The Lualda’s decks go awash during a halibut opener in Sitka Sound in 1987. (Jana Suchy photo)
It may be the next best thing to time travel, for the hook-and-line crowd. An author and photojournalist who worked as a deckhand in Sitka in the 1980s has rediscovered some of her early work, and published it in a new book.
A lot of people in Sitka remember Jana Suchy. She was the girl behind the viewfinder. Almost constantly.
“I packed around a camera — two cameras — everywhere. So I acquired quite a collection of photos.”
Which she has compiled into a new book, Alaska Fishing: Gold Rush of the 1980s. And it’s a trip. Many of the same boats Suchy worked on are still around. And many of the crews are eerily familiar — they’re the parents of the current generation of fishermen.
“It’s a time capsule. It’s a slice of life. I fished here for three years first, ‘83-’86 I guess. Then I was a writer-photographer for another three years covering the fishing industry for the fish papers of the day. Mostly Alaska Fisherman’s Journal and Pacific Fishing Magazine.”
Suchy grew up in Wisconsin and studied natural resources in college — which is what brought her to Alaska. She found jobs in public broadcasting at first, in Homer and Wrangell, and then spent a winter writing a grant to National Public Radio for a natural history series. It didn’t pan out. From there, her story is a familiar one.
Jana Suchy, during her years working as a deckhand in Sitka.
“So I was broke and burnt out after a winter waiting to see if that came through, and I needed money. So I thought I’d pound the docks. It was a world I knew nothing about. What happens when they untie from the dock? I got a job on a little salmon troller with Annie Howell and went out on the ocean and it turned into my life for three years. Fishing for a living. Crewing out on small longliners and trollers.”
After Sitka, Suchy went to graduate school in Journalism at the University of Montana, and began a long career away from Alaska.
Her work from the state did not disappear. Over 100 large-format images are mounted in Chinook’s, a restaurant in downtown Seattle. Anthony’s Seafood Grill in the SeaTac Airport also has two of her large pictures. And another three are in Sitka’s own Highliner Cafe. But these are from her color portfolio. Most of her black-and-white negatives went into a box in her closet, where they’ve remained for the last 30 years.
And that’s where they might have stayed, were it not for social media.
“So I started posting some of these black-and-white photos and it instantly exploded. Not quite viral, but people piling in from all over and connecting that way and it’s become a virtual fleet reunion.”
Suchy thinks this kind of sustained documentary effort is unusual. This August, she’ll partner with Seafood Producer’s Co-op, Sitka Sound Seafoods, the Sitka Seafood Festival, and the Sitka Fine Arts Camp to mount 100 of these rediscovered pictures — blown up to 3’ x 4’ feet — on both levels of Allen Memorial Hall.
Slideshow: Alaska Fishing: Gold Rush of the 1980s
The large scope of the project should help viewers realize what she herself has only recently come to understand.
“At the time, I was not documenting life like (CCC-era photographer) Dorothea Lange. I was taking pictures of fishing for my stories. And only in retrospect, looking at this body of work, is it documenting an era, which fascinates me. I’m so happy to have found it. It was like buried treasure.”
Jana Suchy’s photograhy exhibit opens August 5 in Sitka.
