For years, crab fishing in the Bering Sea was the deadliest job in the country - more likely to kill you than going on foot patrol in Iraq.īut even as the Deadliest Catch rocketed to popularity, the hard lessons of two decades of racing for fish were finally sinking in for fishermen in the Bering Sea, and they were voluntarily agreeing to end the race. That free-for-all brought a host of problems, from environmental damage caused by carpet-bombing the ocean floor with crab pots, to bankruptcies and a chilling roster of lost fishermen and boats that sank after they ventured out into fierce storms so they wouldn't get left behind in the race. "You could've had 25 boats easily catching the whole quota," says Edward Poulsen, a second-generation Bering Sea crab fisherman. Though it's not much discussed on the show, the scramble for crab is just a videogenic symptom of a larger - and potentially catastrophic - problem in fishing: Too many boats chasing too few fish. But if there's a single secret ingredient behind the show's success, it is the drama of the multimillion-dollar fishing derby - starring the likes of Phil Harris, spitting blood and tearing his hair out as his boat gradually falls apart around him, and Johnathan Hillstrand, like a Hells Angel behind the wheel of the Time Bandit - to catch as many crabs as possible before the government drops the checkered flag on the season. Granted, the weekly drama of the Red Bull-guzzling, cigarette-huffing, bleepity-bleeping captains doing battle with 13 million pounds of king crab does give the show a certain NASCAR-worthy je ne sais quoi. Yet the show has somehow won over more than 4 million viewers and garnered five seasons of red-hot ratings. Pulling load after load of crustaceans off the bottom of the ocean seems like pretty thin stuff for a runaway entertainment phenomenon. By turns raucous and reflective, exhilarating and anguished, enthralling, suspenseful, and wise, Time Bandit chronicles a larger-than-life love affair as old as civilization itself–a love affair between striving, willful man and inscrutable, enduring nature.It's hard to put a finger on what drives the wild popularity of Deadliest Catch, the Discovery Channel's series about crab fishing in the Bering Sea. Here is the Hillstrands’ own heartfelt hymn to the brutally hard, gloriously independent, and mysteriously soul-satisfying life that has earned them their daily bread and defined their existence. In pursuit of their daily catch, the brothers brave ice floes and heaving waves 60 feet high, the perils of 1000-lb steel traps thrown about by the punishing wind, and the constant menace of the open, hungry water.Įven the brothers’ downtime on land–where the deadly realities of the unforgiving sea are never far from their minds–is lived as if borrowed: fast and hard, haunted by the knowledge that the next season at sea could end asleep in the deep. Natives of tiny, fishing hamlet, Homer, Alaska sons of a hard-bitten, highly successful fisherman and born with brine in their blood, the Hillstrand boys couldn’t imagine a life without a swaying deck underfoot and a harvest of mighty Alaskan king crabs waiting to be pulled from the ocean floor. To read Time Bandit is to step into their skins, smell the sea air, feel the frigid wind, and know with all your senses the exhilarating, and terrifying life on the edge. If you’ve watched their exploits on TV’s Deadliest Catc h, you’ve only scratched the surface. And among the rapidly diminishing ranks of these die-hard salts, brothers Andy and Johnathan Hillstrand have forged a reputation as fierce masters of their treacherous, enthralling trade. Season after season, they bond and battle with its icy depths, determined to reap yet one more rewarding harvest while eluding the ever-present threat of sudden, certain death. And perhaps none take more chances than the men and women who brave the tempestuous, bountiful waters of the Bering Sea. But make no mistake–there truly is much to beware for those who are drawn to risk their lives and seek their fortunes upon the waves. “Many brave hearts are asleep in the deep, so beware, beware,” goes the chorus of an old sailors’ sing-along that celebrates the allure and danger of the seafaring life.
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