New ebooks From Canadian Indies

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list price: $24.95
edition:Paperback
category: Biography & Autobiography
published: Mar 2024
ISBN:9781990776656
publisher: Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd.

Fried Eggs and Fish Scales

Tales from a Sointula Troller

by Jon Taylor

tagged: personal memoirs, cultural, ethnic & regional, fisheries & aquaculture
Description

Longtime fisherman and Sointula resident Jon Taylor dishes up hilarious yarns from his life off northern Vancouver Island.

Capturing the “rough but reasonable” freedom of Malcolm Island, situated off the northeast shore of Vancouver Island, Jon Taylor recounts the bizarre but enticing lifestyle of a fisherman and his remote community—“haywire tightwads” for skippers, rotten fish in the hold that become “three thousand humpies in a warm, pink soup,” and the kind of integrity you don’t often see.

Jon Taylor’s family history on Malcolm Island extends back to 1917, when Taylor’s Finnish grandparents planned to move to the community of Sointula, to live among fellow expats who shared a language and a dream. However, Taylor recounts, upon seeing the island they promptly changed their minds and moved to Cuba. Taylor himself moved to Malcolm Island in 1976 and became a steadfast resident, embracing the fishboat life, for better or worse, aboard seiners, gillnetters and his own troller. Taylor captures a classic but now-disappearing way of life in its heyday with his vibrant and amusing vignettes.

About the Author

Jon Taylor is a retired fisherman and boat builder who has lived outside Sointula, BC, on Malcolm Island, for many decades. He has been a lifelong writer of poetry, memoir, essays and fiction, and is also an avid musician.

Editorial Reviews

“Reading Fried Eggs and Fish Scales is like sitting in the warmth of a well-found fishing boat's wheelhouse, listening to a natural storyteller and philosopher recount his humorous and sometimes harrowing adventures as well as many memorable characters he has crossed wakes with.”

— R. Bruce Macdonald, author of <i>Never Say P*g: The Book of Sailors’ Superstitions</i>

“I used to have a jaded view that some commercial fishermen were lawless, tax-evading, hygienically-challenged boozers. Turns out I was right. Jon Taylor's collection of hilarious and thought-provoking stories would make any wharf-rat proud.”

— Randy Nelson, author of <i>The Wildest Hunt</i>
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