Those of us lucky to have been able to spend time in Newport, Or., probably know this boat in the picture below, even if they don’t know much about her. Her name is the Helen McCall, and she was an unusual boat for these parts; she had been built to participate in the Maine sardine fishery, but somehow her owners had made their way to the Pacific. She’s a wooden boat and I’m not sure when she was built, but it was a long time ago, especially by the standards of how long wooden boats last.
She hasn’t fished in awhile and now she’s out of the water, continuing to deteriorate. The hull will be burned one of these days and piece of Oregon fisheries history will be gone.
But we’ll have these pictures, and the other pictures on this page as well, because all sorts of people are interested in fisheries history and one of them is an Oregon State University history senior with a passion for both boats and history. As Tyler Fields puts it:
Frames with Frames, Sheers in Shots, and Lines through lenses
