Photos: Subsistence king crab fishing in Nome

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Nome resident Pat Hahn and his daughter Brix Hahn dig out a hole in the Bering Sea ice where they have a crab pot on Wednesday, March 18, 2015. Pat Hahn has a subsistence king crab permit that lets him harvest crab just a few miles from his home in town.

NOME -- Longtime Nome resident Pat Hahn likes to joke that the sea ice in this Bering Sea community made him famous.

As a youngster growing up in the Northwest Alaska hub, he spent much of his free time exploring the sea ice that envelops the town every winter, going so far as to follow local crab fishermen out on the ice to learn their ways. He remembers that one day a "funny looking" plane with a weird attachment on its underside flew over him while he was playing. Flash forward a year or so when the 8-year-old Hahn took a trip to Disneyland and took a moment to view an exhibit called "It's a Small World." A little film on Nome played and sure enough, there was little Hahn, playing on the sea ice.

Hahn hasn't had the same sort of global recognition since, but that hasn't extinguished his love of the ice. He still likes to drive his snowmachine to the edge of the ice sheet -- this year it extends about 3.5 miles from shore -- where he sits and watches the ice churn and form at the water's edge.

But a little closer to home, Hahn watches things a bit less epic -- his crabbing holes, small 4-foot-long openings he's carved in the sea ice that are just large enough to fit a crab pot.

Those small holes have given him and his family access to a Nome treat: fresh-caught red king crabs.

READ MORE: Love of the ice -- and tasty king crabs -- keeps Nome crabber coming back