Gillnetting movie is like old times

Posted: Friday, April 20, 2012 10:00 am

When the Ear was but an earlet, sitting on a stoop and listening to the old timers talk about the glory days of lobstering and oystering was a real treat. The movie, “WORK IS OUR JOY: The Story Of The Columbia River Gillnetter,” has the same feel to it.

A project of the Oregon State University Extension Sea Grant and the Columbia River Maritime Museum, the film is an oral history with reminiscences by ROSS LINDSTROM, CECIL MOBERG, JOHN VLASTALICIA, HANK RAMVICK, ELMER HURULA, GUNNAR HERMANSON, ARNOLD “TOOTS” PETERSON, JACK MARINCOVICH, and many others.

You can watch the movie here: http://tinyurl.com/crgillnet

A little history tidbit: “The first non-Native gillnet on the Columbia belonged to THOMAS HODGKINS, an immigrant fisherman from the Kennebec River in Maine,” says Irene Martin in The Oregon Encyclopedia. “He operated the net in 1853 near Oak Point, four miles northwest of present-day Clatskanie.”

Some local families have been gillenetting for almost four generations. As one gillnetter noted, “I think the fellas that were born into it, that grew up in the game, make the best fishermen. They have a sense for it ... They have a feel for it.”

One fisherman summed up the overall tone of the film perfectly: “I think it’s probably a matter of receiving joy in what you’re doing. There are some people who just fish, and others who love to fish.”

Watch and enjoy  – the film is a real treasure.

— Elleda Wilson

Reprinted with the permission of The Daily Astorian of Astoria, Oregon