An author who has spent her career salmon trolling in Southeast Alaska has published a new collection of essays, at a time when the industry itself is at risk.
Tele Aadsen’s book is titled What Water Holds, and it is both a memoir of a life spent fishing, and a celebration of the marine environment that makes that life possible.
Tele Aadsen wasn’t born on the water, but for someone who was landlocked as a child, it was pretty close. Her parents – both veterinarians – built a boat in their backyard in Wasilla, thinking about a day when they could sell their practice and sail the South Pacific. The boat didn’t quite fit the bill, however, and they sold it and built another. This one they sailed as far south as Sitka, where they and seven-year-old Tele became trollers. And eventually that plan changed, too.
Aadsen – When they were veterinarians, they had a client who used to bring his pitbulls in, named Willie Lee, who had worked at the mill in Sitka, and after his shifts, he would row out into the Sound and go catch king salmon. And he would tell my dad about that, while my dad was stitching up his dogs. That kind of planted the seed of what they were building the sailboat to work towards.
KCAW – Tele, how did your parents react to your decision to make this your career?
Aadsen – They were both out of it by then. My dad had gotten out of fishing when I was 14, because he didn’t think we were going to be able to make it that way. And my mom managed to run the boat for another five years before that was true. She wasn’t able to make it trolling. Which I think is pretty heavy on a lot of folk’s minds right now: Can you live the dream? And they both feel kind of cautious and glad that I’m still holding on by my fingernails.
Last month Aadsen joined a delegation of Southeast fisheries advocates for a trip to Washington D.C., to share perspective on the Wild Fish Conservancy lawsuit, and the federal court order that could likely end the commercial king salmon season this summer before it starts. Alaska’s senators and representative in Congress have already condemned the lower court ruling, and – like many in Southeast – are hoping for a successful appeal before the 9th Circuit.
(Note: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on June 21, 2023, stayed the lower court order that would have prevented the opening of the commercial king salmon season in Southeast Alaska this summer. Read the full story.)
Being unable to fish for chinook creates a huge hole in the economic and social well-being of thousands of people in Southeast. Due to an injury suffered by her partner, Aadsen wasn’t going to fish this year anyway, allowing her to plan for a hiatus that caught everyone else off-guard. Still, it won’t be easy staying on shore during the summer, regardless of the reason.
KCAW – You’re taking this season off because of a health break for your partner. And it’s probably coincidentally a year when a lot of people are going to be looking for alternatives to trolling – granted, that’s all with the courts now – but what’s it like for you thinking about a summer without catching king salmon?
Aadsen – Well, without kitchen king salmon, without seeing my fleet mates, without seeing Sitka – that’s a tough pill to swallow. I’m gonna miss you all. We’re able to find some silver lining in Joel’s injury that is the reason we’re beached. If we’re on land down here in Washington, we can do more advocacy for the fleet and for the fishery. We can speak up to the land friends down here who, you know, want to be supportive, but they don’t get it and don’t know quite how deeply trolling is tied to conservation until we explain it.
KCAW – When you’re in Washington, DC, and you walk into a Senate office or a representative’s office, isn’t that the first thing they go to? They look at you and say, ‘Hey, you kill fish, what are you doing, talking about this idea that you all are conservationists?’ How do you put it?
Aadsen – I will say that in those particular offices that I was walking into, I was really heartened by the support that I felt for trollers, and how familiar folks already were with our situation and how eager they were to be more familiar and to know what they could do to help. In terms of the question about that harvester/conservationist dichotomy, all any of us have to do is explain the scale of trolling to really make clear the trolling/trawling distinction so that we’re speaking with the right language for folks, that we’re not on a trawling scale.
KCAW – I think you could probably understand a lot about trollers by reading your book. I’m sure you don’t think the things that you’re feeling and the things that you experience out there are by any means unique.
Aadsen – No, and that is a comfort. We don’t all talk about the things that we feel out there or think or struggle with. Trollers are by nature introspective, we have so much time in our heads out there. And the connection, and the places that we go, you know, exterior and interior. I hope that that resonates with some of my fleet mates.
Tele Aadsen is a lifelong troller in Southeast Alaska, who fishes the Nerka with her partner. She resides in Bow, Washington. Her book, What Water Holds, is now available from The Empty Bowl Press.
