Profiles | Page 6 of 12 | The Filson Journal

exterior view of large shipyard building with sign reading

Pacific Fishermen Shipyard: The Origins of Ballard’s Oldest Working Shipyard

Pacific Fishermen Inc., or “PacFish,” as it is known to the many boat builders, ship crews, employees, family members and stakeholders in the Ballard community, can be traced directly back to the year 1871. It was in this year that a 47-year-old Norwegian immigrant, ship carpenter, and operator named Thomas William Lake settled on the north side of the Salmon Bay waterfront in unincorporated Seattle and opened his own shipyard.

3 Min

two people in lush mossy forested area tending to food cooking by an open fire

Profiles

Q & A With the Open-Fire Chefs of Portland’s Tournant

Tournant is an open fire cooking and events company. Based in Portland, OR, their business serves as a homage to the Pacific Northwest, to one another, and to all the things they hold dear: food, fire, nature, craft, connection, community, seasonality and sustainability.

4 Min

Profiles

Kate Mitchell – NOMAR

An old homesteader once told Kate Mitchell, “That was about the year you figured you weren’t going to starve to death.” By then, much of the community enjoyed wanton luxuries like electricity and indoor plumbing. That was also the year Kate moved to Homer.

4 Min

Profiles

The Puzzle Master: Kathy Burek

Anyone who has ever spent hours huddled over a puzzle knows the joy of finally figuring it out. Whether it’s an obscure image coming together piece by piece, that head-scratcher of a rhyme finally making sense, or completing the last box in a crossword, the endorphin rush of finally getting the right answer makes all of the effort worthwhile. But imagine devoting your life to untangling complicated mysteries but rarely knowing if you have solved the puzzle correctly. Most people couldn’t handle it, it might even drive them mad. But, Kathy Burek has done this almost every day for the last twenty-five years, and she loves it.

5 Min

Profiles

Renowned Artist and Activist: Ray Troll

Ray’s Alaska adventure started in 1983, when he moved here to help his sister open a seafood retail store in Ketchikan. Ray soon turned to art to document his experiences in the unique fishing culture that permeated the town.

4 Min

black and white image of woman in art studio with assorted paint brushes and reference images strewn about and tacked to wall

Profiles

Marian Beck: The Saltry Restaurant

The first thing you notice about Marian Beck is her hands. Graying Alaskan fishermen all have the same hands, swollen and powerful from decades of picking fighting salmon from gillnets, stacking seining gear, or baiting hooks. Her hands look like they’ve been taken from someone else’s body, twice as big and twice as old, and transplanted onto her wrists.

4 Min

Profiles

For the Love of Wooden Boats: Port Townsend’s Shipwrights Co-Op

Southeast of Port Townsend is a gravel yard where large boats balance on blocks of wood and slender steel stands. Removed from the water, the vessels reveal pleasing, functional curves. Inside massive sheds, deliberate Lilliputians in warm and dusty clothing crawl in and out of the leviathans to a symphony of hand and power tools.

3 Min

Profiles

Western Flyer: The Vessel of John Steinbeck

On the morning of Monday, March 11, 1940, writer John Steinbeck and marine biologist Ed Ricketts boarded the sardine seiner Western Flyer at a wharf in Monterey, California. Both men were moving slowly because a fiesta to celebrate the end of fishing season had gone on late into the night after a boat parade, a barbecue, and seine skiff races. Steinbeck and Ricketts were well-known on the waterfront—and elsewhere—so their departure on a six-week expedition drew a raucous crowd. They didn’t get away until that afternoon, and as the Flyer eased from her berth, Steinbeck noticed that the whiskey they’d loaded for medicinal purposes was gone. “Good,” he thought. “A lot of people I know won’t be getting sick for awhile if the booze does its job.”

7 Min

large derelict wooden ship docked on a black sandy/muddy beach

Profiles

The SS Bering

The story of the SS Bering begins with her launching under another name, the Annette Rolph, on July 4, 1918, in Fairhaven, California. The ship was a wood-hulled “tramp” freighter built for the trans-Pacific trade and joined the fleet of the Rolph Navigation and Coal Company. At 245 feet in length, she was one of hundreds of wood-hulled vessels produced for the maritime industry in World War I.

2 Min

Grainy black and white image of man in white helmet and black coat looking out at large snow capped Mt. Rainier

Profiles

Filson Moto Collection

Whenever you set out into the wild, be it the icy hell of Alaska or the rocky forests of the Pacific Northwest, you can’t do better than to have a Filson Garment on your back. That’s the way it’s been for over 120 years.

