Dutch Harbor , ALASKA ( CNN ) -- In Dutch Harbor the smell of fish wafting from the docks and the canneries is the smell of money . And lately , the town has smelled a lot less fishy . High seas high jinx : Tobias gives his shipmate Hanns a haircut at sea using a sail bag as a barber cape . Over fishing , new quota systems and changes in expected weather patterns have all played a role in changing the face of this once swashbuckling Alaskan town , fishermen say . `` Last summer we thought that pollock fishing was over for good , it was so bad . Time to turn out the lights and go home . But then they cut the quotas by 30 percent and now there are some small signs of more small fish , so maybe they are coming back , '' said Guy Collins , who coordinates with fishing captains who unload their catch at the Unisea docks in Dutch Harbor . `` The fishermen have to go further north toward Russia now to get the fish that are near the ice . It used to be the boats would go out 100 miles , now they go out 500 . It could be partly due to temperature change and weather patterns . '' Dutch Harbor saw a revival in popularity with the reality show The Deadliest Catch , but even the high-fiving enthusiasm of the deck hands on the TV show ca n't match what the town was like in the glory days . `` Those were the days , in the mid 1980 's , there was booze , drugs and partying . You had lines of coke going down the bar and no one said anything , '' says Byron Singley , captain of the 24-ton fishing boat the Nancy Allen . `` People were making big money and spending it as fast as it came in . I earned $ 78,000 as a deckhand the first year I was here but I ca n't remember where it went . Those days are long gone . '' Aboard the Silent Sound , as we sail north through the Bering Sea , we 're finding other things are not quite like they used to be . For starters , we 've been becalmed for much of the trip when we were expecting to encounter strong winds on the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea . We have motored nearly half of our 2,300 miles so far . More importantly , the ice we were bracing ourselves for may not be where we expected to find it . While this is good news for the expedition from a sailing perspective , it 's less attractive for wildlife such as polar bears , seals and walruses that use the ice as a platform for hunting , mating and migration . `` The present extent of northern sea ice is very similar to the extents at this time in 2008 and in 2007 . It is close to values seen also in 1995 and 1990 . It is about five per cent below the long-term average of 12.2m square kilometers , '' said Dr Humfrey Melling , a research scientist with the Institute of Ocean Sciences near Victoria , British Columbia . September 2007 was the first time that the Northwest Passage was open water from end to end . An ice forecast issued by the Canadian Ice Service on July 1 showed earlier than normal break up in many key areas in the Western Arctic . `` In the Western Arctic region , the breakup pattern is one to three weeks early in many coastal areas and by as much as one month in isolated areas , '' the report said . But we 're still some 400 miles from the Arctic Circle and a month from entering the heart of the Northwest Passage , which gives the Arctic plenty of time to surprise us .
Team aims to discover how climate change has affected Arctic and Inuit people . At Dutch Harbor , Alaska , discovered how fishing quota transforming community . Unexpected calm weather on trip so far despite sailing `` Deadliest Catch '' seas . Comment: