23 July 2014
Smokin’ at “Fish Camp”
Leaving Valdez we drove up to Thompson Pass and boondocked the night. Preciously we mentioned that Bear Glacier was one of our top 5 boondocking sites. Well, Thompson Pass has to also be on this exclusive list! We are itching to get back here to hike, but we had too much invested in the 50 lbs of fresh filets so it was on to “fish camp”.
One side note: Being a Thompson Pass reminded us that we were camped on the Trail of ’98. Seems a trail was built from Valdez to Fairbanks in 1898 to support the gold prospectors headed to the Klondike Gold Fields. It was subsequently used by early tourists who traveled by wagon and some of the earliest automobiles. It took nine days of auto travel to reach Fairbanks, at trip we can now easily make in 8 hours!
On the way to “fish camp”, we stopped along the road side to soak in the marvelous view of the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountain range, part of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. This park covers more than 13.2 million acres which is bigger than the country of Switzerland. Wrangell-St. Elias stretches from one of the tallest peaks in North America, Mount St. Elias (18,008) to the ocean. There is very limited road access to this area since it is so rugged.
“Fish camp” (it’s formal name is The Grove) is quite an interesting place, but the Ritz Carlton it is not! While it is rustic and very friendly its main attraction is accessibility to some good fishing.
Once in camp, we immediately began the process of smoking the salmon (I say “we”, but of course Meriam was doing the “heavy lifting” of this process ). You will remember it took us three days to catch the salmon. Well, it has taken us three days to smoke it!
The “foodie” person in Meriam immediately surfaced. After the purchase of our very own smoking salmon cookbook, she studied for seemingly hours before settling on the “perfect” three varieties of brining that defines the end product. They are: a non-sweet spice, teriyaki and a pineapple-citrus.
Basically the steps in the process are: (a) the filets sit in the brining for 6-24 hours, (b) lay out the filets to air dry for about 5-6 hours developing a glaze and (c) then moving the filets to the smoker for 12-18 hours. So the next time one pays at least $40 a pound for smoked salmon, consider yourself getting a bargain.
Thanks to “fish camp” we had all the components necessary (excluding the ingredients) for the process: the screened in drying shed, racks for placing the filets and the smoker.
By the way, the wood chips-du-jour for the smoke are alder and cherry.
For those of you who might think this was too much information, this explains why we can just now get down to the serious business of fishing for the famous Copper Red Salmon (Sockeye)!
Hopefully we will have as good luck with Reds as we did for Pinks.
A panorama looking westward from Thompson Pass. Unfortunately this photograph does not do the scene justice.
Looking eastward from Thompson Pass
What can I say?
Mt. Wrangell – St. Elias in the distance, with a small lake in front. Note the cabin on the right and the float plane on the left.
Here we are at “fish camp”, camped on the banks of the Klutina River
Another view of our campsite.
Supper time at “Fish Camp”
Allowing the filets to develop their glaze in the drying shed. We put the cheese cloth on to help keep any bugs off.
Three of the 9 racks of salmon filets. While the two top racks are almost done, the bottom rack is just starting to smoke.
Smoked salmon anyone? (Note, I sneaked this photograph around 6:00a before Meriam had time to “fix her face”).