by Tele | May 16, 2020 | Alaska, Commercial Fishing, Environment, Hooked Favorites, Salmon Trolling
For Southeast Alaska’s salmon trollers, the longest day of the year falls on July 1: opening day of Chinook salmon season. Every July 1 finds us – two humans and our boat, the 43-foot Nerka – forty miles offshore in the Gulf of Alaska. We’ll be...
by Tele | Apr 10, 2020 | Commercial Fishing, Hooked Favorites, Salmon Trolling, Women in Fishing
Back in Sitka from a coho trip, I feed 17 days’ worth of rank socks, hoodies, soap, & quarters into the fishermen’s Co-op washing machines. Nearby deckhands slump into a battered couch, stare down at phones or up at the TV, salmon...
by Tele | Jun 29, 2019 | Hooked Favorites, Women in Fishing
I wrote this for FisherPoets Gathering 2019. All this time later, I remain thankful for the deeply healing gift of sharing these words with a compassionate audience in the sacred space of Astoria’s KALA Gallery. Maybe it’s strange to post now,...
by Tele | Nov 13, 2018 | Hooked Favorites
In the spring leading up to the 2006 salmon season, Joel and I had already endured two summers as a couple separated by our boats. As he prepared for his second season running the Nerka, I debated my options: would I continue...
by Tele | Feb 1, 2018 | Hooked Favorites
Kevin, sweetie – Over 18 years anticipating your death, bracing for it, while nearly believing the legends of your immortality. Wanting to believe them. Over 18 years preparing for a loss that, turns out, can’t be prepared for at all. You...
by Tele | Nov 5, 2017 | Commercial Fishing, Hooked Favorites
August: The Mayday wakes me. The radio volume is low, but it reaches the fo’c’sle. A man, his voice an octave shy of hysteria, yanks me from the bunk, pulling me upstairs. “There’s a boat one mile off Cape Addington taking on water! It’s...
