Fishing Industry

Educator, fisherman, raconteur...Syd Wright served as Petersburg's unofficial historian, captivating visitors with his wit and eloquence. Syd Wright's Alaska preserves his tales for all time. Hear his vivid descriptions of the region's ancestral people, the Tlingit, their art and culture; of Alaska's European discovery by an emissary of Tsar Peter the Great; of the region's surprising role in the conclusion of the American Civil War; of the public treasure that emerged from the discourse between John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt; of Alaska's investiture as the 49th State of the Union; of the region's astonishingly rich fisheries and the people and communities that depend on them; of its land, its creatures, its abundance and its beauty. A tribute to the art of storytelling, this program is a gem the whole family will enjoy.

There are few regions and few industries as mutually-dependent as Southeast Alaska and salmon. In the remote Alaska panhandle, pristine habitat and remarkably successful conservation efforts have produced an enormous wild salmon resource that promises to sustain jobs and nourish consumers for generations to come. Each summer, sleepy Southeast Alaska villages like Ketchikan, Petersburg and Sitka are transformed into throbbing industrial arenas where tens of thousands of men and women toil in the harvesting, processing, distribution and support sectors of the salmon industry. This thirty minute documentary videotape takes you aboard the boats, into the processing plants and around the communities where the business of salmon is a way of life.

In Seattle in 1911, the fishing vessel Tordenskjold slid down the ways at a little shipyard in the Scandinavian community of Ballard. Of all the events that transpired 100 years ago, the Tordenskjold is one that endures.
Remarkably, as she celebrates her centennial, she is neither relic nor museum piece. The Tordenskjold leads a small fleet of hard working commercial fishing schooners that compete head to head with modern boats on the Alaska fishing grounds.
Now, a 30-minute PBS style documentary celebrates the old schooners and their extraordinary history. Produced by John Sabella, the program is sponsored by the nearly 100-year-old organizations that represent the halibut schooners and their deckhands: the Fishing Vessel Owners Association and Deep Sea Fisherman's Union of the Pacific.