Len "Pete" Peterson, Taku River Reds
Len “Pete” Peterson came to Juneau in 1970 for a teaching job that was supposed to last two years. He never left. A schoolteacher’s salary wasn’t quite enough to support a family, so he sought summer work. “I did carpentry, drove a schoolbus, then crewed with a friend with a friend who was trolling, but none of it was very lucrative. I eventually earned enough to get my own gillnetting boat in 1981. It paid for college for my kids.” The kids—Heather and her brother Scott—were part of the team from early days.
“We were always out there with mom and dad,” Heather Hardcastle recalls. “One time, that net got caught in the prop. My mom stripped down to her skivvies, put on a snorkel and mark and jumped in. It was pitch dark and the water was 55 degrees. She got the prop untangled. I thought she was a rock star!”
“We came upon the idea of pressure bleeding the fish from a troller friend. As soon as the fish come in the boat, we run salt water through the fish’s circulatory system to expel the blood. This process prevents bacterial growth and thereby prevents any fishy smell and improves shelf life. It’s a higher end product, but the market is there. I always felt that these wild sockeye, if handled well, sells itself. It’s food as art” says Peterson.
Taku River Reds provides income for Pete and his wife, and Heather’s family.
“We were always out there with mom and dad,” Heather Hardcastle recalls. “One time, that net got caught in the prop. My mom stripped down to her skivvies, put on a snorkel and mark and jumped in. It was pitch dark and the water was 55 degrees. She got the prop untangled. I thought she was a rock star!”
“We came upon the idea of pressure bleeding the fish from a troller friend. As soon as the fish come in the boat, we run salt water through the fish’s circulatory system to expel the blood. This process prevents bacterial growth and thereby prevents any fishy smell and improves shelf life. It’s a higher end product, but the market is there. I always felt that these wild sockeye, if handled well, sells itself. It’s food as art” says Peterson.
Taku River Reds provides income for Pete and his wife, and Heather’s family.