Profiles

The Ocean’s Top Predator: Puget Sound Orcas

Black fins sliced the water and rose higher and higher, close to our boat. With a puff and a blow, the orcas surfaced: members of J pod, the southern resident whales that frequent Puget Sound. The whales blew mighty breaths. They are mammals,
like us.

4 Min

Profiles

Deep Sea Fishermen’s Union

Back at the turn of the last century, a hardy group of men roamed the wooden docks of Seattle. Grizzled and gruff, they would spend days out on the unpredictable and often dangerous waters of the Salish Sea and nearby Pacific Ocean.

3 Min

Profiles

Puget Soundkeeper: On the Water Every Week, Stopping Pollution Every Day

On any given day, Puget Soundkeeper’s boat patrol team can be seen monitoring the waters of Puget Sound for illegal pollution and activities that violate the health of our waterways. The signs are often masked and hard to catch but, if you know what to look for, you can find them.

5 Min

Profiles

WSDOT Ferries

Twenty thousand years ago, a glacier tall as six Space Needles whittled the valley between the Olympic and Cascade Mountains, leaving a complex inland seascape. The First Nations people who followed the melting ice observed the freshly carved Puget Sound and concluded a canoe would be mighty handy.

3 Min

Profiles

Seattle Maritime Academy – 50 Years of Training Seaworthy Mariners

Long before Seattle was a tech town, or even an aviation town, it was a maritime town. In fact, it still is. And although some brag that Seattle has more pleasure boats per capita than any other city in the country, it’s the working vessels—and the men and women who serve on them—that make Seattle a maritime powerhouse. For the past 50 years, Seattle Maritime Academy has played a key role in training the professional mariners that keep this powerhouse running.

4 Min

Profiles

Leif Whittaker: My Old Man & the Mountain

My Old Man and the Mountain is Leif Whittaker’s engaging and humorous story of what it was like to “grow up Whittaker”―the youngest son of Jim Whittaker and Dianne Roberts, in an extended family of accomplished climbers. He shares glimpses of his upbringing and how the pressure to climb started early on.

6 Min

Profiles

Paul Roberts – the Man Behind the Mustache

Father, husband, firefighter, engineer, hockey player, Black Belt, personal trainer, and grave digger—just some of the titles that Paul Roberts has or currently holds. We caught up with Paul to hear more about his tireless work serving his community and why he’ll never get stuck doing something that makes him unhappy.

5 Min

brunette woman standing on the porch of a cabin during a snowy winter wearing a red buffalo plaid sweater and hand knit beanie

Profiles

Amy David: Why I Guide

As a professional skier, Amy David spends most days in the winter backcountry, skiing and snowmobiling while being photographed and filmed for media content. Simultaneously, She leads a backcountry retreat program for women and is currently working to earn a backcountry ski guide certification from the American Mountain Guide Association, the highest standard for mountain guides.

6 Min

Profiles

Avalanche Dog Noses: Your Best Chance of Survival

Up in the mountains, avalanches are part of the territory. If you’re lucky, you might only see or hear one. But on the off chance you get caught, there’s little even the most experienced can do to escape. Bright gear, and a beacon, shovel and probe are key to survival.

5 Min

Profiles

The Filson Restoration Department & Workshop

We’ve taken pride in the quality of our craftsmanship for over a century, and in keeping with that tradition, the Filson Restoration Department and Filson Workshop were formed. We caught up with Jeremy Bennett, Jon Duce, and Marissa Barnard from the workshop team to find out what goes into restoring a Filson original and creating a one-of-a-kind piece from salvaged resources.

5 Min

a brown, tan and white border collie sitting next to a black and white on the back of a 4-wheeler parked along a blurry tree line

Profiles

Dogs with Jobs: Sheepdogs in Rural Scotland

Sheep dogs are commonplace in rural Scotland, with many shepherds owning more than one. The use of such dogs in Scotland dates back to the 19th century, but even today they still play a crucial role in gathering and herding sheep across the hills and are very much engrained in everyday rural life.

5 Min

Profiles

The O’Hair Ranch

Before there were O’Hairs, there were Armstrongs. And like most homesteaders, the Armstrongs arrived at Paradise Valley, Montana, by way of misfortune looking for fortune. In 1878, Owen T. Armstrong (“O.T.”), aged 27 years old, and Mrs. O.T., aged 26 years old, decided it was time to up and leave Missouri, where they had hewn out a meager existence.

7 Min

a black and white x-ray of a two headed fawn skeleton from the top down

Profiles

University of Georgia Deer Lab Boosts Our Knowledge of America’s No. 1 Game Animal

For about 50 years, students and faculty at the University of Georgia’s famous Deer Research Laboratory have conducted far-reaching studies across the country and beyond to improve our understanding of deer biology, behavior, and management. With an extensive list of published research and many graduates in high-ranking wildlife positions, the lab’s influence on the knowledge and management of deer is undeniable.

