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Jet Journal
The Fish Box Tax
by Kevin Ware
It is salmon fishing season in Southeast Alaska, and in the far back corner of the Juneau (JNU) FBO’s somewhat ratty hangar, behind a beat-up old yellow propane powered fork lift and miscellaneous trash, there sits an ancient white deep freezer. The brand name plate is long gone and there are numerous scrapes
and dents that match the color of the fork lift. Not to mention, the lid has some unappealing areas of a brown dried-out fluid you really do not want to touch. But, at least the unit appears to be functioning well because I can hear its motor humming in the background.
I push the debris on the floor out of the way with my foot, take care not to trip over the fork lift’s tongs and open the freezer lid. Inside, I see a pile of salmon fillets of unknown age, at one time worth a good $50 each in the lower 48, and obviously left by some prior flight crew in their haste to depart and return to a sunnier loca- tion. I am carrying a 40-pound container any locals would immediately recognize as a “fish box.” Fish boxes are about 30 inches long, 15 inches wide, and 8 inches high and are made of a wax covered, waterproof cardboard. Should any of the fishy contents melt while they are in the baggage compartment, no salty foul smelling fluid should leak into your airplane.
My fish box is going in the freezer because our departure in the Lear 40 has been delayed due to weather, and I do not want its freshly-purchased contents to thaw. The aggravating part is it is not our airplane that is causing the delay. As a Part 91 operator, there is little in the way of weather out of JNU that would prevent us from taking off, particularly over open water to the west. No, the problem is the Beaver on floats that was supposed to take off from the adjacent pond and collect our passengers at a fishing lodge in Pelican Bay (some 60 miles away) that cannot leave as long as the fog and rain persist with visibility down to a half-mile, and ceiling down to 100 feet. And, it is for this eventuality that the FBO has this old freezer.
Fellow pilot Tim and I have been in Juneau for the past two days, having flown up a group of business people for a fishing trip. For this kind of occasion, if the fishing trip does not require flying floats to some distant lodge, the pilots usually get invited along. But as this was not the case, we are spending the two days looking through the mist at the Mendenhall Glacier, and visiting the rather interesting Alaska History Museum in town (all the while trying to dodge the crowd of cruise ship passengers who flood the place).
On any trip to Alaska at this time of year, it is generally expected that the crew will return with some fresh fish for family and friends. And if the pilots were not able to go fishing themselves, there is often a kind of hu- morous understanding that when the passengers return with all of their fish, there will be a “fish box tax” upon
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