Going ‘Salmon Crazy’ In Kodiak: A Family Loves Its New Alaska Life

The following appears in the July issue of Alaska Sporting Journal:

BY CHRIS COCOLES

Jeff Sanford loves the Alaska lifestyle he chose to chase 25 years ago, and he loves to work. But even that passion had a limit, so it was time for a strategy change.

For 16 years, Sanford built and operated a successful ship repair and commercial fishing machinery innovation business in Dutch Harbor, where he headed to from his native Duluth, Minnesota, a quarter of a century ago. He’d soon marry his hometown sweetheart, Lia, and they would have two hockey-playing sons and a gymnastics-enthusiast daughter (Lia recently gave birth to another son). But when they had their third child while living in a 437-square-foot cabin, something had to give.

“At that point, our oldest son was 6 and basically I was working 100 to 120 hours a week, and I was just never home – just working my ass off,” he says. “We got to a point where I thought, ‘If life is going to continue to go this fast, the kids are going to be grown up and gone.’ I had a lot of friends who missed their kids’ childhoods altogether.”

So while the flourishing business was hard to give up, when a newcomer to Dutch Harbor was eager to buy it, the Sanfords didn’t hesitate to make a deal to sell the shop. They wanted to stay in Alaska, and the rugged beauty of Kodiak Island, plus Jeff’s longtime passion for fishing, made starting a charter boat operation seem like a no-brainer.

Nine years later, Salmoncrazy Adventures (907-942-2506; salmoncrazyadventures.com) has become one of the island’s most popular and successful fishing guide outfits.

And while Sanford is still keeping busy this summer with bookings – “I’m just that guy. I’m a workaholic,” he admits – there’s still been plenty of time to coach his kids, who have been playing travel hockey from the time they learned how to skate. But it’s a perfect blend of having a life away from the water and using his fishing skills to get clients into some epic fishing in Kodiak.

“It was a fine thing to do and I could have continued to do that forever,” Sanford says of running his Dutch Harbor shop, “but life leads you down another path.”

LAND OF 10,000 BEERS

Growing up on the shores of Lake Superior, fishing was in Sanford’s blood. “I had a lifetime of (fishing) experiences. When I was little, my dad got a really nice boat and kept it down in the marina in Duluth. On the weekends he would take off fishing,” he says. When Jeff was old enough to drive the boat back and forth from port to the fishing grounds, he’d be the designated captain of the vessel. One thing about northern Minnesota is the ability of the people there to drink beer!

In fact, young Jeff put together a side hustle of recycling cans of Hamm’s and Pabst Blue Ribbon. Grandpa helped him make a can crusher in the garage.

“These guys would go fishing, and I would fill a 55-gallon bucket of crushed cans almost every weekend. Thousands of beers,” Sanford says with a laugh.

After finishing school and with his hockey playing days having ended when he was 16, young Jeff would soon have the urge to leave Minnesota for the wild outdoor lifestyle of Alaska.

“Just got out of school and it was adventure time, man. Twenty years old, you’re feeling invincible and bulletproof. I was like, ‘Where can I go?’” he recalls. “‘Spread the wings and let’s just do it.’ Just jumped on an adventure and had a two-year plan that was not close to how it shook out.”

Lia, then his girlfriend, would soon join him in Dutch Harbor, and off they went, dabbling in several adventures, businesses and pleasure while making lifelong friendships with fellow Alaskans. While fishing adventures continued on the side, his focal point was commercial fishing machinery, which eventually became the first family business, “The Machine Shop,” where Sanford would spend several years working well north of 100 hours a week. His shop was a hit, but the workload mounted to an unsustainable level, with no end in sight.

COACH AND TEACHER

After his youth athletic days were over, Sanford found his calling as a hockey coach, and when the boys started to play, it was natural for their dad to become involved in coaching and traveling to tournaments around Alaska and the Lower 48.

“It’s fun until it’s not. It’s kind of like the problem when I was working 100-plus hours a week. You have zero down time, You’re literally in a different city every weekend,” Sanford says of the hockey itineraries he and the kids endured. “My oldest is now 15 and the younger boy 12. Super talented, awesome little dudes, but it gets to the point where things have occurred over the years where we had to stop the madness.”

