The Editor’s Note: 2020 reflections

Let’s face reality: 2020 has been full of “2020 sucks” moments. No need to rehash all the deadly, shocking, appalling, pathetic and weird stuff that has defined roughly the last nine months.

But as we put a capper on this most unusual time, I look back at our magazines and can find some inspiring, exciting and fun memories rising above all the despair.

IN APRIL, SCOTT HAUGEN, one-half of our From Field to Fire team, talked about his love of fishing Bristol Bay’s Egegik River year after year. One special place there for him is Brooks Falls for its bear viewing.

“I was rewarded with the best brown bear shots of my life,” Haugen wrote. “At the height of activity, 11 brown bears occupied the falls. More bears could be seen downstream that were also fishing. The forest, surrounded by tall and lush green grass, flourished, with endless bear trails that were carved throughout the landscape.”

Father-son relationships also were a theme in our magazines, and they had a dramatic impact on me after having lost my dad in September 2019.

In a May interview with Deadliest Catch crabbing skipper Josh Harris, he talked to me a lot about his late father Phil and how aboard his vessel, Cornelia Marie, he plays pops to his crew in the unforgiving waters of the Bering Sea.

“Oh, their dad; their coach; their psychologist,” he told me. “You have to be all that stuff. Keep everyone sane, because if they’re not thinking about their job, they’re going to tire and maybe kill the guy next to them.”

Our June Father’s Day story was written by Brian Watkins, who joined his dad Tom, close friend Mark and his pop Mo for a Kodiak Island mountain goat hunt. I remembered how my father was so motivated and full of energy even well into his 70s on our own adventures together. Now I was seeing some of that in Watkins discussing his father-son dynamic.

“My dad – again, he was 60 years old at this point – was the leader of the pack,” he wrote. “He kept us going and pushed us along. Dad’s determination was a driving factor in our abilities to move quickly.”

And then there was that Paul Atkins September piece when he fished for pike in Arctic Alaska with his son, Eli. Atkins wrote about Eli’s first northern. Catching a fish with my dad with me on a boat or the shoreline was always a great childhood memory.

“With a tight line and a bent rod, Eli

Director Mark Titus (left, with actor Mark Harmon) inspired the editor with his new film The Wild about Bristol Bay’s fight to stop the Pebble Mine. It was a positive moment in an

otherwise dreary 2020. (SPIKE MAFFORD) worked him toward the boat – only to have him rush back out again … I grabbed the net and leaned over the edge in trying to get close enough for an easy scoop. Finally, after a game of tug ’o war, he made a mistake and I was successful in getting the motley-colored fish on the deck.”

2020 HAS ALSO CREATED multiple Pebble Mine stories and those in Bristol Bay and elsewhere fighting against the mine have given me some hope in not giving in. Watching our pal Mark Titus’s new documentary, The Wild, was a gamechanger. I wrote about the film in July and Titus talked about the inspiration he had from those he worked with on the project.

“It was just me on a lot of interviews; you have to give yourself over to the moment and be absolutely (all in) with these folks, to ask the right question or be in the right spirit,” he said. “You take a lot of that drama and that feeling of love and that feeling of what’s at stake, internally. They made me more aware, awake and empathetic toward what’s at stake for the people who do live there year-round and make this their livelihood.”

That’s just a small sample of feel-good moments this year. Still, it’s time for you to go away, 2020. -Chris Cocoles