Tag Archives: cannery workers
Debut novel set in Bristol Bay delivers generations of women’s storytelling
Mia Heavener, now living in Anchorage, grew up fishing in Bristol Bay, where she absorbed stories her mother and other women told between tides and over tea. Her lovely debut novel set in a village near Dillingham, “Under Nushagak Bluff,” draws upon those stories and her own knowledge of the region, its history, its Yup’ik people, and the fishermen and cannery workers who came and went with the salmon runs. It is a compelling narrative, rich in its evocations of a time and place largely unrepresented in our literature — and a welcome addition to it. The novel begins with a voice. Someone — it’s a while before readers will figure out who it belongs to — is sitting in a skiff on a sandbar, waiting for the tide to come in. “My girl, I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ll start with that.” And she begins to talk, with a story “that could be told by the shape of the beach we just left. It is years before me. And it begins with a storm …” >click to read< 19:19
In America’s largest salmon fishery, preparations begin for coronavirus prevention ahead of the season
Around Bristol Bay, community leaders, health facilities and local entities are working to coordinate their preparations for the coronavirus. Thousands of fishermen, processors, and cannery workers will travel to Bristol Bay in the coming months to participate in the commercial fishery. As of Thursday afternoon, no one in the region had been tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Alaska’s first known case of the disease was announced Thursday afternoon. >click to read< 11:26
