Trolling
An Alaskan postcard
Southeast Alaska wears its moods in its weather. For the first few days of our visit, the mood was dour. The gray laid down as heavy as a wet wool blanket. Dripping weather. Long strings of fog lashed the mountain faces like drooping frowns.
Today however, the mood has changed entirely, ushering in the kind of day that postcards were meant for - the horizons chimmed with bell-shaped mountain peaks, the sky competing with the water to invent new shades of blue. There is a euphoria that comes on such days in spite of, or perhaps because of, the gray that came before. The spirit soars. Long lost sunglasses and t-shirts reappear. People smile more easily. These are the halcyon days.
A day to be spent on a boat, trolling. There is a meditative repetitiveness to trolling for salmon - the low hum of the outboard, the slow metronome of the boat’s back and forth route on the water, the heat and stillness of the air. All of it makes us sleepy and quiet, content.
How many such days does a person get in one lifetime? How many are frittered away with the endless details of chores and jobs and to-do lists? How does the brightness of such days balance the shadows and doubt inherent in any life?
Good questions, I think to myself in the silence. I should ponder all of that some day. But not today. I am a believer in the power of an examined life. Only by asking the deep questions can we learn and grow. But not every hour of every day. And certainly not on a day like today. There are lines in the water. There are mountains peeking over our shoulders and good people to share the boat with.
Such days are not meant for questioning. They are meant for lying on your back, watching the clouds, watching the tips of the rods bend like commas, signaling a pause in it all. The only question that crosses your mind is whether a fish will rise. Yes, I believe I will think about that question instead of all the rest as the boat spins for yet another lazy run of the trolling grounds.
— Jeff Rennicke (all photography by the author unless otherwise noted).