Now they’re focusing on the family business, with everyone pitching in on the workload. And Sanford’s background as a coach has translated nicely into tutoring the anglers who book trips for everything from saltwater to remote river adventures.

As a teenager, he was so effective at coaching that it was suggested he should pursue a career in teaching.

“That sticks in my head. I wanted to be a teacher, but when I was in high school, I was basically Ferris Bueller and not interested in academics,” says Sanford, who still felt like his skills could work in a different genre. Enter the Salmoncrazy Adventures era.

“For me, I’ve always wanted to be teaching people,” Sanford says, “showing people something that they want to learn. And I have the knowledge and ability to convey that. That’s probably the most important impact of a teacher. People can be knowledgeable but have to know how to teach the subject to be effective.”

“Teaching people some of the finer points about fishing, especially when you get out there with people who want to learn, I’ve always enjoyed that.”

COME TO KODIAK

Alaska is massive and features myriad opportunities for visitors to experience something different. It might be camping and casting for lake trout, staying at a luxury Kenai Peninsula lodge or taking in the rugged and gorgeous landscapes of Kodiak.

“I’ve fished all over the state, from Kenai Peninsula and saltwater of Cook Inlet and all down the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands, to Bristol Bay, and Southeast,” Sanford says.

“I’ve been to all these places, but one universal thing about Alaska is people from the Lower 48 – your run-of-the-mill visitors – they want to go to Alaska. They don’t realize they need to go to remote places like Kodiak or Dutch. There are, of course, countless wild places in Alaska, but not many people are equipped to go that far into the unknown. They see the pictures and there’s this idea in their heads about them wanting to catch all the giant fish and see all the scenery. Not a lot of them understand that to get to the real Alaska and the experiences they have in their mind, is to go to wild places.”

And Kodiak, perhaps not as chic as Bristol Bay, charming as Homer and the Kenai or as scenic as the Panhandle, is the real Alaska that Salmoncrazy Adventures hopes to show off.

“It really is the true Alaska that people want. They have it in the back of their minds. When they go to Homer, they don’t get that experience there. Homer’s cool; Homer’s neat, but it’s very touristy; very much civilized; it’s very much been conquered. It’s not that wild experience and that rugged outdoor wilderness that they have in the back of their minds. A lot of people just want to go to Alaska and catch a bunch of fish, and you can find that in Homer, or Seward, and it scratches that itch for a lot of people.”

“But the (clients) I’m after are the ones who want raw, wild Alaska, and when I connect with them, they’ll eventually find their way to Kodiak. But there’s financial constraints with a lot of people. And it takes two or three years to save up for that,” he acknowledges.

And that’s been the biggest challenge for Sanford in building up a base of customers who want that dream trip and to experience some of the state’s best fishing action.

Sanford has invested in the tools needed to process catches himself. “It’s a family business; we do it all,” he says. You can bet that if you’re willing to take the plunge into unspoiled Kodiak, your host at Salmoncrazy Adventures is eager to make your Alaska trip a memorable one.

“I’m a guide, not a god. (But) I’m good at what I do and I’m very passionate about this fishery, and I know it as well as if not better than anyone in Kodiak. And I’m still trying to learn. So I’ll teach you anything you want to be taught in what you’re about to take part in today,” Sanford says.

“I’m trying to get you the best opportunity, but the outcomes are always a variable and a constant surprise. That’s what I can do. Being both a teacher and a student of the game, so to speak, has always been there for me.”

And it’s all worthwhile when things come together. His sons are the deckhands on the Sanford boat, so maybe if they choose to, they’ll have the same urge to make a go of it in the Last Frontier like their dad has.

Sanford calls it the “fishing on vacation” effect that he wants anglers who book an adventure with him to experience during a trip to Kodiak.

“I really do love taking people out, showing them and teaching,” he says. “It’s like seeing a kid catch a big old giant fish that would have never even been a possibility. It will blow your mind. A special experience.” ASJ

Editor’s note: Follow Salmoncrazy Adventures at Facebook.com/ SalmoncrazyAdventures.