“Today most people view Alaska from the deck of a cruise ship or from the busy gift-shop-filled streets of the coastal ports.  But tourists who look beyond the vendors hawking whale watching or helicopter sightseeing excursions, and walk around the back streets, sometimes get a glimpse of an earlier, rougher Alaska where men and their families mostly scratched out a hardscrabble living from the sea or the forest.

 

“It is this rough life that Arlene Lochridge has reconstructed from the candid (some so candid that the writer destroyed entries) diaries of her Aunt Hazel.  Hazel and her husband traveled to the Ketchikan area of Southeast Alaska in the 1940s.  They earned a tenuous living trolling in their boat for salmon for six years.  

 

“Together with family and historical photographs of the period, the author has put together a book that offers a gritty and very readable view of an earlier Alaska: tiny wilderness outposts, rough and tumble towns, and a remarkable woman dealing with a full plate of challenges.”

                                                            Joe Upton, author

 

 

“A fascinating window into life as a commercial fisherwoman in the ‘40s.  The historical references to the Alaskan landscape and the nature of fisher people at that time reinforce my knowledge of the history of Alaskan fishing.”

                                                            Corey Arnold, crewmember

 

 

                                                           Tom Thompson, President

 

 

A wonderful time capsule of Southeast Alaska is in the collected diaries, and many historical photos embellish this courageous fisherwoman’s hard life in the 1940s.  I loved it!

                                                           Chris Arnold, “The Alaskan Photographer”

                                                           Homer, Alaska