Every Southeast Alaskan fisherman knows not to \u201ccry halibut\u201d when they very well could have snagged the bottom. It\u2019s a lesson that took Bjorn Dihle, author of \u201cNever Cry Halibut, and Other Alaska Hunting and Fishing Tales\u201d and \u201cHaunted Inside Passage,\u201d a long time to learn.<\/p>\n
Dihle\u2019s most recent book, \u201cNever Cry Halibut,\u201d is a collection of stories about his experiences hunting and fishing in Southeast Alaska, with a few tall tales thrown in for good measure. Peculiar stories about posing as a Njord to get hired on a fishing vessel and initiating his previously-vegetarian girlfriend in the gore of a caribou hunt join relatable stories of deer hunts gone awry and a family trying to figure out how to make it in the wilds of Alaska.<\/p>\n
Dihle describes his book as \u201cstories of growing up in Southeast Alaska hunting and fishing, and a family and friend memoir.\u201d<\/p>\n
The memoir aspect is part of what sets Dihle\u2019s book apart from the pseudo-fictional Alaskan television shows populating the History Channel. The characters in his stories are real people, recognizable in their obsession with goats or their night terrors about the fish that got away. While Dihle admits that he exaggerates sometimes, he always makes sure that the people in his stories feel like they\u2019re represented accurately.<\/p>\n
Stories about his family frame the book; his dad is featured in both the first and the last. The two stories took place 40 years apart, representing all of the wisdom his dad has taught him over the years. All the stories in between show Dihle learning how to hunt and fish, and becoming self-sufficient in his own right.<\/p>\n
Hunting and fishing are \u201cthe fabric of my family and my friends. It\u2019s the only thing I really talk about with my brothers,\u201d Dihle said. He described the way that he and his brothers talk as \u201cpart humor, part seriousness, and just giving each other s\u2014-.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dihle\u2019s sense of humor runs rampant through his writing. Sometimes it\u2019s in the form of small, unexpected quips that make you laugh out of surprise, and sometimes it\u2019s in the form of a letter asking the government to sponsor his Alaskan diet plan.<\/p>\n
But even though some of his stories seem too outlandish to be real, Dihle said \u201cIf you think there\u2019s any chance they\u2019re true, they\u2019re true.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s still plenty of fish fiction in \u201cNever Cry Halibut\u201d and lots of stories that are \u201ctotally ridiculous.\u201d Dihle thinks it should be obvious to the reader what\u2019s real and what\u2019s not, or so he hopes.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of my humor is just making fun of all the seriousness in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His book\u2019s title is a spin-off of Farley Mowat\u2019s \u201cNever Cry Wolf,\u201d a book which takes itself much more seriously than Dihle\u2019s. He wanted \u201cNever Cry Halibut\u201d to be a response to what he calls the \u201cweird macho hunting culture\u201d that permeates much of nature writing.<\/p>\n
For that reason, many of his stories didn\u2019t make the cut. He excluded most of his more serious stories, even if they were dear to him. Dihle writes with an element of nostalgia that reveals how much he cares about his writing subjects despite the sarcasm and the humor in the stories that did make it into the book.<\/p>\n
The light tone he was aiming for is reflected in his cover art, which features a cartoon version of the author fishing against a typical Southeast Alaskan background. Dihle thinks that it\u2019s \u201calmost too pastel,\u201d but the artwork makes the book more approachable to a wider audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good for a chuckle, it\u2019s good for maybe inspiring you to get outside,\u201d Dihle said about what he was hoping to accomplish with his book. \u201cIt\u2019s for the hunters and non-hunters alike.\u201d He\u2019s even had people tell him that their little kids really like his book.<\/p>\n
While he wants to reach anyone who is interested in the outdoors, Dihle believes that the people who grew up in Southeast Alaska will recognize their own experiences in his writing. It\u2019s the woods and the ocean, as well as the shared experience of gathering food, that he thinks sets them apart.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a commonality that a lot of people in Southeast Alaska share.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2022 Jack Scholz is a freelance writer living in Juneau.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every Southeast Alaskan fisherman knows not to \u201ccry halibut\u201d when they very well could have snagged the bottom. It\u2019s a lesson that took Bjorn Dihle, author of \u201cNever Cry Halibut, and Other Alaska Hunting and Fishing Tales\u201d and \u201cHaunted Inside Passage,\u201d a long time to learn. Dihle\u2019s most recent book, \u201cNever Cry Halibut,\u201d is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":31541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[73],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-31540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-ccw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31540"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=31540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}