8 Min

man wearing green hiking pack, dark green pants, shirt and cap, carrying a big camera and hiking poles up a snowy mountainside

Profiles

Q and A with Adam and Frankie Foss of Foss Media

Gary Edinger, a logger is at the center of Will to Live: The Gary Edinger Story, the latest film from Adam and Frankie Foss, the husband and wife team behind Foss Media.

7 Min

a man wearing plaid red and black wool coat, snow pants and a orange hard hat, walking towards the camera in a snowy wooded area

Profiles

Will To Live: The Gary Edinger Story

On a fateful February day in 2007, in the remote Northern Wisconsin woods, a solo independent logger named Gary Edinger severed his left leg off while felling a tree. Twenty miles from help and in forty below temperatures, Gary summoned the remarkable willpower to crawl to his pickup, and attempted to drive to safety.

19 Min

Profiles

Wild Goose Jack

At the turn of the 20th century, sportsman John (Jack) Miner found himself amidst an unregulated commercial market, and local grassroots hunting. In the small town of Kingsville, Ontario, along the northern shore of Lake Erie, young Jack and his brother Ted spent their minimal free time carving and painting decoys in preparation for when the ducks would return.

8 Min

Profiles

BARB WHITEMAN – A LIFE DEDICATED TO FIGHTING WILDLAND FIRES

Barb grew up on the Crow Indian Reservation in Eastern Montana. When she was not in school, she spent untold hours roaming the Big Horn Mountains near her home hunting, fishing, or camping. So, when she decided to take a seasonal job with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) during a college break, it seemed like a natural way to make some extra money, but it would end up changing her life.

2 Min

Profiles

MALHEUR RAPPEL CREW

The Malheur Rappel Crew primarily fights fires in the Pacific Northwest (Region 6) but team members can be dispatched anywhere there is a need – even globally. The standards to become a member of the team are high but when their training is completed, they will join the ranks of this legendary crew—a family of elite firefighters, founded on innovation and dedicated to protecting our Public Lands for generations to come.

4 Min

Profiles

BEQUI LIVINGSTON – WILDLAND FIREFIGHTING PIONEER

IN 1988, Bequi Livingston became the first woman ever recruited by the New Mexico-based Smokey Bear Hotshots for its elite wildland firefighting crew. It had taken Livingston nine years to prove herself in the then-male dominated industry.

1 Min

Profiles

VETERANS HOTSHOT CREW

Having achieved certification last Veterans Day, the Lakeview Veterans Hotshots are the only Interagency Hotshot Crew in the country that prioritizes enlisting and developing former military personnel. From front lines of battlefields in war-stricken corners of the world to the most rugged backcountry in North America, the individuals on the Lakeview Hotshots are accustomed to putting their lives on the line to ensure safety for other American citizens.

2 Min

Between Hell & Heaven: Burley Mountain Fire Lookout Restoration

Pacific Fishermen Shipyard: The Origins of Ballard’s Oldest Working Shipyard

Q & A With the Open-Fire Chefs of Portland’s Tournant

Kate Mitchell – NOMAR

The Puzzle Master: Kathy Burek

Renowned Artist and Activist: Ray Troll

Marian Beck: The Saltry Restaurant

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For the Love of Wooden Boats: Port Townsend’s Shipwrights Co-Op

Western Flyer: The Vessel of John Steinbeck

The SS Bering

Filson Moto Collection

The Ocean’s Top Predator: Puget Sound Orcas

Deep Sea Fishermen’s Union

Puget Soundkeeper: On the Water Every Week, Stopping Pollution Every Day

WSDOT Ferries

Seattle Maritime Academy – 50 Years of Training Seaworthy Mariners

Leif Whittaker: My Old Man & the Mountain

Paul Roberts – the Man Behind the Mustache

Amy David: Why I Guide

Avalanche Dog Noses: Your Best Chance of Survival

The Filson Restoration Department & Workshop

Dogs with Jobs: Sheepdogs in Rural Scotland

The O’Hair Ranch

University of Georgia Deer Lab Boosts Our Knowledge of America’s No. 1 Game Animal

Q and A with Adam and Frankie Foss of Foss Media

Will To Live: The Gary Edinger Story

Wild Goose Jack

BARB WHITEMAN – A LIFE DEDICATED TO FIGHTING WILDLAND FIRES

MALHEUR RAPPEL CREW

BEQUI LIVINGSTON – WILDLAND FIREFIGHTING PIONEER

VETERANS HOTSHOT CREW

Between Hell & Heaven: Burley Mountain Fire Lookout Restoration  