Episode 65: Portlock: The Silent Shore
The moss grows thick here. Thick enough that your footsteps don’t make a sound as you walk through what used to be Portlock. The beams of the old cannery jut up from the undergrowth like the ribs of some enormous beast, weathered gray and soft with rot. You can still see where the buildings stood—the school, the houses, the post office—but nature has been patient. Forty years patient. The alders have grown tall through floorboards. The salmonberries have claimed the doorways.
It’s quiet here. The kind of quiet that makes you notice your own breathing.
This is Portlock, Alaska. Or maybe I should say this was Portlock. Because while the place still exists—the bay still curves in that same protected crescent, the mountains still rise sharp and snow-covered behind—the life that once filled it is gone. Every last person who called this place home walked away. And they never came back.
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Meet Evan Swensen, your host for Episode 65: Portlock: The Silent Shore
Meet Evan Swensen, your host for Episode 61: Ghosts in the Goldfields.
Evan Swensen, book publisher, editor, author, and Author Masterminds charter member, along with his wife, Lois, publishes books by authors worldwide. He has been the publisher and editor of Alaska Outdoors magazine and producer of Alaska Outdoors television show and outdoor videos, and host of Alaska Outdoor Radio Magazine. He has been an Alaska resident since 1957.
As a pilot, he has logged more than 4,000 hours of flight time in Alaska, in both wheel and float planes. He is a serious recreation hunter and fisherman, equally comfortable casting a flyrod or using bait, or lures. Evan has been published in many national magazines and is the author of five books and publisher of more than 1,000 books by other authors.
Evan claims to have the best job in the world; he gets up in the morning, puts on his fishing vest, picks up his fly rod, kisses his wife goodbye, tells her he’s going to work—and she believes him.
Author Masterminds: https://authormasterminds.com/evan-swensen
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One Last Cast on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3H0OzTo
One Last Cast short video: https://youtu.be/2wzwWmim-2g
Alaska Outdoors https://alaskaoutdoorsmagazine.com.
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Alaska Outdoors Videos: https://bit.ly/37xjUzl