yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Beached Wheel | Life Below Zero


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Just got done having my morning cup of coffee, and down here I can see the river really start dropping. Last night, it dropped a couple feet. I'm going to head up river, make sure my fish wheel is not high and dry. I can't afford to just let a functional fish wheel go to waste.

The water's been high for about 2 weeks now. It just kind of like planed out in the last couple days and just dropped overnight, just like that. And that's how this river is; it's constantly changing.

Jesse Holmes relies on the resources along the Tanana River to maintain a subsistence lifestyle. Getting his fish wheel up and running is crucial to feeding himself and his team of sled dogs for the year ahead.

So, the fish wheel is made out of spruce log rafts, and it floats out in the river. What we do is we take it with big logs and we push it far out into the river into a deep channel. We drop the axle down, and the big baskets dip through the water, turning with the current. As it scoops down, the fish have no place to go, so they swim right into the scoop. It scoops them up.

Now, the purpose of a fish wheel is to put up a large amount of fish. I can put up 900 fish in a day if the fishing's going good. I need to be catching fish and feeding the dogs fish right now because it's the most cost-effective way for me to be able to keep these dogs.

This could be a real big deal to me, to not be able to use that fish wheel. My main goal is to not fall in the river; it's one of the fastest navigable waters in the U.S. The Tanana River is, and there's just tons of silt in here. The minute you're in there, the silt starts filling your pockets, filling your clothes, filling your boots. Little things can become big things quick.

This thing's definitely up on the sandbars; the river dropped a couple feet here. Yeah, it definitely looks like I got my work ahead of me. If I didn't get this thing out here on the water current soon, it's going to get a lot worse because the river's dropping fast. If I wait any longer on this, it could put me out of the season.

It's stressful. The stakes are high, and like, it's very easy to mess up with the fish wheel. There's a lot of things going on; you got the current, thousands of pounds. I mean, this is going to be one hell of a job. Every minute that goes by is a minute wasted and another couple inches of water loss, possibly.

So, it's time to get to work, bust this thing out, and get on to the next process. It's a lot of work, but it provides a lot of food for the dogs. There we go, she's moving.

More Articles

View All
Warren Buffett's Advice for the 2023 Economic Recession
Are we through the banking crisis at this point? Failures, the orders of banks may have lost a hell of a lot of money. The people who want the debt of the holding company, they may lose a lot of money. People can, they can lose a lot of money, uh, but the…
My response to Pewdiepie
What’s up guys, it’s Graham here. So, I never thought this would happen. Two things. Number one, today is my 30th birthday, which means obviously I turned 30 today. So yeah, that’s kind of crazy! And for anyone wondering what I’m going to do to celebrate…
Impact of mass on orbital speed | Study design | AP Statistics | Khan Academy
Let’s say that we’ve come up with a new pill that we think has a good chance of helping people with diabetes control their blood sugar. When someone has diabetes, their blood sugar is unusually high, which damages their body in a bunch of different ways. …
First-Ever 3D VR Filmed in Space | One Strange Rock
I spent a hundred and sixty six days off the world, but somewhere along the way my perceptions of the world shifted. [Music] When you’re onboard a spaceship, you’re very much aware of the passage of time. The clock is running, your heart is beating, your…
Arizona: Meet Khan Academy & Khanmigo
Hi everyone! Welcome to our webinar to discuss the good news. We officially have a partnership with Con Migo for this school year to fund Con Migo for students, um, and it’s broadly across the State of Arizona. So if you are a member of a public school di…
Khan for Educators: Assignment reports
Hi, I’m Megan from Khan Academy, and in this video, we’ll walk through the reports related to assignments on Khan Academy. After you’ve created assignments on Khan Academy and your students have completed those assignments, you can track progress using a …