![]() By Joel Brady-Power For the past 19 years, on the last weekend of February, fishermen from all over the country have descended on Astoria, Oregon to tell stories, sing songs and read poetry about life lived on the high seas. The FisherPoets Gathering, started by Bristol Bay setnetter Jon Broderick and Maine lobsterman Jay Speakman, began as a small collection of friends at the Wet Dog Cafe. This year had 95 performers at 6 venues across town. Trollers, trawlers, Bering Sea crabbers, gillnetters, setnetters, seiners, lobstermen, sailors, longshoremen, and even an honorary-FisherPoet cowboy: all sharing a love of the ocean and the satisfaction of hard work and independence. My wife, Tele and I attended last month for our fifth FisherPoet Gathering. Honestly, it was FisherPoets that turned me into a poet. Sure, I had stories swimming around in my head long before our first trip to Astoria, but I had never been able to organize them coherently and I certainly didn't have the courage to share them. That all changed the first year we pulled into Astoria. I immediately felt like I had found my people. I was inspired. Many of the other FisherPoets inspired and pushed me, and with their help and support I began writing. Now the end of February feels like a family reunion (only, to quote one of my dearest FisherPoet friends, "with people you actually like!") All kidding aside, this group of writers, storytellers, and musicians have become some of my closest friends. Together we have a powerful voice, sharing with the general public a world that is so often fetishized as a brutal testosterone-driven industry pitting man against nature. (Deadliest Catch, anyone?) But in Astoria, you often see a more thoughtful side, a deeper side, of man working with nature. A place where fish are respected and revered. It is also a place to share concerns about our fisheries with people who could be strong allies. That is where my poem, "Silence" came from. Throughout this winter I've been surprised and dismayed at how few of the people I talk to have heard of the mining projects in the British Columbia/Southeast Alaska Transboundary region. Almost everyone has heard of Pebble Mine, but we really need to increase awareness of the Transboundary issue, especially in the lower 48. I wrote this piece wanting to put people in this pristine environment and to show them what was at stake, what was being proposed, and hopefully inspire them to get involved. The number of people who requested more information after hearing this piece in Astoria heartened me; the more we get our message out, the more support we are likely to find. Silence I seek silence find solace in seclusion but illusions of isolation cloud judgement create separation where there is none so I can sit on this river watch it wriggle and wind its way down from snow-capped peaks and glaciers through old growth forests and muskeg watch its current spill out into fjords sweep across bays and dissolve into the ocean I can lose myself in a raven's song the wind's whisper the water's kiss I can disappear into this wilderness, step out of reality and I can pretend this moment, this place, this peace is separate, is safe, is eternal I can pretend the mines upstream won't keep coming I can pretend the tailing ponds won't keep failing I can pretend my fishery won't be affected From my perch I can't see Big Brutus or the hauling trucks I can't smell the exhaust can't hear the crunching gravel or dynamite blasts I can't taste the bitterness of defeat but my bones know a storm is brewing I can tell myself people will continue to care that their passion will carry beyond Pebble Mine to Susitna, Galore Creek, KSM, Red Chris, and Tulsequah Chief I can tell myself the world cares about wild salmon I can tell myself we will learn from Mount Polley I can stand here on this rocky shore listen to the ripple and roar of salmon surging upstream, as the shadows grow long I can feel the sun's warm caress on my face and embrace the beauty and serenity of this moment I can ignore the dark clouds on the horizon and pretend just being present is enough but if I am not willing to leave my tears in this river and pull myself out of this reverie If I am not willing to scream my lungs into this pen, set fire to this page, and rise from the ashes of apathy to action If I am not willing to stand and fight for this river, for these salmon, for my own life then my convictions shrivel to complicity lost in the sound of my silence Joel Brady-Power went to sea aboard his parents’ boat as an infant. At 22, he purchased the F/V Nerka from them and direct-markets salmon in Western Washington. The Seattle Times published an Opinion piece from him on March 17, 2016: How BC mining could hurt Northwest fishermen.
4 Comments
Anna Young
4/12/2016 04:33:42 pm
GREAT!!! I want to try to shear on facebook, Hope that's OK everyone needs to hear this. Thanks, Capt. Anna Young
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Susan Brookfield
1/22/2017 09:51:07 am
Superb, Joel! Thank you for reproducing this piece here so that we can all remember it over and over again. Have you thought to have it published both in Canada and the USA? IT is deserving of a much wider audience. Looking forward to February.
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SALMON BEYOND BORDERS is a campaign driven by sport and commercial fishermen, community leaders, tourism and recreation business owners and concerned citizens, in collaboration with Tribes and First Nations, united across the Alaska/British Columbia border to defend and sustain our transboundary rivers, jobs and way of life. |
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