by Dylan Tomine
“Okay, hold on tight now!” I shout as we head out into the open water. The wind came up while we were in the bay, packing the steep waves closer together than I’d like. I trim the motor to bring the bow up, and we climb the back of each wave at half throttle, then coast down the front at near idle, plunging into the troughs. Water sloshes out of the crab bucket. The ferry is behind schedule, too, just coming across from Seattle, throwing white spray to both sides, lumbering toward the Island.
We’ll take it slow, and if we’re late, we’re late. If it gets too rough, I can always wait for the ferry to pass us and poach the flat wake it leaves behind. For now, I just need to concentrate and pick my way through the chop. A hypnotic rhythm to the driving sets in – throttle up, back off, coast down, gun it back up again. It’s like driving a car at night in a blizzard, when everything disappears but the streaking snowflakes lit by headlights. It’s just waves now, one after another, rolling up and under us.
The kids are in the bow, hands clenched tight to the rail and wind in their faces, laughing as they leap in time to the pounding of the boat. Skyla’s hair streams out behind her, and Weston shrieks with delight each time we surf down into the trough. I catch myself hoping that this might become one of their childhood memories.
I can see my dad coming across the pasture with a gunnysack full of salmon over his shoulder. It’s raining hard. We are warm and dry inside the car, my mom reading while I stare through rain-streaked windows, waiting. I couldn’t fish with him because the weather was too much for a little kid, and now my eyes feel thick and tired from crying earlier. When he opens the door, I smell rain, wet wool, and salmon. I want to see the fish, but I don’t have my shoes on. He carries me outside and we look at the big, bright silvers lying in the trunk.
Did it occur to my father, in what must have been October 1969, as he walked back from fishing in the rain, that this moment would become one of my enduring memories? That 40 years later, the smell of wet wool would always bring this day back? What about the time when I was five and we walked to the mailbox to find a job offer waiting, and he swung me through the air with both hands, smiling at our bright future? Did he know that would stay with me?
My mom is picking persimmons in the backyard of a new house. She’s impossibly young, her long black hair held back with a bandanna, taking a break from unpacking our new life in a new state. The sun here feels hot and unfamiliar. I hold the basket for her, trying to help. “Go ahead,” she says, “try one.” When I bite into the smooth, bright orange persimmon, I am surprised by its astringency.
There must have been other, more significant moments my parents hoped I would remember. But they’ve somehow slipped from my consciousness and disappeared.
Across the Sound, I can see whitecaps building and a dark wall of rain closing in. The storm is bearing down fast. As we make the turn into the calm waters of the harbor, I look at the kids leaping and laughing in the bow and wonder, Will something of this day become a part of their future selves? The bite of cold winter air on their hands, a bucket full of crabs in the boat, the anticipation of Christmas with their grandparents…will they remember it forever? I know I will.
GRATITUDE
This book, and for that matter, the life we’re so fortunate to lead, would not be possible without the help of many. Thanks, first of all, to my mom and dad for their constant encouragement of their fish-obsessed boy, and for the lessons necessary to finding happiness. And to Stacy, my love, supportive and optimistic, renowned for inappropriate footwear, gung-ho, game, and the toughest person I know.
Also, a special thank-you to Mike and Nancy for unwavering support over many years.
In all outdoor activities, knowledge is the currency of highest value, generally attained only through years of personal experience. I am lucky to have found incredible mentors throughout my life, and their teachings have shortened the learning curve for me time and again. My deep appreciation goes out to each of them: Andy Landforce, for early lessons in steelhead, bluegills, and life. Nate Mantua, for weather and conservation. Dan Sweeney for razor clams and the ocean. Mike Kinney for the ways of the river and steelhead to the fly. Bill McMillan, Yvon Chouinard, Bruce Hill, and Gerald Amos for opening my eyes. Bob Dawson for geoducks and the good old days. David Smart for Puget Sound. Neal McCulloch for chanterelles. Wes Blauveldt for birds. Glen Urquhart for berry cultivation, pruning, and tree felling.
On the writing side, many thanks to Tom McGuane, Dave Guterson, Tim Pask, Steve Zaro, Marc Bale, Vincent Stanley, John Larison, and Ted Leeson for inspiration, encouragement, and wisdom. And to my brother, Adrian, for lighting the path and setting the bar so damn high.
I am proud to call each of you mentor, friend, and, with utmost respect, sensei.
