Laureli Kinneen

For years, any piece of machinery with a choke and a pull start kind of freaked me out. I spent too many moments during the formative years of my life standing next to a flooded electric blue Indy snowmachine. In the cold. Frustrated.

His first job was as a commercial fisherman – following my dad out on the ocean as soon as he was able to walk. In sixth and seventh grade, he was the youngest fisherman in Unalakleet, taking Dad’s boat out in the ocean when he was just 12 years old.

I make uuraq in Mom’s old pot, blackened on the outer bottom from years of feeding kids cold from the slough water. I cut males with big humps we saved into steaks, just like Mom used to.