The crabby entrepreneur

John King in a diving dry suit preparing to plunge from the deck of the Viking Rover into the Unga Strait (circa 1976). Credit: Courtesy of John King" />John King in a diving dry suit preparing to plunge from the deck of the Viking Rover into the Unga Strait (circa 1976). Credit: Courtesy of John King The Bering Sea was angry that day. The Viking Rover, an Alaskan fishing boat, was pitching and yawing in violent swells. John King, an

Written byBob Grant

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The Bering Sea was angry that day. The Viking Rover, an Alaskan fishing boat, was pitching and yawing in violent swells. John King, an ivy-league-educated greenhorn from Cape Cod who had spent nearly a year hauling king crabs onto the Rover's deck, wasn't sure if he would make it back to shore alive. Waves heaved the boat onto its side, its stern, its bow. In the process, the vessel lost its rudder and thousands of pounds of crabs in the hold. "That first year [of crabbing] was essentially lost," King recalls.

King made only $8,000 crabbing that first year, 1974. Despite this setback, King, an anthropology major at the University of Pennsylvania, made Alaska his home for the next eight years. It was a fascination with the Alaskan landscape and its indigenous people that initially lured King to the northern state, and fishing that kept him there. The Alaskan fishing ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
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From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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