Working on the Edge

No profession pits man against nature more brutally than king crab fishing in the frigid, unpredictable waters of the Bering Sea. The yearly death toll is staggering (forty-two men in 1988 alone); the conditions are beyond most imaginations (90-mph Arctic winds, 25-foot seas, and super-human stretches of on-deck labor); but the payback, if one survives can be tens of thousands of dollars for a month-long season.

In a breathtaking, action-packed account that combines his personal story with the stories of survivors of the industry's most harrowing disasters, Spike Walker re-creates the boom years of Alaskan crab fishing—a modern-day gold rush that drew hundreds of fortune-and adventure-hunters to Alaska's dangerous waters—and the crash that followed.

Now in paperback, a dramatic insider's account of the world's most dangerous profession: king-crab fishing in the frigid waters of the Bering Sea where the conditions are beyond most imaginations (90 mph Arctic winds, 25-foot seas, and superhuman stretches of on-deck labor). But the payback, if one survives, can be tens of thousands of dollars for a month-long season. Photographs.

No profession pits man against nature more brutally than king crab fishing in the frigid, unpredictable waters of the Bering Sea. The yearly death toll is staggering (forty-two men in 1988 alone); the conditions are beyond most imaginations (90-mph Arctic winds, 25-foot seas, and super-human stretches of on-deck labor); but the payback, if one survives can be tens of thousands of dollars for a month-long season.

In a breathtaking, action-packed account that combines his personal story with the stories of survivors of the industry's most harrowing disasters, Spike Walker re-creates the boom years of Alaskan crab fishing—a modern-day gold rush that drew hundreds of fortune-and adventure-hunters to Alaska's dangerous waters—and the crash that followed.

Spike Walker spent nine seasons as a crewman aboard some of the most successful crab boats in the Alaskan fleet. While "working on the edge," the crewman's term for laboring in the brutal outer reaches of the Berin Sea, Spike encountered 110-mph winds, roade out one of the worst storms in Alaska's history, worked nonstop for seventy-four hours without sleep, participated in record catches of king crab, saw ships sink, helped rescue their crews, and had close friends die at sea. He currently lives in Clatskanie, Oregon, and returns each year to fish for halibut in Alaska.