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Northern Michigan University

A Road out of Naknek Part One: The Tide Turns

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

<p>I make an annual summertime return to Naknek, a town on Bristol Bay where the salmon have made their own annual summertime return for thousands of years. My thesis is a series of nonfiction essays about my background there, both as a commercial fisherman and my upbringing. It is something I consider the “Part One” of a book still under the process of writing. It is a series of essays, alternating these two motifs of the salmon and of my experiences growing up somewhere like Naknek.</p> <p>I constructed this thesis to read like the tide. Bristol Bay salmon go out into the ocean and follow various patterns before returning to spawn. This thesis will be an exploration of these patterns, their interconnectivity, and what they mean. I plan to continue alternating stories of fishing with stories of my life outside of fishing in which the “ebb” represents the time away from Bristol Bay. The “flood” is when I return. In my adult life, I have found myself living in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin, Kansas, Peru, Guatemala, the Upper Peninsula again, Montana, Oregon, and the Upper Peninsula a third time. Although I have had different jobs and pursuits in various locations, like the salmon I return to Bristol Bay every summer. My thesis is what leads up to this part of the narrative I want to tell.</p>

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Arts
Level thesis:degree_level
Thesis
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
English
Year dc:date.available
2017

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Wilson, Keith
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Jon Billman

Subjects

dc:subject × 14

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Repository record dc:identifier
https://commons.nmu.edu/theses/170
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:commons.nmu.edu:theses-1185

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Northern Michigan University
Base URL
commons.nmu.edu/do/oai/
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Wilson, Keith. A Road out of Naknek Part One: The Tide Turns. Thesis thesis, 2017. https://commons.nmu.edu/theses/170