Saltwater Women at Work

Alice Kidd is an editor with The New Catalyst editorial collective in
Lillooet, B.C.

What a great book! Through words and photos, Vickie Jensen gives us
vivid pictures of life on the water. Rather than address head-on the
issues of women in nontraditional work, the book starts and ends with
personal accounts. The blending of many women’s voices seems to accent
common themes and yet draws out in counterpoint the details of
individual experience.

Private- and public-sector work; transportation of machinery, goods,
and people; tourism; resource harvesting; and research are all covered
in the book’s three main sections: “Work Boats,” “Fishing
Boats,” and “The Realities of Working on the Water.” The same
themes keep recurring: the attractions of the sea-going lifestyle; the
ways to become a saltwater woman (through luck, family, training, and/or
a man); the challenges of the physical work. There is encouragement here
for women to take hold of opportunities to be themselves, to demonstrate
their capabilities through action, not words. Although there is
acknowledgment that cramming people into small quarters under stressful
and often-dangerous conditions over long periods of time can be
problematic, we also learn that it is possible for men and women who are
working together in new ways to coexist successfully. For some families,
life on the water is a way of life passed on from generation to
generation.

This is not a book to read piecemeal: only when it is read as a whole
can its full impact be felt. These saltwater women are strong, capable,
and very real—wonderful role models for the next generation. As I
turned the last page, I was sure I could smell the salt tang and hear
the keening of seabirds in the distance.