On the last day of May, Ratdawan Haywood tried her luck at the mouth of Twentymile River near Portage. She dipped her net into the grayish brown river, where it disappeared for a few moments before it emerged empty. Her blue Lowe’s bucket sat on the shoreside near her, empty as well.
“It’s slow this year,” she said. “People say last year was pretty good and this year is not as good. I heard people are catching them in Seward, but I don’t know where to go.”
Haywood had better luck the week prior, and was able to fill her bucket a couple of times.
Every year, dozens of Anchorage residents like Haywood venture to the southernmost edge of Anchorage’s municipal boundary to the mouth of Twentymile River, in hopes of filling their freezers and fryers with the slender, small silvery fish. For a brief season — the beginning of April to the end of May in salt water and June 15 in freshwater — they can scoop hooligan fish out of the water with long nets. The hooligans’ arrival is the kick off to the long-awaited summer season for many families who turn the fishing trip and the subsequent fresh fish fry into celebratory events that center on family, friends and the sharing of food.
“I think the move is to take what you think you can eat, and then share with everyone else, because it seems like everyone has a use for it,” said Randy Guintu who grew up in Anchorage and fished often with his family.
Haywood also spent a lot of time fishing with her family. She said she took her children to catch hooligan every year, and would fry and bake the little fish for her family to eat. But then her children grew up, and her recent trip to the river was her first in about a decade. She wanted to get out of the house, she said, and still likes to fry the hooligan, but she’s been more experimental with the fish she caught the week before – trying them in Thai soups like tom yum.
“It was last week, I actually told my mom I wanted to make tom yum soup,” she said. “Sometimes people think the fish is small and the meat is squishy so some people don’t like them because it’s a lot of oil.”
Hooligan, also known as ooligan, smelt, candlefish and eulachon, are extremely oily – up to 20% of the fish is fat. The small fish is considered to be a keystone species for the West Coast. A multitude of marine and land animals rely on hooligan for food in the spring months, and the fish is prized by Indigenous people in the Northwest for its oil, medicinal and food values. Before the gold rush, trails like the famous Chilkoot Trail were used by Indigenous people to trade ooligan oil. These trails were sometimes called “grease trails.”
Ooligan oil is a staple in Ruthie Constantine’s home. She moved to Anchorage in 2009 from Metlakatla, a Tsimshian community near Ketchikan in Southeast Alaska. She grew up eating hooligan and its oil – which is made by fermenting large batches of the fish before rendering the oil into different grades. Constantine said they get ooligan grease from Canada, where her tribe is originally from.
Despite growing up eating hooligan, Constantine only tried fishing for it when she first moved to Anchorage.
“It was a different experience to see and try,” she said. “My husband’s aunt took us out and wanted us to try. After that we were hooked.”
Constantine and her family often fish for friends and family who live back home in Metlakatla. When they visit, they bring two 50-pound freezer boxes on the plane with them. Then, starting with her grandma’s house, they go around the community with gallon bags full of fish for whoever wants or needs them.
“To bring them home feels – I don’t know how to describe it – it’s like a piece of joy just being able to share something that everyone loves to have at home,” she said. “It’s nice to provide for them and be able to give, and to be able to share with everybody.”
Constantine, as well as her friend’s and family back home, like to fry the fish whole with flour and seasoning or smoke them using traditional methods her grandmother taught them.
“Depending on who we’re having our Native food dinners with, sometimes the older people like a small bit added to their berries,” she said.
Guintu and his family also grew up frying the hooligan fish whole. Guintu works in the survey field and has commercial fished in Cook Inlet.
“I feel like hooligan is one of the first fishes young children are able to fish for,” he said. “I kind of remember growing up and being dragged down to Seward, and we would go to Willow or Twentymile. It’s kind of something that I’ve done for my family, being like one of the only adult children from my generation that actually likes to go out and fish.”
He tries to go annually with his family and friends, but hasn’t been able to go the last few years. But, family friends have made sure he doesn’t go without hooligan to eat – which they all typically like floured, seasoned and fried fresh and whole.
When he does fish, Guintu said, he likes to share his catch with his aunts or grandma. Their method is to take the biggest sized hooligan, butterfly and marinate it in garlic, soy sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, MSG, Sprite or Coke and liquid smoke, before baking them at a low temperature to create a smoked effect. Then, they’d fry the fish.
“It’s like a potato chip,” he said. “You just eat everything, it’s crunchy. But that takes a lot of time. The move was to bring them to grandma’s house because she made them the best. I think that’s probably pretty typical with most Filipino families. There’s a party, just fry and go really.”
He said the flesh of the fish is white, delicate and oily and not “super fishy” in taste. Most recipes from any culture calling for milkfish or mackerel could easily translate to using hooligan, he said.
“I feel like there’s a lot of cultures that have really made it popular, and really have a good way of preparing them,” he said. “Usually it’s a lot of ethnic cultures like the Hmong or the Hawaiians or the Koreans. I’m really intrigued to see what the Greeks or some of the other Europeans are doing with them. I think it’s a pretty cool resource to have.”
Like Haywood, whose bucket was empty Wednesday afternoon, Guintu said he’s been “kind of concerned about some of the returns” he’s seen.
“It just used to be – when we were kids, we went down to Nash Road and we’d be like five years old, you’d bring a spaghetti strainer and you can scoop them out of the creek,” he said, referencing Seward.
Whether it’s fishing or hunting, Guintu said, he likes providing for his family and others.
“I felt like it was something we did traditionally and I wanted to keep that tradition strong with the next generation,” he said. “I think it’s a pretty important personal use and subsistence fishery for all Alaskan residents.”
Catching the fish has become a tradition for many. For Haywood, who came to the river to try her luck after a decade hiatus from the fishery, it’s a tradition she’s picking back up.
“From now on, I’m going to try and come out every year and catch it for the season,” she said.
Editor’s note: This reporting is supported in part by a grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum and the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this report do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
