappeared through the first light gloom off toward the beach. We went back to bed.
Later the Unakleet came bucking out to where we lay at anchor, backed down and tied alongside, hatch opposite the side loading door. Roller conveyors were set up across the gap, tilt up one moment down the next, squeak of truck tier bumpers. I have no idea how many salmon cases that boat could pack, nor how many cases the Kayak put up in Big Creek that year. Part of my memory wants to say several trips, maybe less, then one has to consider getting over the bar. Must have to have at least half tide. Asked old Gene about that, said "that boat doesn't draw enough water to wash your cock off."
Must have lived in Bellana for the better part of a week, which at age eighteen equals an average year these days. After the excitement at the steamer and a long day and night fucking around with loads of shit coming over the bar from the Big Creek camp, Gene pointed her south west, heading for the barn. Thick fog cleared just as we entered Unimak Pass, old boat rolling easily in a following sea. Me and a couple other guys tied long strings to soiled blue jeans, towed them in the wake while we shot the breeze on the narrow deck that ran around behind the house.
Running through the Shumagins at lunch time Gene motions out the open door, "went to Norway last year. Everyone always talks about how wonderful the old country is. Hell they got nothing there we don't got here, mountains coming down to the water." He seemed disappointed. Me on the other hand wondered if the palpable familiarity that country raised at the core of my being weren't genetic memory from ten thousand years of Norse lineage.
Built like a power scow, the Bellana had bluff bow and flat bottom designed to skim the shallows and and mud flats in the northern reaches of Puget Sound, probably go up and down the Skagit to Mount Vernon as well. Saw an old photo of Cove, on Vashon where my grand father Pete ran a feed business. A smaller version of the Bellana lay at the float, which Uncle Simon told me Pete used to haul grain in from Mount Vernon.
During the trip in the Bellana I didn't get to go up into the wheel house at all. One of the guys, couple years ahead of me got to stand watch with Gene, and the father son team did the other, six on six off for them. Me and this one kid who I hardly remember by now, were sent down into the cargo hold to lash down the dozen or more outboard motors from the fish skiffs at Big Creek so they wouldn't fly around when the boat got into rough water.
Engine room overhead extended to the upper deck, partitioned from the cargo hold with vertical timbers, probably three by twelve, space a foot apart, might have been chicken wire stretched across the openings. Salmon cases were piled from deck to overheat on four sides of the engine space and forward filling over half of the room. The head, a regular toilet in a cubical opening to the upper deck same as the staterooms, had an inner door that opened to the exhaust stack shaft, ladder leading down to the engine room deck. The big yellow cat diesel engine growled along with a deeper throated roar than the Jimmies in the cannery boats, another strike against the steel monsters in favor of warm wood Bellana. Guy always sees his current love through rose glasses.
I'm guessing but not far wrong saying that the engine room floor boards were about five feet below the level of the cargo deck. Didn't think of it at the time, but that room probably originally housed a boiler and steam engine of some kind, although just as likely it would have been one of the early diesels that needed lots of head room. Big enough space behind the engine for a big easy chair, work bench along the side opposite the ladder. Scuttle along forward between braces duck head under deck beams to a manhole under the fore-peak. Fun to ride along there, couple of port holes let in light, engines growl silenced by rows of canned salmon cases, sound of the hull rolling through the sea.
All too soon we felt the engine throttled back, bumpers lowered and the lurch of the boat nudging up against the Bearing, laying at anchor rafted up with Kayak. They told us we were in Geographic Harbor and to move our stuff back onto the Bearing. A single seiner had contracted with Jack for their fish, and we sat waiting for action with just enough crew to run the can line. Skipper named Bjorn flew in for the same reasons Gene Mason came out to run the Bellana. Fun times in the boat, only fired up the cannery for six or eight hours total during the entire twenty days we hung out in that country.
If I ever knew where the Bellana ended up after that I have forgotten. The company didn't use the boat again during the years I worked there, and it didn't tie up at the same dock on Lake Union any more. Clearly at the end of its useful life we probably didn't notice its passing, just another worn out hunk of junk.
** to be technically correct the happiest day came a few weeks earlier when Jack let me move into the Bearing instead of ride with him back to Kayak in this story.
**by the end of the summer they had started my training in this kind of navigation. Never got as good as old Gene of course
**guessing at the spelling Bellana
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