Christmas in Kodiak

Breaking tradition broke a long-standing myth

The celebration of Christmas for many is a family tradition carried out year after year in the same place, with the same people. For as long as I can remember as a child, we traveled to our grandparents’ house in New York on Christmas day, where we gathered and celebrated with our relatives.

Occasionally, though, life arranges for these traditions to be broken, allowing Christmas to be spent in different, perhaps even exotic, locations. Some locations become the setting for new Christmas traditions, while others are experienced once in a lifetime.

For me, a month-long winter break from college in the early 1980s afforded the opportunity to break the traditional visit to New York on Christmas day. The previous summer I had worked in southwestern Alaska in the fishing industry, and fallen in love with Alaska, and was eager to return at the first opportunity. One of the people I had worked with was staying in Kodiak during the winter and wrote me saying there were jobs available. That’s all I needed to make a decision.

When I informed my parents about my plans, they were obviously saddened I wouldn’t be home for Christmas. However, they knew the impression my first trip to Alaska had left on me and could understand my desire to return there, but why in winter? Everyone knows Alaska is a barren, frozen wasteland at that time of year, including my father, whose first words echoed the myth: “Alaska in the winter? You’re going to freeze your b-tt of!” All I could say is “It’s not that bad. It would be great if you could give me a ride to the airport tomorrow.”

After arriving in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, and spending the first few days helping a friend in the construction business, I flew south to Kodiak Island, located on the west side of the Gulf of Alaska. Kodiak was famous for its fishing industry, with salmon in the summer, king crab in the winter, and halibut throughout the year. Through some phone calls, I had been able to line up a job at a fish processing plant in town that was receiving cod, flounder, and pollock. Of secondary importance was finding a place to live, a factor that would end up making my Christmas in Kodiak more memorable.

When I showed up at the plant to complete the paperwork and start work, the managing director, Neil, asked me if I had a place to stay. He said the plant’s bunkhouse unfortunately was full, but I could stay with his family in town. They had an extra room in their home, for which I would pay a very small rent, and I could get a ride with him to work in the mornings. He seemed like a decent fellow and so I took him up on the deal.

The rest of the day was spent getting introduced to my duties and to the other workers, and when work was done, we drove over to Neil’s place. His wife, from Korea, and their very small children were waiting for me and welcomed me into their home. Compared to a dreary bunkhouse full of seasonal workers, this was a loving family with which to spend the Christmas holidays.

The days leading up to Christmas passed quickly. Some days I worked down in the hold of docked fishing boats, up to my chest in fish, shoveling them into a brailer that was then raised up onto the docks and dumped into totes. On days when I wasn’t shoveling below, I was up above on the dock, wheeling the totes into the plant for processing. And when there weren’t any boats to unload, I loaded 50-pound boxes of frozen, processed fish into a chilled semi-trailer. Twelve hours and 1200 boxes later, my arms had tightly packed 30 tons of fish for transport, and it was time to go home. Thankfully, someone would even pay me for exercising all day.

I’ve often wondered why we remember some moments in life and forget others that occurred at almost the same place and time. Christmas eve in Kodiak was one I have very little memory of but trust it was joy-filled, knowing my hosts. We did go to work that day, and unlike the traditional pot roast, potatoes, and sauerkraut at grandma’s house, there was Alaskan salmon on the table that night. Not sure if there was a tree or if the kids got presents, but given our plans for Christmas day, in all likelihood, it was a low-key evening.

When Christmas day dawned, the thick, low clouds so often shrouding the mountains and coastal areas of Kodiak had lifted and gifted Kodiak’s inhabitants clear blue skies, bright sunshine, and a light dusting of snow on the surrounding mountains. As the plant was closed for the day, and Neil was an active hunter, he decided to go rabbit hunting and asked me to come along. Even though I am not a hunter, I was all in as seeing the rest of the island would be a welcome change of scenery from the holds of fishing boats or the insides of semi-trailers.

After loading the equipment, we drove out of town and into the central Kodiak highlands, terrain consisting of brown, grass-covered hills marked by occasional fir trees. Although the area is not very high above sea level, it had received some snow the previous night, which made for spectacular views in all directions, enhanced by the warm, bright midday sun. After parking the truck and walking for a while without seeing any rabbits, we scoped out a location on a grassy slope where we could see the valley below, sat down, and had a bite to eat.

While we waited for rabbits, it was good to chat with Neil in an informal setting, to learn more about how he arrived in Kodiak from the Midwest, and his aspirations in life. In recalling that scene, what made it so memorable was the humanness of it all — two outsiders from the Lower 48, sitting on a hillside overlooking a vast, uninhabited expanse and discussing life. I sometimes imagined this is what it must have felt like when extraterrestrials visited Earth before humans were present. Many years later, I would learn Neil’s visit to Earth, unfortunately, ended before his 55th birthday, after succumbing to a heavy illness.

When we realized there weren’t any rabbits here, we packed up and began our journey home. As we drove back, descending in elevation, trees became more common, and in many of those, we spotted bald eagles. We stopped to observe them and marvel at their gift of powerful flight, and I took some photos. By mid-afternoon, we were back in civilization, and our Christmas day excursion into the wilderness had come to an end.

Despite all the wonderful memories from my first and only Christmas in Kodiak, one especially elicits a chuckle each time it is recalled. On our way back from hunting, I asked Neil to drop me off at a downtown phone booth so I could call my parents in New York. No sooner had I entered the booth and closed the door than the “greenhouse" started warming up again. Having just spent the day outdoors, I removed my jacket and then, standing in just a flannel shirt, dialed up my parents’ number.

In those days, long-distance phone calls were typically made calling collect, and once my parents accepted the call and we had exchanged Christmas well-wishes, I asked how the weather was back home. Before I could finish my sentence, my father interjected “It is cold as heck today, only about 10 degrees (-12 C). How about you? Aren’t you frozen up there?”

“It’s about 45 degrees here, all I’m wearing is a flannel shirt …”

I don’t recall who laughed harder, but I sensed my break with holiday tradition had finally broken a long-standing myth in our family.

Our call finished, I walked back to Neil’s house, taking in the surroundings, and, in the spirit of the day, counted all the blessings received that day and in the days prior. Perhaps the biggest was to simply be alive in that moment and location and to experience it all.

Author’s note: As this story is about Christmas in the early 1980s, I have no digital photos to share from it. Whatever photos I took are on slides stored in boxes on the other side of the world. This trip back in time reminded me about entrusting important aspects of our lives to technology. Although it appears that currently-available digital technology may endure the test of time, we can’t be certain that what is ubiquitous today will be accessible years from now. What we can be certain of is regardless of where our travels take us in 2023, they have the potential to challenge long-standing myths and leave enduring impressions on us as humans.

Thank you, JoAnn, Adrienne, Anne, and Jillian, for collecting the tales of travelers around the world in the publication Globetrotters. For those still traveling during the holidays, some great Christmas travel stories were written on Globetrotters in response to the prompt:

Dear Reader, Hopefully, this piece inspired you to travel to a place to challenge a long-standing myth you may have about it. To read more such travel-related pieces, plus those of Medium’s top writers, please feel free to click my referral link below and sign up for Medium. Thank you for empowering us to write and be of service to you!