My adventurer son has gotten it into his head that he wants to work at a fish cannery in Alaska for the summer. He has researched this through a .gov site. He reads that plenty of college kids do it, the money is great, they will fly you from Seattle and depending on the location, provide housing. He is talking some of his friends into doing it with him. I am all for adventures and hard, physical work but am very wary too. Do any of you have kids who have done this? I would appreciate any info.
I have a friend who’s a chef, and both she and her son went to Alaska one season.
There’s a site called coolworks.com that He may want to check out.
There are several fishing fleets based in Seattle-these are legit jobs. VERY hard work, but the fleets hire for other positions as well-my son worked on a boat one summer working the cranes and doing inventory because he had those skills. The pay is very good-I had a friend who paid for law school by working summers on a fishing boat. As long as your son isn’t working winter doing the actual “deadliest catch” stuff, he should be ok. But he should go into it with his eyes open. The hours are long, the work very physical and demanding, and not in the best conditions.
Kids have been doing this since I was in college. Filthy, hard work, and the pay reflects that. Since it is your son’s idea, he should go for it.
Summer in AK is halibut (along with other kinds of fish: black cod, red salmon, and silver salmon) season. I had some students who are AK local kids doing halibut. Their pay can be fixed or set at a fixed fraction of the catch. Hard work. 
Also make sure the insurance coverage is adequate.
So what kind of pay do these positions offer? Anyone have an idea?
About 10 years ago, I asked one of my local AK students, he told me he made $10k on a good month. After graduation, he worked as an investment analyst in SF.
I went to college in Fairbanks. I never worked in the canneries, but I knew lots of students who did. Exhausting, grubby work and I don’t recall anyone doing it two years in a row. Even though the hourly pay wasn’t high, you can make decent money because you work long hours and have no time and no place to spend it. If someone really wants to do it, I wouldn’t discourage them.
Working in a cannery isn’t the same as working on a fishing boat. The pay is a lot lower in a cannery.
Neighbor did it this summer. I talked to him after he returned. He had originally planned on staying up there, and had no interest in college. After the summer of hard labor in the cannery, he came back home and enrolled in a local CC at the last minute and was excited to be going to college.
OP here. Thanks for all the feed-back. My son did veto for himself working on the crabbing boats, considered pretty dangerous work. Simba9, is the lower pay worth working in the canneries and can you tell me anything about possible housing options?
I was in Alaska in August, some years ago. We met many college kids working in an environmental,program,. They seemed to be having lots of fun.