Red Summer: The Danger, Madness, and Exaltation of Salmon Fishing in a Remote Alaskan Village by Bill Carter

From the Publisher

A vivid, unforgettable account of the danger, pain, and joy of working on a salmon fishing boat and living in a small village on the farthest edge of Alaska

Set in the tiny Native village of Egegik on the shores of Alaska's Bristol Bay, Bill Carter's Red Summer is the thrilling story of one man's journey from novice to seasoned fisherman over the course of four beautiful, brutal summers in one of the earth's few remaining wild places. As millions of salmon race toward their annual spawning grounds, Carter learns the ancient, backbreaking trade of the set net fisherman, one of the most exhilarating and dangerous jobs in the world.

Housed in a dilapidated shack with no hot water and boarded-up windows that keep the bears at bay, Carter spends his days battling the elements on the river and his nights drinking whiskey with a memorable group of hardworking, hard-living characters. There's Sharon, the tough, charismatic woman who runs Carter's fishing crew; Carl, her stoic but warmhearted colleague; and a half-dozen local fishermen, many born and raised in this unforgiving place. Their stories -- harrowing, touching, full of humor -- all underscore the credo of the village's fishermen: Do the work or leave.

Carter's crew is imperiled a number of times as tides rise, nets are snagged, and the weight of too many fish threatens to sink their boat. Written with gusto and honesty, Red Summer brims with astonishing human experience and joins the grand tradition of books written by great American outdoorsmen-writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Edward Abbey, Peter Matthiessen, and Sebastian Junger. Red Summer will appeal not only to fishermen,naturalists, adventurers, and armchair anthropologists alike but also to anyone who has ever yearned, however privately, to escape the bonds of modern civilization.

The New York Times - Sid Evans

Red Summer is about life at the extreme edge of the food chain, and nowhere is the food chain more violent, more awesome or more intense than in Egegik.

Kirkus Reviews

Lessons from four grueling summers spent fishing for sockeye salmon in an isolated village on the Alaskan peninsula. Egegik is part of Bristol Bay, one of the world's biggest-and last remaining-sockeye salmon runs. Lured by the unparalleled beauty of the Alaskan bush, Carter (Fools Rush In: A True Story of Love, War, and Redemption, 2005) joined the team of Sharon Hart and Carl Adams, seasoned fishermen who earned their colleagues' respect for their toughness and their peculiar brand of hospitality. The author's struggle to fit in with the often hostile residents of Egegik prompted him to analyze the community's warped social structure, engendered by brutal working and living conditions. He spends as much time sketching the characters in the village as he does describing their shared occupation. Hart, Adams and Carter practiced set netting, which involves stretching out a long net and waiting for the salmon to fill it, then laboriously picking out the fish, often for 15 hours at a time. Each day, the team filled their skiffs with thousands of pounds of salmon, which, like the cold water and extreme tides, surrounded the fishermen with plenty of potential complications. Despite the danger, exhaustion and near-constant physical pain, Carter could not resist returning each summer for four years. In Egegik he found a place where nature still rules, where time (as defined by "the Lower 48") does not exist and where backbreaking work calms the mind, distilling its desires down to the basics of food, shelter and rest. In addition to providing lively anecdotes, Carter explores the larger environmental and cultural circumstances of his job with sensitivity and intelligence, couching theparticularities of the fishing process and the salmon life cycle in terms a novice can follow. A simple but satisfying blend of memoir, cultural anthropology and environmental analysis. Agent: Betsy Lerner/Dunow, Carlson & Lerner

Product Details

• ISBN: 0743297067
  
• ISBN-13: 9780743297066
• Format: Hardcover, 234pp
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
• Pub. Date: May 2008
• Sales Rank: 20,981

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt
• Read a Sample Chapter

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Arrival

I look out the plane's copilot window and from up here the view is perfect and flat in all directions except to the south, where sixty miles away the ground rises in a cone-shaped volcano: the snowcapped Mount Peulik. The sun leans heavily toward the north pole and the land abruptly ends as it disappears into Bristol Bay, which from the air, on a clear day, looks like a flat plate of tinted glass. Looking east and west the flat tundra landscape spreads outward, disappearing at the bend of the earth.

