Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
— 38 —
Boardwalk Boogie
There's a little bit of heaven that I love to eat
On the bottom of a fish called the belly meat
It's so greezy, so darn sweet
Just like some ladies that I used to meet
Come on baby love that belly meat
—Gary Gouker and Lee Asnin, “Belly Meat”
A SUNNY MAY DAY
perched on the edge of a deep, narrow fjord surrounded by steep, snow-
capped mountains, eagles soaring overhead and seven different bands playing everything
from country western to funk punk. Is this heaven, or is this just Pelican, Alaska, during the
Boardwalk Boogie?
“Cell phones don't work here,” Mayor Kathie Wasserman, a short vivacious blonde, tells
you, and then immediately corrects herself. “No, that's not right. They work in the middle
of the inlet at high tide. You can always tell when someone's trying to call someone on
their cell,” and she mimes standing up in a rocking skiff, arm upraised, eyes fixed on a
phantom “out of service area” display.
Pelican is a tiny seaside village in southeast Alaska, founded in 1938 by Finnish fisher-
man Kalle Rattikainen who didn't want to haul his salmon all the way to Hoonah or Juneau
to get paid. Most of the year the population of Pelican holds at 115. There are bearpaw
prints on the public dumpster, easy chairs in the bars, and it's the only Alaska town I've
