Leaving Protection (12 page)

I've often mined my personal experience for fiction, but never so quickly as with
Leaving Protection
. I had been visiting southeast Alaska for years, but this story was a direct result of two visits in 2002, the first in May and the second in July.

In May my wife, Jean, and I visited historic sites in Sitka, the old Russian capital. I have a longtime interest in the history of Russian Alaska. From Sitka we traveled via Ketchikan to Prince of Wales Island and the town of Craig. Sitka and Craig are the foremost commercial fishing harbors among the outer islands of Southeast.

I was in Craig at the invitation of a teacher, Julie Yates. It was in Craig's harbor I first set foot on a salmon troller, her father's boat and her namesake, the
Julie Kristine
. I had long been captivated by these picturesque boats, and I told her that one of my great ambitions in life was to catch a king salmon. Julie suggested I should return one day and work with her and
her dad on the
Julie Kristine
. I told her I would love to take her up on that. She added that I should write a novel about commercial fishing. I said that sounded like a great idea, but I would like to go fishing whether or not it led to a story.

Little did I know how soon I would be working aboard that boat. In June, a forest fire closed the wilderness close to my home in Colorado, where I'd been planning a backpacking trip. Late in the month, I called Julie up and asked if, by any chance, I might join her and her father that very summer. She talked with her father, George, and called right back. “Hop on a plane,” she told me. “King season starts the first of July.”

By pure luck, I got in on the best king salmon season in many years. Julie and her father returned from their first outing with eight hundred kings, plus half as many cohos. I joined them for their second and third trips, seven days of fishing combined.

Every day, we were up at 4
A.M.
and fished until 8
P.M.
My primary job was to clean the fish and ice them in the hold, and that kept me plenty busy. Still, I had time to appreciate the beauty. We fished a mile or two off Cape Addington and Cape Chirikof. I was having the time of my life, and was beginning to wonder if I might be able to think up a fishing story that would put my readers on a salmon troller, too.

In his fourth decade trolling for salmon, George Yates was ever patient with my greenhorn questions, both on the boat and afterward. In addition to George
and Julie, I would like to thank others on Prince of Wales Island who provided considerable assistance and inspiration. The Castle brothers, Brian and Kevin, teachers and commercial fishermen, provided hospitality and telephone consult, as did Julie's husband, Chad Fulton. Chad grew up partly at Port Protection. A jack of all trades from a young age, he commuted to school by himself in a skiff.

At the docks in Craig, I met the Sebastian family from Point Baker, an isolated fishing community near Port Protection. Joe and Joan, along with their children Forest and Elsa, inspired the Daniels family in my novel. The Sebastians fish the inside waters on their classic 1937 troller, the
Alta E.

I returned home with an armful of books to add to my library on southeast Alaska. For months I immersed myself in the reading. By late fall I was writing. My early attempts at the novel died out. It was only when I remembered a plaque I'd seen in the Bishop's House in Sitka that I began to picture a way to make the fishing story into something more. The Russian possession plaques were the key, opening the door to a multilayered story. With the help of Sitka National Historical Park, I found their history in “Symbols of Russian America: Imperial Crests and Possession Plates in North America,” by Mary Foster and Steve Henrickson, which appeared in the November 1991 issue of
Concepts,
a publication of the Alaska State Museums.

For readers looking for more detail on the Russians
in Alaska and Rezanov's saga, I would suggest the work of Hector Chevigny, author of
Russian America: The Great Alaskan Venture 1741–1867
and
Lost Empire: The Life and Adventures of Nikolai Rezanov
(both Binford & Mort Publishing, 1965). I would also recommend
Otter Skins, Boston Ships, and China Goods: The Maritime Fur Trade of the Northwest Coast, 1785–1841
, by James R. Gibson (McGill-Queen's University Press and University of Washington Press, 1992).

I would point readers who would like to learn more about salmon trolling to
Pacific Troller: Life on the Northwest Fishing Grounds
by Francis E. Caldwell (Trafford Publishing; first published by Alaska Northwest Books, 1978). Caldwell's book includes the fishery on the Fairweather Grounds and an account of the giant waves in Lituya Bay caused by the July 1958 earthquake, complete with photographs of the bay after the event.

Durango, Colorado
May 2003