EVERETT — Everett has a book on the history of its fishing fleet just in time to help raise funds for a continuing tribute to the group that once traveled between Alaska and California to help feed the world.
Called “Everett Fishermen,” the 127-page paperback was published by Arcadia Publishing, a New Hampshire company with an office in Seattle. It focuses on local histories.
Written by RaeJean Hasenoehrl, it tells the story, mostly through historic photographs, of the people from Croatian and Scandinavian countries who came to Everett starting in the 1890s. They formed an Everett fishing community that numbered in the hundreds and helped shape the city’s ethnic heritage and leadership core.
Kay Zuanich and Barbara Piercey, members of longtime fishing families, thought a book would be a good way to preserve the city’s heritage. They’re still looking for other ways to tell the story because only a few fishermen are left.
Zuanich said Tuesday that things worked out pretty well even though she and Piercey weren’t sure at first how to accomplish their idea.
“It turned out great for me not knowing what to put in it, how it would work or who would write,” she said.
She thanked Lloyd Weller of Everett Community College for helping to get photographs scanned into a computer to be used in the book and also Margaret Riddle of the Everett Public Library for helping to find material.
Fishing families all contributed, searching old scrapbooks to find photos for the effort. Cheryl Ann Healey and Katy Brekke did a lot of the collecting work, Hasenoehrl said. The result is more than a couple hundred old photos showing how the fishers worked on nets and boats, their fishing gear and methods, their travels on the West Coast and their lives with family and friends.
The book will be sold in book stores for $19.99 and available through Arcadia Publishing.
But Zuanich is hoping to sell as many as she can at a Fishermen’s Tribute scheduled for June 5 at the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish Hall in Everett. There will be a salmon dinner, and the author will be there to sign copies of the book.
Zuanich said all of the workers on the project were volunteers, including writer Hasenoehrl.
“I was fortunate to find the author,” Zuanich said. “I think she did this brilliantly.”
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