Ballard is a small community within Seattle which is home port for the fishing fleet of Alaska. Every spring starting when I was 13 I would crate 3 months of food, stage camping gear and hang/repair nets in Ballard to support my annual fishing trip to Bristol Bay Alaska . I would live on beach and fish in 22 ft skiff delivering salmon to tenders with names like Dorthea and Earling Jr. who made Ballard their home port. Fishing alone on the Nushagak , Naknek and Kvichak rivers was a lonely endeavor for teenage boy living in a tent on the beach and the only form of communication was an AM Radio which could pick up KNBR from San Francisco late at night.
Unfortunately back in 1960 we did not have digital cameras or smart phones, cameras were made by Kodak which poor farm boys did not own. This little clip is me taking the sight, sound and motion of Ballard today to trigger in my mind the solitude, hard work, fear and lost love of those years. I picked the Moby song "Wait for me" for a reason aside from the hours of hard work and sleep deprivation you lived with the realistic fear the love of your life would be gone when you returned home. Solitude and the mind can be very cruel when fishing alone in Alaska and this occupation continues to be for the young who can live with fear, solitude and lost love.
When you visit Fisherman's Terminal in Ballard look at each boat a little differently, think of the untold stories each boat could tell - Fear, Hard Work, Solitude and Lost Love.
Unfortunately back in 1960 we did not have digital cameras or smart phones, cameras were made by Kodak which poor farm boys did not own. This little clip is me taking the sight, sound and motion of Ballard today to trigger in my mind the solitude, hard work, fear and lost love of those years. I picked the Moby song "Wait for me" for a reason aside from the hours of hard work and sleep deprivation you lived with the realistic fear the love of your life would be gone when you returned home. Solitude and the mind can be very cruel when fishing alone in Alaska and this occupation continues to be for the young who can live with fear, solitude and lost love.
When you visit Fisherman's Terminal in Ballard look at each boat a little differently, think of the untold stories each boat could tell - Fear, Hard Work, Solitude and Lost Love.
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