My destination is the small village of Egegik, 350 miles southwest of Anchorage on the western side of the Alaskan Peninsula, a stretch of land that extends out from the mainland 475 miles, and averages 50 miles wide. Cut off from the interior by a vast mountain range, the peninsula is geographically isolated, even from Alaskans. At its farthest point west the Aleutian chain begins, a 1,200-mile strip of islands aimed at Russia in the shape of a kite's tail. The only way to Egegik is by sea or plane, and by sea one must navigate the violent waters of the Bering Sea, not something done by anyone other than commercial fishermen or cargo ships.

I boarded the plane in King Salmon, Alaska, and strapped myself in the copilot chair. The only other seats on the plane were occupied, one with cargo and the other with a female passenger; a Native woman who was busy chatting with the pilot about something. Thrilled by the landscape below I quickly put in my earplugs, and adjusted my sunglasses to shield my eyes from the Alaskan sun, that cosmic torch that taunts all summertime visitors to the Great North.

Now I scan the earth for any clues of a human footprint. A house. Aroad. A discarded boat, or heap of trash. But there is nothing. From my angle there isn't even a tree, at least one standing over four feet tall. There are no hills, just a flatness, the kind one imagines astronauts see as they peer down at earth from space, the world smashed flat by the relative distance. But there are the thousand shallow ponds that dot the tundra, a broken mirror shimmering the reflection of the plane's metal, exposing how small we are in comparison to the landscape before us.

These pockets of water fill topographical wounds created ten thousand years ago, as the last of the great glaciers slowly receded, scraping the land as they disappeared, like a giant John Deere bulldozer clearing a road. A road the size of Tennessee. As the millennia passed, mountains disappeared, pulverized to rock and pebbles, leaving behind indentations in the earth's surface, which then became lakes and ponds, making the area resemble a gigantic soccer field full of potholes after a fresh rain.

The lack of trees can shock the first-time visitor. The flora is thick but short and bent over, genetically altered by thousands of years of wind blasting down from the Arctic with nearly hurricane force. That isn't to say there is a lack of vegetation. The ground is teeming with green. Tundra grass, alders, and willow squeeze together and cover every square inch of the land. They grow in low thickets, each species intertwining with the next, growing sideways instead of upward.

With the wind behind us, we fly over a river and a tiny village. It looks deserted, not a person in sight, only a cloud of dust rising up behind a single van driving toward the airstrip. There are a few large water tanks, some heavy equipment, and a row of sea cargo containers, but no people. Several large buildings are covered with rusted tin roofing on the bank of the river. Steam billows from a smokestack. This must be the cannery. Most of the homes look abandoned, the grass growing as high as the windows. As we bank I get a closer look at the Egegik River, which spans more than a mile from one bank to the other. The water is muddy, not clear as I had envisioned.

The plane sets down on a stretch of gravel on the bank of the river, just behind the town. A lone orange wind sock stands at attention; the pilot guesses 30 miles per hour, says that is normal out here. There are no buildings at this airport, no small tin shack with the word egegik on it; there isn't even another plane in sight. Instead a van is waiting at the edge of the gravel, near the grass.

The van pulls up to the belly of the plane and we all pitch in, quickly unloading the luggage, along with the U.S. mail. Some groceries and boxes of frozen goods are transferred as well. The driver of the van is a small Native woman with a round flat face and Asian features. Her age is a mystery and she laughs loudly with the young woman from the plane, who also has a round Native face and Asian features. They are talking as if they have been having a conversation for the last two hours. I don't listen. Instead I hold my backpack close to my side, staring out the window as the van begins to move, trying to pick up any clues that will help shape my perception of this outpost. The driver heads down a single-track dirt road toward town.

"Hey, where you going?" the driver suddenly yells at no one in particular.

