This Is Coffee Point: Go Ahead: A Mother’s Story of Fishing & Survival at Alaska’s Bristol Bay (2014)

by Wilma Williams

Wilma and Charlie Williams ran a boat storage and fishing support business at Coffee Point, across the river from Egegik, Alaska. The boat yard was up on a wind scoured bluff and Wilma fed and took care of the fishers as everyone got boats and nets ready for the season. Charlie provided mechanical help and the inventiveness needed to get equipment going in the bush where spare parts were not available. In this book Wilma records the ups and downs of her family that set netted along the beach, and the fishers she took care of over the years. The Williams boat yard was always an extended family and her stories provide a glimpse of what it was like to run such a big operation on small generators with no sewers or running water, and well off any of the road system and a long way from other small Alaskan towns.