On the way home from church, a middle-aged Hoonah native, whom I recently saw move into a school bus with a wood stove inside, stopped us on the street and invited us to join the community down to the dock to pick up free Herring eggs.
I tried herring egg salad once. The taste of the eggs was completely disguised by the ranch dressing that Mildred, the school cook, sopped over the lettuce. Eating the eggs became a sensation of creamy, miniscule, rubbery beads in my mouth. Not awful, but to me, senseless.
My goal of following the flocks of people down to the dock was not to bring some eggs home, but to experince the event. There was a sense of urgency and quick movement in the streets that I have never felt before. When I arrived, the line waiting for the boat dock was long. People carried empty boxes and or garbage sacks, with extra sacks stuffed in their jacket pockets. One gentleman made his way down the pier pushing a hand cart with two plastic storage bins stacked on the base. I had imagined that, like salmon, the fishermen would be splitting the herring open and pouring the guts into the people’s bags. I was wrong.
The “Julie Kae” came from Sitka, where in preparation for the Herring spawn, the fishermen lay down fifty feet of hemlock branches in the spawning beds. This year when the Herring arrived, the small fish left thirty feet of spawn. The fishermen pulled up the branches, piled them in the middle of the ship and floated all the way to Hoonah Easter morning to share the bounty. The captain of the ship gave all the eggs away for free and accepted no money for gas.
I stood back on the pier and watch the cheerful frenzy. It was like a family reunion with everyone politely pushing their way to the buffet table. Huge branches were being pulled up and out, one-by-one from the ship. I stood awestruck by the sheer number of eggs held on the bows, millions may be an accurate guess. Some of the braches were immediate carried off the dock and away others were placed on the dock. One owner found a little space of deck and
started to cut the branches into smaller pieces, before laying them in his box. I watched him as he took a large chunk of eggs ate them with revelry on the spot. One lady asked me if I wanted to try some…I smiled. It didn’t seem polite to tout my vegan beliefs at the moment…so I said, “Sure.” I literally took a couple, which is hard to do considering they are so tiny. Without ranch they were tasteless, miniscule, rubbery beads in my mouth. Not awful, but to me, still senseless.
The folks of Hoonah cleared the ship in less than a half hour, yet all the while sharing laughter, smiles, thank you and waves of appreciation to each other and to the kind captain. I overheard the captain’s mate saying that it took all day to give away this many branches in Sitka.
The “Julie Kae” brought a different kind of Easter egg to Hoonah; one that is connected to the wildlife of Alaska, one that has, for generations, been seen as a cyclical gift from nature and one that through the generosity of a stranger will nourish spirits and bodies of fellow Alaskans.
Andrew and I are feeling the pains of transitioning back to our former lifestyle. My snow shoes have been officially swapped for high heels and character shoes; my feet are paying the price with the blisters and sore arches. We drive everywhere and Andrew has been known to mutter from the back seat, “Mom, I wish we could we walk today?” His scooter riding has been isolated to one slow bout around the block with a few spins up and down the street in front of our house. Our living-room picture window now presents a view of John and Shirley’s house. John’s, pansies and manicured lawn are no match to the magical images of Icy Straight. 
This shot is from the preview program we did at the Rogue Valley Manor in Medford.
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