I say nothing. The driver looks at me in the rearview mirror. "Yeah you, I'm talking to you. Who you working for?"

"Sharon Hart," I say, blurting out the name of the stranger who called me twenty-four hours ago, asking if I wanted a job as a commercial fisherman.

"Sharon's fishing partner is Carl, my husband," says the passenger. "I'm Jannelle."

"And, she's my daughter," says the driver, pointing at the passenger.

Driving, we pass a few people walking but no one waves, their heads pitched downward as if staring at their feet. I count more four-wheel ATVs than cars, and on one ATV there are stacked several people. It's hard to say whether they are mothers with their children or older siblings with their younger siblings or maybe just friends all riding together.

Finally the van stops in front of a small shack with a caribou rack above the front door. "Sharon's house," says Jannelle, pointing at the dilapidated structure. "There was an opening today, she won't be home for a while. Carl's still on the Fiasco, halibuting."

I nod my head as if I understand.

"Get out. And shut the door," yells the driver. Stunned, I don't move.

My first instinct is to compare this place to a shantytown in the Third World. In some ways it does resemble many I've visited. But there is one clear difference. In poor villages, the world over, the local people are almost always friendly. They may not have food on the table or running water, but they welcome you in. And the poorer the place, the nicer they are. At the other end of the scale are the rich, locked behind tall gates, with twenty-four-hour security guards. But here I am confused. Egegik, by the looks of it, is poor, but the people act rich. I know within the first minutes of being here that this will be a difficult place to understand.

"Now!" the driver shouts, waiting for me to get out of the van.

Standing on the road, I look away from the driver, hoping to discourage her from speaking further to me. The passenger leans out the window, raises her eyebrows, and playfully nods her head in my direction.

"Welcome to Egegik," she says, and the van drives away, spitting sand in my face.Copyright © 2008 by Bill Carter

Read a Sample Chapter

I look out the plane's copilot window and from up here the view is perfect and flat in all directions except to the south, where sixty miles away the ground rises in a cone-shaped volcano: the snowcapped Mount Peulik. The sun leans heavily toward the north pole and the land abruptly ends as it disappears into Bristol Bay, which from the air, on a clear day, looks like a flat plate of tinted glass. Looking east and west the flat tundra landscape spreads outward, disappearing at the bend of the earth.

My destination is the small village of Egegik, 350 miles southwest of Anchorage on the western side of the Alaskan Peninsula, a stretch of land that extends out from the mainland 475 miles, and averages 50 miles wide. Cut off from the interior by a vast mountain range, the peninsula is geographically isolated, even from Alaskans. At its farthest point west the Aleutian chain begins, a 1,200-mile strip of islands aimed at Russia in the shape of a kite's tail. The only way to Egegik is by sea or plane, and by sea one must navigate the violent waters of the Bering Sea, not something done by anyone other than commercial fishermen or cargo ships.

I boarded the plane in King Salmon, Alaska, and strapped myself in the copilot chair. The only other seats on the plane were occupied, one with cargo and the other with a female passenger; a Native woman whowas busy chatting with the pilot about something. Thrilled by the landscape below I quickly put in my earplugs, and adjusted my sunglasses to shield my eyes from the Alaskan sun, that cosmic torch that taunts all summertime visitors to the Great North.

Now I scan the earth for any clues of a human footprint. A house. A road. A discarded boat, or heap of trash. But there is nothing. From my angle there isn't even a tree, at least one standing over four feet tall. There are no hills, just a flatness, the kind one imagines astronauts see as they peer down at earth from space, the world smashed flat by the relative distance. But there are the thousand shallow ponds that dot the tundra, a broken mirror shimmering the reflection of the plane's metal, exposing how small we are in comparison to the landscape before us.

These pockets of water fill topographical wounds created ten thousand years ago, as the last of the great glaciers slowly receded, scraping the land as they disappeared, like a giant John Deere bulldozer clearing a road. A road the size of Tennessee. As the millennia passed, mountains disappeared, pulverized to rock and pebbles, leaving behind indentations in the earth's surface, which then became lakes and ponds, making the area resemble a gigantic soccer field full of potholes after a fresh rain.

