Fishing has been one of those things that I always thought I’d like to do, but never did. I grew up on the South Prairie Creek which, being a salmon spawning creek, was always closed during my childhood. There have been times when I’ve been invited to go, in fact I even did a bunch of printing for a guy who was going to be my guide on a fishing expedition, but it never happened and I guess I wasn’t too disappointed.

A year or two back I came by some pictures that were taken in and around Orting about 1889 to 1892. Who the photographer was I’ll probably never know, but Charles Blinn appears in several of them, and they came from his estate, via the estate of someone else in Michigan. There were pictures of them building the Stampede Tunnel, the pre-tunnel switchbacks, and bear hunters. Several pictures were taken in Orting. The houses in the background are still there! But perhaps the picture I likes the best was called “Salmon fishing in Orting 1892. In this picture we have a stream, perhaps Voights Creek, with a bridge over it, a box wagon such a vendor might use on the bridge along with a bunch of fishermen. The fishermen weren’t using conventional 21st century fishing tackle. No sir, they were using spears with barbs on them. Kind of like straightened gaff hooks. Anyway there are salmon hanging all over this picture. I’ve heard the stories of fish so thick you could walk across the stream without getting wet, well, this looks like it might have been the place. The print was so old and brittle that a lot of the emulsion had been chipped off. I had to do a lot of restoration in photoshop, including replacing one mans head. I used another guy in the picture for my model, so no if one looks close it looks like there are twins in the print. Anyway, it’s a delightful print and I really enjoy it.