Much gratitude, also, to my agent, Valerie Borchardt, whose patient guidance cured my addiction to industrial-strength antacids. To Susan Bell, whose skillfull editing gives my work the illusion of literacy. And to Nikki McClure, for the beautiful paper cuts that bring life to these stories. I also want to thank Vincent Stanley again here, along with the rest of the crew at Patagonia, for putting so much care into this book.
But above all, I am thankful for the teachers from whom I continue to learn the most, Skyla and Weston. The main lesson? That maybe process is more important than production, that stopping to watch birds, smell flowers, and splash in puddles is more fun than simply making a haul. I think it’s rubbing off on me. I may not be ready to say the path is the only goal, but I now know it’s worth enjoying along the way.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dylan Tomine, formerly a fly fishing guide, is now a writer, conservation advocate, blueberry farmer and father, not necessarily in that order. His work has appeared in The Flyfish Journal, The Drake, Golfweek, The New York Times and numerous other publications. He lives with his family on an island in Puget Sound.
www.dylantomine.com.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Nikki McClure is known for her painstakingly intricate and beautiful paper cuts. Armed with an X-acto knife, she cuts her images from a single sheet of paper and creates a bold language that translates the complex poetry of motherhood, nature, and activism into a simple and endearing picture. Nikki’s images exude a positivity that revolves around community, sustenance, parenting, and appreciating both the urban and rural landscape, undoubtedly influenced by her home in Olympia, WA. She regularly produces her own posters, books, cards, t-shirts and a beloved yearly calendar. She is a self-taught artist who has been making paper-cuts since 1996.
www.nikkimcclure.com.
THE RESPONSIBLE COMPANY
In The Responsible Company, Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia, and Vincent Stanley, co-editor of its Footprint Chronicles, draw on their 40 years’ experience at Patagonia – and knowledge of current efforts by other companies – to articulate the elements of responsible business for our time.
Featured on Fortune’s cover in 2007 as “the coolest company on the planet,” Patagonia has earned a reputation for its ground-breaking environmental practices as well as for the quality of its clothes. In The Responsible Company, Chouinard and Stanley recount how the company and its culture gained the confidence—step-by-step and misstep—to make its work progressively more responsible, and to ultimately share its discoveries with companies as large as Wal-Mart and as small as the corner bakery.
The Responsible Company shows companies how to thread their way through economic sea change and slow the drift toward ecological bankruptcy. Its advice is simple but powerful: reduce your environmental footprint (and its skyrocketing cost), make legitimate products that last, reclaim deep knowledge of your business and its supply chain to make the most of opportunities in the years to come, and earn the trust (and business) you’ll need by treating your workers, customers and communities with respect.
ISBN 978-09801227-8-7
$19.95
PADDLING NORTH
In a tale remarkable for its quiet confidence and
acute natural observation, the author of Paddling Hawaii begins with her decision, at age 60, to undertake a solo, summer-long voyage along the southeast coast of Alaska in an inflatable kayak.
Paddling North is a compilation of Sutherland’s first two (of over 20) such annual trips and her day-by-day travels through the Inside Passage from Ketchikan to Skagway. With illustrations and the author’s recipes.
ISBN 978-0-9801227-5-6
$22.95
THE VOYAGE OF THE CORMORANT
The author, a former editor at The Surfer’s Journal, envisioned a low-tech, self-reliant exploration for surf along the coast of North America, using primarily clothes and instruments available to his ancestors, and a boat he would build by hand in his garage. How the vision met reality – and how the two came to shape each other – places Voyage of the Cormorant in the great American tradition of tales of life at sea, and what it has to teach us.
ISBN 978-0-9801227-6-3
$24.95
An outdoor family’s year on the water,
in the woods, and at the table
Patagonia Books, an imprint of Patagonia Inc., publishes a select number of titles on wilderness, wildlife, and outdoor sports that inspire and restore a connection to the natural world.
Copyright © 2012 Patagonia Books
Text © Dylan Tomine
Foreword © Thomas McGuane
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from publisher and copyright holders. Requests should be mailed to Patagonia Books, Patagonia Inc.,
259 W. Santa Clara St., Ventura, CA 93001-2717.
FIRST EDITION
Illustrator Nikki McClure
Editor Susan Bell
Design & Production Good Apples
Project Manager Joyce Macias
Cover art Nikki McClure
Inset photo Dylan Tomine Collection
Library of Congress Control Number 2012934398
Print ISBN 978-1-938340-00-0
eBook ISBN 978-1-938340-13-0
