© Featur

the other press

Barbara K. Adamski

e opfeatures@telus.net

March 24, 2004

 

A Fisherman’s Focus:

A Profile of Stefan Grega

Lisa Terepocki
OP Contributor

 

The wheelhouse of the 45-foot
trawler, Pacific Sunrise, reeks of
diesel. The counter is full of tools,
fast food containers, and empty cof-
fee mugs. It’s January, and the boat's
been docked here in Steveston’s
Britannia Marina since November.
A sloppy stack of newspapers sits on
the table, and a radar screen occu-
pies the brown vinyl seat below.
Everywhere I look I see wires, tack-
le, or laundry hanging. This is
Stefan Grega’s boat, and it’s his
home. He leans against the captain's
chair and sighs. “I've owned this
boat for 20 years now. I still don’t
know where anything goes.” Stefan
puts his wrench down on the news-
papers and wipes his hands on his t-
shirt. Long lines of grease stain the
cotton. “Huh,” he says as he looks
down at the mess. A second later,
the smears are forgotten and Stefan
is showing off his new halibut
hooks.

His cheeks are dappled with stub-
ble and his head is a brownish-gray
mop. Stefan hasn’t bought new

ae Page 16 «

   

 

Stefan at Northseas Fish packing plant

 

 

The Pacific Sunrise in Ucluelet

clothes or shoes other than boots in
a few decades. Looking presentable
isn't something he really considers.
Instead, his focus has everything to
do with the ocean. “The more I’m
on the water, the more I belong
there,” he says.

Stefan has been fishing since the
mid-70s. He's fished salmon, tuna,
prawns, rockfish, dogfish, and octo-
pus, but most often he’s long-lining
for halibut on the southern tip of
BC’s Queen Charlotte Islands. “I
love it up there, and I could never
get bored with it. I'll do it till the
day I die,” he claims, “and if I croak
while we're out there, they can just
tip me overboard.”

Born in communist Czechoslo-
vakia in the 40s, Stefan grew up far
away from any large body of water.
“I remember there was a creek ten
miles from my parents’ house. And
we had a well, but that’s about it.”
As a teenager, he was trained as an
electrician, and worked for two years
for the government’ railroad. At 19,
along with his best friend, Stefan
fled the country and ended up in a
refugee camp in Italy. “It was the
best time of my life. We spent two

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years picking watermelon in the
sunshine for farmers who paid us
with big green bottles of wine.”

Stefan immigrated to Calgary in
1970. “I thought I had found hell. It
was a horrible time for me because I
was alone and I couldn't figure out
English.” He laughs, “Ha! I remem-
ber getting arrested for drinking
vodka in public. So embarrassing
because it happened when I was on
my first date with a Canadian girl.”
Stefan had wanted to impress her,
and thought he might best achieve
that by acting like James Dean in
Rebel Without a Cause. “It was
dumb, I know.”

In 1978, Stefan got the opportu-
nity to work on a halibut boat off
the coast of BC. “It was a dream
come true for me because I wanted
to make as much money as I could,”
he explains. “At that time, fishing
was the ultimate money job.”

His first deckhanding job was for
Don Kaufman, a life-long skipper of
a halibut boat. “Don was this mas-
sive, burly man,” says Stefan as he
stretches his arms wide. “He was
huge, with this crazy deep voice. Just
boomed at you when he was mad.”

  

Stefan holding a flare parachute “testing” flares

In the 70s and 80s, halibut fisher-
men had to work “shotgun open-
ings.” The government would give
little warning as to when the crews
could fish, and when those openings
came, the crew only got 72 hours at
a time to haul in all the fish they
could, regardless of the weather.
“We would work non-stop some-
times—72 hours without sleeping,
in the grossest gales you can imag-
ine.” Stefan groans. “So seasick, and
Don would just bark at the crew,
telling us to puke on the bait so it
would have more flavour.”

A quick learner, Stefan fished as
many different species as possible,
and realized he had found his dream
career. In 1984, he bought his own
trawler, the Pacific Sunrise. That
same year he married, and five years
later divorced. Since 1989, Stefan
has lived year-round on his boat. “I
don’t need a house, and I definitely
don’t need a wife. I’m already mar-
ried to this lady.” He slaps the
wood-panelled wall. “Plus, I’ve got a
project I spend all my extra time and
money on.”

Over in the marina’s welding

building Stefan shows off the cata-

maran he is making from scratch.
He's welding the 40-foot sailboat
out of aluminum, all by himself.
“It's going to be great. I wanna ship
it to Hawaii when it’s finished.” He’s
hoping he'll have it ready before
March 1, the day halibut season
opens. “My goal is to come back
from the Charlottes in November
and fly straight to Hawaii, have
some fun there for a few days, and
then sail solo to Midway Island. Just
like that.” Midway Island lies in the
middle of the Pacific Ocean, 1,200
miles northwest of Honolulu.

Many of BC’s fishermen are verg-
ing on retirement, but Stefan won't
think about it. He just wants to sail
and fish until the end of his days.
“There’s nothing else I need to do
with myself,” he says. “I’ve been liv-
ing like this for years. I’m not gonna
quit any time soon. Some people go
crazy when they're young, and some
go crazy when they’re old. Me, I go
crazy all the time.”

 

Photo by Lisa Terepocki