Island Life Living is Dutch Harbor, you must have a sense of humor. Whether discussing the politics of crab rationalization in the produce aisle, or scheduling CDQ inspections at the local pub, you just have to smile. The line between working and living dissolves into a soup of being. I moved here 16 months ago, but have been traveling to Dutch Harbor for over 8 years. In the past, Dutch always seemed to be a holding tank; a place where you waited to go out, or waited to go home. Now it has become the destination. In the winter I make plans pick berries in the spring, and fish in the summer. In the summer I look forward to the winter to go skiing and to sleep. The fall, well that’s best for travel. When I decided to live here, the island took on a different feel. You actually become part of the community. Not because “we all suffer though it together”, but because in a dilution of 1:4000 you actually change the community. My face has become part of the landscape, scary as that may be. In the past 16 months I have caught halibut from a kayak, made salmon berry wine and skiied some of the best corn snow in my life. I joined the ambulance crew, took a college class and started a photography business. Sure I could have purchased cable TV, and spent most of my time indoors. By now I would be an angry, overweight, alcoholic plotting my escape (I’ve known a few out here). Instead I chose to accept this place, to learn what I could from it and let it change me. Yes, answering observers' sampling questions on the Stairmaster can get annoying, but that is what I signed up for. I am “that NMFS guy” and if I wanted anonymity I would move to a big city. So, don’t cry for me Argentina, the truth is I’m having fun out here. Writing