Fritz’s 50th, Library book fair, QAP equipment by airport
Grant and Shirley Fritz are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary on April 18. Grant was born in North Carolina, raised in Texas, and came to Anchorage with his parents in 1948. Grant’s high school coach took him and seven other students to Bristol Bay in 1949. They worked in a cannery and got to see the Bristol Bay sailboat drift fleet. Grant met Chuck Simon in school and began coming to Kasilof in 1950 to setnet with Chuck’s dad. Grant graduated from what was then Anchorage’s only high school in 1951. With the help of Archie Pearmain, the superintendent for Libby, McNeil & Libby Cannery, he bought Simon’s setnet site. He also soon bought five acres from Charlie Heckle on the Kasilof River, upstream from Pollard’s place. Heckle’s had bought the property earlier as an investment. They lived much further down-river. In 1954 Grant filed on a homestead adjacent to his five acres. Johnny Parks built a cabin for him.
Meanwhile, Shirley Karlen was born in Oregon, raised on a dairy farm and attended Lewis & Clark College. In 1951 Shirley went to Anchorage with her mom, who moved there because she had relatives at Elmendorf Air Force Base. Shirley decided to attend college at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 1952. She returned to Lewis & Clark in 1953, however, and graduated as a lab technician. The next year she got a job in Anchorage at the Native Hospital. By then Shirley had fallen in love —with skiing. So she attended the University of Colorado for adjacent skiing opportunities and acquired additional medical certification. Afterward she returned to Anchorage to work in a hospital for the Territory of Alaska.
Eventually, interest in skiing drew Grant and Shirley together and they married in 1958. By then Shirley’s mom had married Dick Nielson and moved with him to the Sterling area, where (in 1956) they ran Naptown Inn. Shirley joined Grant on the Kasilof homestead, but in 1959 they sold their setnet site to Pat McElroy. Grant drifted in the Inlet until 1968, when he began seining in the lower Inlet. Eventually he fished Kodiak and Prince William Sound, as well as chasing herring from Southeast to Togiak.
Grant and Shirley have three girls. When they were old enough for high school, Grant built a log home above the river on Sandwick Ave. Grant and Shirley also have a cabin in Halibut Cove and have been retired from fishing since about 1998. In the interim, their daughters have all married, had children and live in Kasilof. In addition to racing as a youth, Grant spent several winters working at Alyeska and skiing there. He recently visited a couple of his grandkids in Montana, where they are attending college. They all went to a ski resort there and enjoyed the slopes.
Kasilof Public Library holds their annual Scholastic book fair the week of April 21-25. The Tustumena School library holds their book fair in the fall and the sales from their 2006 event was over $2,000. The library’s cut is 25% of that money, but they realized a $1,100 value by buying items from the company putting on the fair. The public library sales were $1,500 in their 2007 book fair and they also realized a value exceeding 25% by buying from the bookseller. The library will look like a bookstore for the event. If someone prefers regular library visits to owning their own books, cash donations are always accepted and appreciated.
Quality Asphalt Paving has equipment staged by the Kasilof airport, waiting for the frost to go out to start work on Kalifornsky Beach Road.