Great insight into the diverse world of commercial fishing
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McCloskey has travelled the world and describes many different fisheries in detail as a working deck hand and factory worker in all the possible situations. Also covers fisheries management and the vast issues and challenges facing a majority of the worlds fisheries. Definitely worth the read.
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If you have ever eaten a fish or crab, then read this book!
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This is a superb book. McCloskey writes from such a deep base of personal experience, that within a few lines we are transported to the heaving, noisy and often foul-smelling deck of a rusty trawler pitching in a cold northern sea or the cramped camaraderie of the galley on a Japanese squid boat. You feel the shudder of the steel deck as the boat pitches into a steep swell, taste the salt in the air and gag on the stench of diesel fumes and dead fish. The book is a collection of essays, exploring the challenges that face commercial fishermen in various parts of the globe. We hear lots of languages - Russian, English, Spanish, Norwegian, Japanese and more - and experience very different cultures, each united by the sea and the grueling task of pulling food from its depths. Gradually, the similarities grow much larger than the differences. No matter where he is, McCloskey can rapidly blend into the crew becoming just one more figure shrouded in foul weather gear pulling in the nets. This remarkable desire to muck-in with the deckhands no matter how hard the work or how severe the conditions, is the secret to his vivid and exciting writing. I can never look at a piece of sushi or a bag of fish and chips in quiet the same way.
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Tears through the lack of seriousness people give fishing
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Coming from a new generation fisherman, I find it very frustrating that the thousands of people who eat fish never appreciate its origin, or the work to attain such seafood. Such is the life of a farmer, a cattle rustler, a steel worker, the carpenter. The very root of our existence and the ability to maintain it comes from the working man, the most underestimated yet still proud individual.
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McCloskey tells the raw truth about commercial fishing.
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For twenty-years now, Bill McCloskey has been living and working with Alaska fishermen from Prince William Sound to the Bering Sea. He has many friends among them in Cordova, Kodiak, Chignik, Dutch Harbor and Seattle, Washington. He knows us and writes about us better than anyone else. Because he's been straight with fishermen from Day One, I think many men and women have felt comfortable confiding in Bill. I remember being with him in Chignik several years ago when he was doing research for the chapter in THEIR FATHERS' WORK on the Alaska salmon fisheries. He was welcomed with open arms by some of that fleet's top highliners: David Anderson, Ernie Carlson, Maurie Pedersen and others. They took him out on their seiners, up in their planes and into their homes, in my opinion, because they judged him to be a straight-shooter and a good shipmate. If you ask Captain Leif Locklinghom, a long-time Bering Sea king crab highliner, he'll tell you the same. So won't Chuck Bu! ! ndrant and Bart Eaton, highliners themselves and currently owners of Alaska's largest seafood processing company, Trident Seafoods. Reading THEIR FATHERS' WORK, especially the Alaska chapters, will put you in the shoes of the fishermen who work Alaskan waters daily trying to squeeze a living out of elusive fish and shellfish stocks, rough seas, high winds and cold temperatures. Alaska is an adventure-of-a-lifetime every person should experience at least once. McCloskey is the the right guy to take you on your first trip to the wild-side of Alaska, without even leaving your living room. Give THEIR FATHERS' WORK a summer read. It's authentic, visceral and exciting, which is why I gave it Five Stars.
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