Croatian Fishing Families of Anacortes
By Bret Lunsford, Author of the Arcadia Publishing history
IMAGES OF AMERICA: ANACORTES
Spanning a hundred years of Puget Sound maritime history, CROATIAN FISHING FAMILIES OF ANACORTES (ACCA, November, 2011; $28.95; hardcover; 192 pages; 193 photographs) fills an important gap in the northwest bookshelf. Vintage photographs and numerous collected oral histories create a fully detailed portrait of everyday life in a small island community.
These Croatian seafarers were instrumental in developing the twentieth century salmon industry in Puget Sound and pioneers in the early years of Alaskan crabbing. The book traces the often harrowing stories of immigration to America, and how these stories varied from person to person, and over the decades covered. Settling in Anacortes, the voices tell of resourceful traditions and cultural challenges as the newcomers made a home of this place halfway ‘round the world.
- Collected rare historic photographs of maritime Anacortes, Washington, and its Croatian fishermen
- Directory of early wooden purse-seine boats
- Maps of historic house locations
- Names from the Seafarer’s Memorial
Bret Lunsford, author of Images of America: Anacortes, has compiled a new book on his hometown’s unique place in the history of the Pacific Northwest. Overlaid voices tell of adventurous journeys from the Adriatic Sea to the Puget Sound, from the 1870s through the 1970s. From a centuries-old maritime tradition, a fleet of wooden fishing boats were designed, built, and launched into a living, breathing seaport community.
