Butch Laiti

My name is Butch Laiti. My mom, Lena Lillian Peters Laiti, was a full-blood Tlingit. And my dad, Alex Laiti, a Finlander. I was born and raised in Juneau. Like my grandfather Willie Peters and my uncles, I am a commercial fisherman. I started cutting halibut cheeks on the dock as a teenager, I worked in the local Juneau Cold Storage Cannery, and as a longshoreman, like my father. After fighting in the Vietnam War, I returned home. When my Dad died, I inherited his gillnetting boat, but not a limited entry fishing permit, which I had to earn. I’ve fished the Taku River for decades like my Yanyeidí ancestors. My grandson Phillip Cadiente Blatner commercial fishes with me. I’m the president of the Douglas Indian Association, the locally federally recognized Indian Tribe.

“All my friends in Hoonah, Angoon, Tenakee, Kake, Haines, Juneau, all the Native kids could get jobs back then, either on a fishing boat or in a cannery. They had canneries all over Southeast.”

Swept Away

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