The lack of trees can shock the first-time visitor. The flora is thick but short and bent over, genetically altered by thousands of years of wind blasting down from the Arctic with nearly hurricane force. That isn't to say there is a lack of vegetation. The ground is teeming with green. Tundra grass, alders, and willow squeeze together and cover every square inch of the land. They grow in low thickets, each species intertwining with the next, growing sideways instead of upward.

With the wind behind us, we fly over a river and a tiny village. It looks deserted, not a person in sight, only a cloud of dust rising up behind a single van driving toward the airstrip. There are a few large water tanks, some heavy equipment, and a row of sea cargo containers, but no people. Several large buildings are covered with rusted tin roofing on the bank of the river. Steam billows from a smokestack. This must be the cannery. Most of the homes look abandoned, the grass growing as high as the windows. As we bank I get a closer look at the Egegik River, which spans more than a mile from one bank to the other. The water is muddy, not clear as I had envisioned.

The plane sets down on a stretch of gravel on the bank of the river, just behind the town. A lone orange wind sock stands at attention; the pilot guesses 30 miles per hour, says that is normal out here. There are no buildings at this airport, no small tin shack with the word egegik on it; there isn't even another plane in sight. Instead a van is waiting at the edge of the gravel, near the grass.

The van pulls up to the belly of the plane and we all pitch in, quickly unloading the luggage, along with the U.S. mail. Some groceries and boxes of frozen goods are transferred as well. The driver of the van is a small Native woman with a round flat face and Asian features. Her age is a mystery and she laughs loudly with the young woman from the plane, who also has a round Native face and Asian features. They are talking as if they have been having a conversation for the last two hours. I don't listen. Instead I hold my backpack close to my side, staring out the window as the van begins to move, trying to pick up any clues that will help shape my perception of this outpost. The driver heads down a single-track dirt road toward town.

"Hey, where you going?" the driver suddenly yells at no one in particular.

I say nothing. The driver looks at me in the rearview mirror. "Yeah you, I'm talking to you. Who you working for?"

"Sharon Hart," I say, blurting out the name of the stranger who called me twenty-four hours ago, asking if I wanted a job as a commercial fisherman.

"Sharon's fishing partner is Carl, my husband," says the passenger. "I'm Jannelle."

"And, she's my daughter," says the driver, pointing at the passenger.

Driving, we pass a few people walking but no one waves, their heads pitched downward as if staring at their feet. I count more four-wheel ATVs than cars, and on one ATV there are stacked several people. It's hard to say whether they are mothers with their children or older siblings with their younger siblings or maybe just friends all riding together.

Finally the van stops in front of a small shack with a caribou rack above the front door. "Sharon's house," says Jannelle, pointing at the dilapidated structure. "There was an opening today, she won't be home for a while. Carl's still on the Fiasco, halibuting."

I nod my head as if I understand.

"Get out. And shut the door," yells the driver. Stunned, I don't move.

My first instinct is to compare this place to a shantytown in the Third World. In some ways it does resemble many I've visited. But there is one clear difference. In poor villages, the world over, the local people are almost always friendly. They may not have food on the table or running water, but they welcome you in. And the poorer the place, the nicer they are. At the other end of the scale are the rich, locked behind tall gates, with twenty-four-hour security guards. But here I am confused. Egegik, by the looks of it, is poor, but the people act rich. I know within the first minutes of being here that this will be a difficult place to understand.

"Now!" the driver shouts, waiting for me to get out of the van.

Standing on the road, I look away from the driver, hoping to discourage her from speaking further to me. The passenger leans out the window, raises her eyebrows, and playfully nods her head in my direction.

"Welcome to Egegik," she says, and the van drives away, spitting sand in my face.Copyright © 2008 by Bill Carter

Continues...

Excerpted from Red Summer by Bill Carter Copyright © 2008 by Bill Carter. Excerpted by permission.
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