Trygvie Jensen

Author and photographer Trygvie Jensen is dedicated to preserving the history of an industry that once dominated the Great Lakes. Jensen grew up on Washington Island, ensconced in a rich Scandinavian heritage, strong family values, and working class community, giving him the tools necessary to create his two books about the commercial fisheries. Jensen is the author of Wooden Boats and Iron Men: A History of Commercial Fishing in Northern Lake Michigan and Door County 1850-2005. Jensen has completed his second book titled Through Waves and Gales Come Fishermen's Tales. The book contains many accounts and stories by the fishermen, including 180 pictures, illustrations, and a personal biography of the fishermen and their boats.

Commercial fishing was integral to many ports along the Lake Michigan and Lake Superior shorelines providing jobs and fresh fish to consumers. It was an important industry and livelihood to the people of the author's hometown Washington Island. During it's zenith, commercial fishing employed nearly half the island people, boasting at one time over forty gill net tugs and just as many fisheries.

This book will take you on a journey into the lives of the men and their families involved in a commercial fishery. The perilous adventures and colorful tales of the fishermen who put their lives in danger on the water will give you a porthole view of their lives on the Great Lakes. Interviews and reflections by the few remaining commercial fishermen documented in Through Waves and Gales Come Fishermen's Tales details a comprehensive oral history of the last century. Accounts and reflections of harrowing stories while caught in violent storms and ice shoves, along with strange occurrences and humorous stories, will captivate the reader's attention and provide insight into a day in the life of a commercial fisherman eeking out a living. More importantly, the book will give the reader a better understanding of what sort of challenges that commercial fishermen have endured over the last seventy years.