Waiting to Deliver: From greenhorn to skipper- an Alaskan commercial fishing memoir

Using poetry, prose and photography, Waiting to Deliver tells the story of a young man's journey into the world of commercial fishing for salmon on the waters of Cook Inlet, Alaska. Starting as a 27-year old greenhorn schoolteacher from Indiana, Patrick Dixon works as a deckhand for two seasons before buying his own boat and permit. Through a series of missteps inspired by ignorance, inexperience and bad luck, he stumbles through twenty years of learning how to survive the dangers inherent in working on the water, nursing a perpetual sinking boat, staying afloat financially and becoming a member of a fishing community

Dixon encounters a diverse group of cannery workers and seasoned fishermen who help him develop into an accomplished skipper. He is mentored by two brothers who realize how much he doesn't know, take him on as a project, and teach him to deal with the endless list of unexpected events and circumstances that fishing throws at him. As his knowledge, expertise and confidence grow, Dixon continues to encounter personal and professional challenges that test his ability, judgement, and patience as a skipper, friend, husband and father.

During a career spanning two decades from 1977-1997, Dixon witnesses a sea change in the commercial fishing industry as better technology, bigger and faster boats and changing markets collide with tradition, politics, stakeholders and the impact of events like the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Cook Inlet fishery is the only fishery in Alaska that is connected to the state's road system. In the mid-1980's the large sport fishing community based in Anchorage discovers the Kenai river's king salmon run and not long after, the tremendous sockeye run that brings millions of red salmon into the watershed each year. In the 1990's, the state creates and gives priority to a subsistence fishery at the mouth of the river. In the process, the fleet loses both fishing area and fishing time, resulting in poorer harvests and more difficulty making a living. In the span of 15 years the commercial fishing community goes from the primary harvester of Cook Inlet salmon to a minor player compared to the other user groups, which becomes a major reason Dixon chooses to leave the fishery.

The underlying story of Waiting to Deliver is found in Dixon's journey from a vast naivete' about the world of fishing to an expertise and maturity that sustains him far beyond his years on the water. A published poet and twenty-year member of the Fisherpoets Gathering community, Dixon intersperses the narrative with poems previously published by literary magazines and fishing trade journals throughout the memoir. As a professional photographer and teacher of photography, Dixon's camera accompanied him throughout his fishing career, both at sea and on shore. The resulting images add a powerful historical and artistic visual dimension to the writing.

None of us

gets to choose

how it ends,

only how it goes.