Locals wade into fishy book project

WASILLA — If you see something fishy in local bookstores in the coming weeks, don’t be alarmed — it’s probably just the latest product of The Salmon Project.

“Made of Salmon: Alaska Stories from The Salmon Project,” is a 224-page compilation of tales told by 57 Alaskan writers, from professional authors to the average fisherman or woman. Cultivated from a series of online essays published in Alaska Dispatch News in 2014, the book tells of “salmon love” and “salmon lives,” or lives that depend on salmon.

“Alaskans have every reason to be proud of the way that we live … but we also have an obligation to ask questions about the future and whether … the things we hold so close are going to persist,” said Erin Harrington, executive director of The Salmon Project.

As a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, The Salmon Project started with a grant from the Wild Salmon Ecosystem Initiative of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to gather and share stories about Alaskans’ relationships to salmon, and by doing so encourage good stewardship of the resource.

Almost before the project began, Harrington said, the nonprofit began receiving unsolicited but enthusiastic emails regarding Alaskans’ relationship to salmon.

“This thing was so important to people that they didn’t even have to be asked before they would want to share,” she said.

Whether it was a story of pride in a prized catch or just a retelling of a “really good time,” the message The Salmon Project was getting was clear: people love to talk about salmon.

“It’s pretty powerful when you work with a subject that inspires people so much and is so close to people’s hearts that they want to reach out and tell you about what they’re doing,” Harrington said.

But it wasn’t enough to just hear the stories. Other goals include to further The Salmon Project’s mission of spreading awareness about the economic, environmental, social and cultural importance of salmon; understanding of the potential or impending threats to salmon as a natural resource; and commitment to ensuring the continued existence of salmon in Alaska’s waters. To achieve those goals, the nonprofit had to find an effective way to share those stories with as many people as possible.

So they made a book.

“A beautiful book, an insightful book, is something that gives and gives and gives,” Harrington said. “It’s something that can be in my hand tomorrow and in the hands of your children in 25 years.”

With the help of University of Alaska Press and former Alaska Writer Laureate Nancy Lord, the editor of “Made of Salmon,” that book became a reality in a matter of months.

Lord, whose recent books include, “Early Warming: Crisis and Response in the Climate-Changed North” (2011) and “Rock, Water, Wild: An Alaskan Life” (2009), was in charge of finding skilled essayists in addition to the authors of the initial Alaska Dispatch series for “Made of Salmon,” pulling on her experience as a writer and an editor to find the right ones.

The hardest part, she said, was choosing the few who made the final cut, as she strove to include “a mix of voices — and not just the ‘obvious’ ones.”

“I loved working with and for the [Salmon Project], and am really happy with how the book turned out,” Lord wrote in an email. “It was a very satisfying experience for me.”

Authors of the 21 primary essays in the book are: Ilarion “Larry” Merculieff, Leslie Leyland Fields, Seth Kantner, Charles Wohlforth, Charlie Campbell, Emma Laukitis, Richard Chiappone, Dan O’Neill, Don Rearden, Julia O’Malley, Ernestine Hayes, Debby Dahl Edwardson, Lynn Schooler, Verner Stor Wilson III, Michael Raudzis Dinkel, Sara Loewen, Heather Lende, Carol Sturgulewski, Kirsten Dixon, Hank Lentfer, and William L. Iggiagruk Hensley.

The book also includes photos by Clark Mishler.

The local angle(r)

Among the numerous writers featured in “Made of Salmon” are two Mat-Su residents: Juanita Dwyer, of Wasilla, and Talkeetna’s Renamary Rauchenstein, who each contributed paragraph-long pieces to the book.

“All my friends know I’m an absolute salmon fanatic,” Dwyer said.

So when she got a mass email from The Salmon Project seeking stories of “salmon love,” Dwyer knew she had to submit something.

Born in Alaska before statehood, Dwyer said she hadn’t gone fishing until she was 35 years old. Then she was hooked.

“Once I started you couldn't stop me,” she said.

Dwyer said her first year fishing was particularly fortuitous, as she limited out on every trip, wherever she went. Going into year two, however, she found she’d developed an over-inflated sense of accomplishment, when she realized what it was like to go home with nothing.

“That was quite a shock to me,” she said.

Since then, she’s learned to be more patient, she said, though she still counts the days, every winter, until she can fish open waters again.

The fish seem fewer and further between these days — not to mention smaller — but it’s still fishing that she loves to do more than anything else (except maybe hang out with her grandchildren, she said).

“What it was back then isn’t what it is now but that doesn't make me love salmon any less,” Dwyer said.

Rauchenstein, who said she owned a lodge in Talkeetna with her husband for years, is in the same boat — sort of.

“I basically just love to stand on the bank all day long,” she said. “Nothing makes me happier.”

But she hadn’t expected her mere love of salmon to get her story published.

“It never occurred to me that it would ever be put in a book, I thought maybe they were doing a blog,” Rauchenstein said, remembering The Salmon Project email. “I just like to tell stories and fish for salmon.”

“Made of Salmon” can be purchased online at University of Alaska Press and www.amazon.com, and in local bookstores to be announced. Readers can also preview the book and enter a book giveaway at www.madeofsalmon.com.

For more information about The Salmon Project, visit salmonproject.org.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.