CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Pause for a minute or two and imagine that after a life lived near people, stores and highways, you find yourself in a small cabin on a remote island accessed only by water, a dense forest, and, yes, grizzly bears. Imagine that! That’s what Carole did when the expected money from salmon fishing didn’t pan out. Why would she do that? Carole’s memoir, FISHING FOR COURAGE,  gives us clues to answers to that question. 

Pause for a minute or two and imagine that after a life lived near people, stores and highways, you find yourself in a small cabin on a remote island accessed only by water, a dense forest, and, yes, grizzly bears. Imagine that! That’s what Carole did when the expected money from salmon fishing didn’t pan out. Why would she do that? Carole’s memoir, FISHING FOR COURAGE,  gives us clues to answers to that question. 

Welcome to LETTERS FROM ALASKA 3 and to a new experience for you and for us on the NESTER blog.  We are taking an already published book, FISHING FOR COURAGE, and excerpting letters from Carole to her sister, Mary, included in the book. We encourage you to read this insightful book filled with adventures on Alaska’s Outer Coast and vivid descriptions of the land and sea.

Having fished several salmon seasons in Alaska, these letters are also a poignant reminder of how Lorelie and I   communicated when we were separated from each other during the summers not that many years ago!  How well I remember coming to town from the fishing grounds and running to the post office to retrieve letters for me and the crew!

We thank Carole for sharing these letters with you!

Carole Gibb’s LETTERS FROM ALASKA 1  reached one hundred twenty readers!  She continues the series with a second letter about the ending of a day’s fishing off the coast of Alaska.  

We are delighted to introduce you to a new series in the NESTER written by Carole Gibb. In these excerpts from her memoir FISHING FOR COURAGE, Carole writes letters to her sister, Mary, describing new experiences fishing and living in Southeastern Alaska’s outer coast and her response to them. Her descriptions of being new to Alaska life are vivid, honest, and often quite funny!

Patricia Hammill writes, “I started writing poetry when I was nine years old.  My mother had friends who were poets, my aunts wrote poetry, and I had wonderful teachers in school who not only wrote poetry but promoted poetry. Also, I had friends who enjoyed “playing with words.” Writing poetry seemed natural.”

We are pleased to offer you two brief humorous poems by Patricia.!

Cathy’s insights into how to cope with losses and emerge with resilience are the themes in this poem. “RESTORATION” joins “THE PAUSE” and “FIRST & LAST” with this theme. We invite you to read this poem and revisit the two previous poems.

Winter is often the time to be still and to reflect on the experiences that bring us to where we are in our lives. We not only look back but we also look to the future, taking steps toward what we want to happen next.   Cathy’s poem “FIRST and LAST”  speaks to those moments of reflection and the importance of also living in the present.

Every seining salmon season has an “Opening Day” when the net slips over the stern and splashes into the water at 6:00AM.  From that moment, a narrative begins that will tell the story of the year’s catch.

A friend recommended this well known poem from R W Emerson for the NESTER. In a GOOGLE search I found that this poem has been inspiring to many people and is included in many “favorite” quotes and poems by Emerson. This poem is a good companion piece with Cathy Ross’s poem “The Pause” published recently in the NESTER. I encourage you to read the poem and take it to “heart.” Tim