Tomorrow marks the new season of Deadliest Catch, a Discovery show that talks about the dangers of commercial fishing off the coast of Alaska.  I have been following with interest on this show because of the drama that unfolds to put that snow crab and king crab on my plate that I love so much.  They refer to the crab catches as “gold”, and for good reason given the amount of money they stand to make with a good harvest of crab in Alaska.  Naturally, since I was interested in this I decided to see if there was a commercial fishing convention or trade show out there for these dangerous employees to enjoy during the off season.  What I thought would be a very fancy trade show and convention turned out to be a event held not in Vegas or Orlando or New York City, but on the island of Kodiak in nothing other than the local High School.

Comfish Alaska 2008, was recently held last month at the Kodiak High School Auditorium.  I can only assume they used the event location during the time when the students are out for Spring Break.  The event celebrated its 29th year and has lots of interesting vendors listed for the event, including of course, the City of Kodiak and other local businesses and sponsors.

As I expected, right in the beginning of the events was the presentation about sinking ships:

Flooding Control: Knowledge & Tools to Prevent Sinking - Hands on training and videos by the nationally acclaimed AK Marine Safety Education Association. Don’t go down with the ship! Presenter: Steven Campbell, AMSEA/Kodiak

Obviously, the Deadliest Catch was right along these lines.  Other seminars talk about Exxon Valdez lawsuit updates and the value of the King Crab market.  All things that are important to the Captains and crews of the fishing industry.  I suppose they will be holding this again next year for their 30th show at the same location.  I guess a blue collar job such as commercial fishing needs just four walls and a roof for their trade show.  I would love to attend just to see what the event is like, I’ll bring the melted butter!

Popularity: 29% [?]

Share This