Chip grew up outside of Madison, Wisconsin, and first arrived in Alaska in 1970 for a summer job at Big Red’s Flying Service on Lake Hood. One of the more memorable experiences of that summer, at age 17, was sneaking into Chilkoot Charlie’s in its first year of operation to hear Mr. Whitekeys and his band, the Oosik Music Company. After college, Chip moved to Alaska and found the allure of working on the ‘big pond’ as a commercial fisher- man too great to resist. In spite of swearing “never to do that again” after the first few crab trips, he has continued to fish. In his maturity, after more than thirty-five years spent in a variety of fisheries across the state, he fishes herring in the spring and salmon in the summer.
