Deadly fishing season: church service honors those who died

Hundreds honor those who died in fishing season

By TOM PAULSON
P-I REPORTER
A warm, sunny day and an unusually deadly fishing season contributed to one of the largest gatherings ever for Seattle's annual Fishermen's Memorial Service on Sunday at Fishermen's Terminal.

"We've added today 12 more names," said the Rev. Christopher Breen, a grief counselor and member of the Fishermen's Memorial Board who spoke at the service held in Salmon Bay near the Ballard Bridge. "We are deeply saddened in the fishing community."

Lou Anne Rundall touches the name of her son, Davy Rundall, inscribed on a plaque, during memorial services Sunday at Fishermen's Terminal. Davy Rundall died in the Bering Sea in 2001.


Hundreds of people were on the wharf Sunday to honor those lost at sea working in this dangerous and iconic Pacific Northwest profession. Speaking in front of fishing boats floating on mirror-still water, and beneath a bronze-and-stone statue erected there in 1988 to honor the fishing trade, Breen described all fishers as heroes who risk their lives to provide us with food.

"We have created this sacred place, made sacred by their heroism and their deaths," he said. Family members, some weeping and holding each other, sat in folded chairs under a white canvas roof tent for the service. Others, some dressed in dark suits and some wearing work clothes or their best black leather motorcycle jackets, stood outside the red-roped area to show support.
Flowers and pictures of the deceased were placed around the statue where the new names have been engraved in metal to join nearly 700 local men and women who have died fishing over the past century.

Breen specifically lauded Capt. Eric Peter Jacobsen, the skipper of the Alaska Ranger, and his four crewmembers who died March 23 when the fish-processing vessel sank in the Bering Sea some 120 miles west of Dutch Harbor, Alaska. The precise circumstances of the tragedy are still under investigation by the Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board.

Noting that 42 crewmembers survived the sinking of the Alaska Ranger, Breen said there appears little question that Jacobsen took seriously his obligation to save his crew before himself.
"Their lives were given back to us by the heroism of the captain and his crew," the minister said. Jacobsen's family and friends, as well as others with ties to the Ranger crew, made up a large contingent of those gathered at the service Sunday. Many of them wept at Breen's words. Few desired to be interviewed.

"It was nice to see that so many people came," said Erica Tellez, Jacobsen's daughter. It's still difficult for the family to talk about the incident, Tellez said, but it helps to participate in an event that celebrates both the individuals who were lost and the Seattle fishing community.

"This is the best place for this memorial service, here within the heart and soul of the fishing community," said Sandy Phillips, a family friend and neighbor of the Jacobsens.
Not all of the names added this year to the base of the statue died this season. One of those was that of Ragnar Os, a local fisherman who died in 1965 but is only now being recognized.

The names are added based on applications from friends or family members, explained Rob Wood, the memorial board's president and a former fisherman who is now chief financial officer for Glacier Fish Co. (which had to rescue its own crew earlier this year when a 276-foot vessel in its fleet caught fire in the Bering Sea).
More than a dozen other names among those lost at sea over the years were read aloud at the service to recognize they had purchased engraved stone tiles near the statue. One Seattle fisherman frequently featured on the Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" show gave a substantial donation to the service this year, Wood said, in part because others in the community have been displeased with how the fishery is portrayed on the show.

Commercial fishing in the Bering Sea is one of the most dangerous jobs out there, Wood acknowledged, but most fishers do their best to operate as responsibly and as safely as possible. A report issued in late April by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found strong evidence to suggest the commercial fishing done off Washington, Oregon and California is much more dangerous than that in Alaska.

Analyzing fishing deaths from 2000-06, health officials found death rates to be twice as high among commercial fishers working the West Coast. The Northwest Dungeness crab fishers had the highest death rate of any fishery. The CDC suggested some of the safety measures that have reduced fatality rates in Alaska should be put into effect for Pacific Coast fisheries