Working on the Edge by Spike Walker
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.
Walker, Spike: - 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 crewmen's term for laboring in the brutal outer reaches of the Bering Sea, Spike encountered 110-mph winds, rode 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. In addition to his crab-fishing experience, Spike Walker has worked in the offshore oilfields of Louisiana and Texas; along the Mississippi River as a certified, commercial deep-sea diver; and in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska as a logger. He is the author of several works of nonfiction, including Working on the Edge, Nights of Ice, and Coming Back Alive.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780312060022 |
| ISBN 10 | 0312060025 |
| Title | Working on the Edge |
| Author | Spike Walker |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | St. Martin's Press |
| Year published | 1991-06-01 |
| Number of pages | 279 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |