Turning the tide through the written word
Fisherpoet tells tales of
his life as a fisherman
BY RAY GARCIA
Toby Sullivan became a commercial
fisherman at 19 years old and has worked in
the industry for 45 years.
Native to South Windsor, Connecticut,
Sullivan left the East Coast seeking adven-
ture. After hitchhiking across the U.S, he
ran out of money in Kodiak, Alaska; a place
he and his family have called home ever
since.
At the time of Sullivan’s arrival, the
Kodiak King Crab Fishery was experienc-
ing a boom, creating a surplus of jobs and
drawing in fishermen, far and wide. With
empty pockets and a strong work ethic, Sul-
livan joined the crab fishing business and
became a deckhand on a boat named The
Gladys.
“I was really young and real green, I
didn’t know what I was doing,” he said.
With each fishing trip lasting between
three or four months during winter, Sulli-
van found himself face-to-face with one
of the most unpredictable environments
in the world: the Bering Sea. Due to sub-
zero temperatures and, on average, 40-foot
tall waves, fishermen had to always be sit-
uationally aware, even during periods of
sleep, Sullivan said.
In the early ‘80s, Sullivan bought a
salmon permit hoping to swap between crab
fishing in the winter and salmon set-netting
in the summer. On his first salmon fishing
trip, accompanied by his younger brother
and a friend, Sullivan trekked to Uganik
Bay on the western shores of Kodiak Island.
“The salmon fishing, to us, that sum-
mer was like we died and gone to heaven,”
he said. “The contrast between the Ber-
ing Sea in the winter and Uganik Bay in the
summer was pretty amazing. There’s a real
difference.”
Sullivan still goes salmon fishing but
has stopped crabbing — though that hasn’t
stopped him from writing nonfiction stories
and poems adapted from his experiences
out at sea.
Sullivan received a bachelor’s degree
in English from the University of Alaska
Anchorage and a master’s degree in cre-
ative writing from Antioch University in
Los Angeles. His academic background
further advanced his writing craft and
See Page 7
Toby Sullivan’s ‘When Crab Was King’ portrait.
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Sullivan and his son, Abraham, sail across Uganik Bay in 1996.