Down in Bristol Bay: High Tides, Hangovers, and Harrowing Experiences on Alaska’s Last Frontier (2000)
by Bob Durr
Durr, father of Sarah Birdsall from The Red Mitten, was a professor of English at Syracuse University in New York publishing academic books on poetry. Yet in 1968 he chucked it all and brought his family out to a homestead on the shore of Lake Iliamna. A few years later he moved to remote Back Lake near Talkeetna. Durr was a commercial fisher in Bristol Bay during those years and this book is a reflection on his fishing and his life. It is a little bit autobiographical and memoir-like, as he reflects on his life. He records his fishing seasons in the ‘60s and his life off the boat and the characters he meets, and reflects on his own transition from academia to the Alaska bush.
