I had my first clue about what my life as a fisherman’s wife would be when I found myself chest deep in a stretch of Alaskan whitewater pushing an inflatable raft upstream. This was before Bill (the editor of this magazine) and I were married, when I was spending the summer in Alaska, backpacking in my usual quest for magnificent alpine scenery.
Bill was up for a few weeks and had popped the question several days earlier, fresh off a hike over Resurrection Pass on the Kenai Peninsula. I’d said yes, and now that he had me hooked, he had yanked me off the mountain. We were traveling by raft in the shrubby riparian lowlands and sleeping on gravel bars while he cast for king salmon.
Searching for a campsite one evening, we rounded a bend to
