book closely follows the construction, maintenance and armament history of these island fortresses. If you are a military history enthusiast traveling to one of these places, this book would be a fantastic companion for visiting any of these sites. With book in hand, you will not need a tour guide! Graham McKay Newburyport, Massachusetts Alaska Codfish Chronicle: A History of the Pacific Cod Fishery in Alaska by James Mackovjak (University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks, 2019, 559pp, illus, maps, notes, biblio, index, isbn 978-1-60223389-8; $29.95pb) We all remember the big splash by Mark Kurlansky’s 1998 New York Times and International bestseller, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. That book brought overflowing attention to commercial fishing and a pivotal thousand-year economic enterprise that did much to shape the Atlantic world. Today, however, the vast majority of cod comes from the North Pacific, one of the world’s largest commercial fisheries and among the last wild food sources on Earth. James Mackovjak’s new book, Alaska Codfish Chronicle: A History of the Pacific Cod Fishery in Alaska, is a much-needed examination of the entire industry from native fishing practices, through the age of sailing ships and salt cod, to today’s complex fish processing technology and regulatory resource management. It is an engaging story with broad appeal, as both a popular history narrative as well as an essential reference for researchers studying the history and present-day evolutions of this multi-billiondollar industry. Alaska Codfish Chronicle is a seminal contribution to this multifaceted subject. Although a few other books on the Pacific cod fishery are available, they are far less comprehensive and are focused on specific narratives, such as Captain Ed Shields’s wonderful photographic memoir Salt of the Sea: The Pacific Coast Cod Fishery and the Last Days of Sail (2001) or memoirs of codfishing voyages aboard the big schooners, as in Russ Hofvendahl’s very entertaining Hard On the Wind (2004). Most of the contextual information on the industry, 60
ecology, and the data so useful to researchers in conducting reasoned analysis is scattered throughout hundreds of other periodicals, government and corporate records, and council reports spanning more than a century. In Alaska Codfish Chronicle, James Mackovjak has done a very fine job of gathering together those hundreds of sources, analyzing their import, and synthesizing a carefully researched and thoroughly supported narrative. He presents much astute analytical insight into the twists and turns of the industry, extracting the economic, technological, or biological realities from the data and the many smokescreens put forward a century ago by failing fishing enterprises, all energetically placing blame for their misfortunes.
Covering a topic as large and complex as the Pacific cod fishery is a real challenge, but Mackovjak skillfully navigates the topic, sharply defines the elements of this subject, breaks it down into clear and very logical subsections, and concisely conveys the complex dynamics of this industry over time. The sub-headings alone provide a narrative that keeps the reader aware of how each part of this manuscript fits within the broader narrative of the industry. This was particularly important in discussing the convoluted mechanics of the relatively recent fleetwide rationalization programs to form a structure that keeps the
reader oriented in a complicated subject that could easily set a person adrift. Mackovjak’s clear organization makes the subject understandable and enables researchers to quickly locate relevant material within the text. This is also facilitated by a delightfully thorough index, enabling subsequent researchers to hunt for specific nuggets of historical information. The text is wonderfully thorough without feeling overloaded. I was pleased to find that in every instance when I questioned or thought of something that had been overlooked, it was addressed in the next paragraph or on the next page. It is clear that he has mastery of his subject as well as the skill to relate it to a broad audience. He is no greenhorn, after all. James Mackovjak has also published books about the Alaska coastal logging industry and the Aleutian freight business, which won him a Pathfinder Award from the Alaska Historical Society in 2013. Alaska Codfish Chronicle is not restricted solely to historical narratives, however, and Mackovjak’s attention to developing issues in the industry today, such as sustainability, climate change, and lowemission freezer-longliners, makes this publication extremely relevant in our own time. It is indeed a chronicle of the past and present, and a look to the future, with emphasis on the forces shaping each era. Alaska Codfish Chronicle covers a sorely understudied arena of Pacific maritime history. The bold, and often brash, pioneering endeavors of trappers, fishermen, and loggers in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska that laid the foundation of the region as it is today were seldom chronicled in any detail, let alone carefully analyzed. Given the state of world fisheries today, it is also a story of major global importance. As a maritime historian, commercial fisherman, and a former maritime museum director overseeing the legacy of two prominent Pacific cod fishing vessels (the lumber and fishing schooner Wawona of 1897 and the halibut schooner Tordenskjold of 1911), I found reading this long-needed chronicle very gratifying. The Pacific cod fishery is a spectacular tale, imbued with a similar spirit as the Alaska Gold Rush or the Westward Migration ashore. It is a fascinating and enjoyable story and I expect that—as SEA HISTORY 175, SUMMER 2021