Joel and I went to a movie the oth­er night. We final­ly saw The Breach, an award-win­ning film I’ve been anx­ious to see since its 2014 release. Described as a love sto­ry for wild salmon, it’s a love sto­ry in all the truest ways – risk, betray­al, loss, resolve, hope. It took my breath away.

(You can watch The Breach your­self here. Please do. Please.)

After the lights came up, direc­tor Mark Titus joined com­mer­cial fish­er­men Melanie Brown and Marsh Skeele, Anchor­age chef Rob Kin­neen, and Sit­ka May­or Mim McConnell for a dis­cus­sion host­ed by Sit­ka Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety. They spoke of new threats: Cana­di­an mines cleared to start work in the Trans­bound­ary head­wa­ters of South­east Alaska’s biggest salmon-pro­duc­ing rivers. Joel and I left the the­ater feel­ing equal parts ter­ri­fied for the species we love and inspired to work for their pro­tec­tion. “We have to get more involved,” we vowed.

Which is why I’m dis­ap­point­ed today, upon the pub­li­ca­tion of an inter­view I did with Grist on what it means to be at home on the ocean. Friends shared the link with warm reviews. Jour­nal­ist Eve Andrews has my full respect and appre­ci­a­tion. My dis­ap­point­ment is with myself. Giv­en an oppor­tu­ni­ty to speak direct­ly to the very audi­ence whose help we need to pro­tect Alaska’s wild salmon, peo­ple pre­dis­posed to care and act for envi­ron­men­tal issues, I missed the boat.

Hear­ing this, Joel jumps to my defense. “Of course you feel that way now, since we just saw that movie. You weren’t think­ing like that then; we were just try­ing to get out of town, go back out fishing.”

Go back. Go back to July 14^th, the final half-hour in town, when I charged down a slip­pery dock, evad­ing piles of dog shit while jock­ey­ing a cart piled high with two weeks’ worth of gro­ceries packed in card­board box­es quick­ly los­ing their integri­ty in a tor­ren­tial side­ways rain. My gait was off, my sil­hou­ette odd­ly mis­shapen, as I pitched the dis­in­te­grat­ing box­es onto the Nerka’s deck, scram­bled to return the bor­rowed truck, and rushed back to the boat, all with phone pinned between ear and shoul­der. Joel had already fired up the engine and unplugged the shore pow­er. I rifled dis­com­bob­u­lat­ed thoughts for a semi-artic­u­late clos­ing while yank­ing dock lines free, thank­ing Eve for our con­ver­sa­tion as rain ran down the cab­in roof, straight down the back of my neck.

(In ret­ro­spect, it’s remark­able that Eve was able to get any­thing use­ful from our inter­view. That the result­ing arti­cle reads so smooth­ly is entire­ly thanks to her, not me.)

At the time the chaos struck me as fun­ny. A ludi­crous illus­tra­tion of the bar­ri­ers to thought­ful con­ver­sa­tion, to any­thing requir­ing exter­nal con­scious­ness, when the strug­gle to make a year’s liveli­hood in a mat­ter of months con­sumes us. Now, real­iz­ing too late the oppor­tu­ni­ty I squan­dered, I’m regret­ful. They give us so much, salmon. I wish I had giv­en them my voice.

But you can’t do any­thing about what’s done, Joel reminds me. “What can you do, mov­ing forward?”

Which brings me here: anoth­er wet day in Sit­ka, this time tucked with­in the Nerka’s warmth, cup of lemon gin­ger tea at my side. The engines are off; no pres­sure to leave for anoth­er two days. Rain plip-plaps against the roof, a reas­sur­ing lul­la­by, and for the first time all sum­mer, it’s just me and the page. Free to focus, free to gath­er my thoughts. Free to try again.

This time I intro­duce the fish­er­folks I know, deeply con­sci­en­tious women and men who embody val­ues con­fus­ing for many out­side our world, where killing isn’t cav­a­lier and there’s no cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance in feel­ing love for the lives we take.

I cau­tion that sav­ing wild salmon requires more than respon­si­ble fish­eries man­age­ment. Lack­ing equal­ly focused efforts to guard their fresh­wa­ter habi­tat, “sus­tain­abil­i­ty” is super­fi­cial. An illusion.

I cel­e­brate the work of Salmon Beyond Bor­ders, unit­ing sports and com­mer­cial fish­er­men, trib­al and First Nations mem­bers, busi­ness own­ers, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers – every­one invest­ed in defend­ing the Stikine, Taku, and Unuk Rivers from some of the largest mines the world has ever seen.

I push words around the lump in my throat, think­ing of Peters­burg writer Chelsea Tremblay’s essay, Sur­vival is Insuf­fi­cient. “Love is what makes a com­mu­ni­ty more than just a group of peo­ple liv­ing in the same space. It’s the col­lec­tive cob­web, invis­i­ble until you run into it.” Gath­er­ing strength from her words, I pause.

This time, asked what it’s like to be at home on the ocean, I look beyond my walls, beyond the win­dows of my own har­ried mid-sea­son expe­ri­ence, and con­sid­er the sil­ver bod­ies finning past. Home is know­ing your neigh­bors. Look­ing out for them. Salmon begin their lives not on the ocean at all, but deep inland. Land-locked. In this way, being at home on the ocean is no dif­fer­ent from being at home on land. Look care­ful­ly enough, far enough, salmon are our shared neigh­bors. They need all of us.