Southeast Love Story, by Maggie Rabb (Southeast Alaska Conservation Council)

Описание: Maggie Rabb created her story in a custom digital storytelling workshop sponsored by the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council (SEACC) with guidance and assistance from StoryCollab facilitators.

Maggie, a young college student falls for Alaska's wild beauty while commercial fishing, enduring grueling work and seasickness. Years later, working in conservation, she appreciates the activists protecting the region's fragile ecosystems. Despite constant threats, she remains hopeful, joining a community dedicated to continuous preservation.

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Transcript: I fell in love with southeast Alaska from the deck of a commercial fishing boat. I was 20 years old and paying my way through college on my uncle's trawler. The lady Joe. I remember fishing and running our way up the coast towards the fair weather grounds for my first King opener. We didn't see any Towns, cars or people. Nothing but fishing boats, rugged peaks and lush forests woven through with low clouds, whales, seals and albatross for days and plentiful salmon. We caught 268 king salmon on the first day of my first king opener. The next morning in my bunk, the fingers of my right hand were curled into claws. I had to use my left hand to straighten them and head back out on deck.

I loved it so much that I did it for six summers, despite constant puking.

Seasickness drove me off the water. But working in conservation has kept me connected to it. I learned just how much the Southeast I came to love from the deck of the Lady Joe has been shaped by dedicated activists. Activists who have protected salmon spawning streams from mining waste and clear cut logging. Sometimes, I imagine, running up the coast and through the inside passage. I think about what this place would look like with factory trawlers, commercial salmon farms and muddy, impassable spawning streams.

I feel indebted to the people who fought to keep our fish stocks healthy, our waters clean and ancient old growth forests standing.

When you work in conservation, you only have to lose once to see permanent damage. Once an old growth forest is cut, the trees and critical salmon and wildlife habitat they support won't be restored in my lifetime. The losses can be permanent. But in conservation, when we win, we have to win again and again and again. As a fundraiser. I spend my days working with spreadsheets and budgets and talking to supporters. I've come to know the hundreds of people who show up here after a year to win again and again and again for Southeast. To shape the original roadless rule that stopped new logging roads from being built in national forests like the Tongass, and who fought to keep the roadless rule on the Tongass despite attacks from administration after administration. I have hope for the future of Southeast. I know that I'll have to keep showing up to protect this place I love. But I also know that I won't be alone. Even when it hurts. We'll go back out on deck to win again and again and again.