Monday, February 24, 2014

Chase Exploration 5


The profile picture for Percy Brigham is a close up side profile of his face. He has almost no real expression which led me to assume he is thinking about either something he sees or has in his head. Above him there is a few wooden boards resembling either his house or possibly an old indian fish-netting shelter along a river.


After the Celilo Falls was halted due to construction of a dam, Brigham said it took him about ten years before he could revisit the falls. However, he portrays the theme of creativity because rather than quitting fishing entirely, he chose to fish for sturgeon instead of salmon. He also gave up his platform for a boat to fish in. For most of the profile you see a man that was torn and struggling to adapt to the new times or environment. I believe having the ability to adapt to new was something Percy needed but later showed at the end.


Out of the three choices of eccentric, vissionary, or dreamer, I would say Percy Brigham is recognized best as a dreamer. After the construction of The Dalles Dam, he was saddened by losing his ability to fish salmon which resulted in him changing to fishing for sturgeon. Rather then him having a desire to fish sturgeon, it seemed he was more forced to. Therefore, I believe his dream was always to fish salmon but he has accepted reality and is moving forward.

My favorite part of this profile was the last two paragraphs talking about how after the construction he eventually did indeed recover from his sorrow and fished sturgeon under new circumstances. Then in the last paragraph, we learn that he eventually did get back to his dream of platform fishing for salmon. I enjoyed these paragraphs the best because most of the profile we hear about his pain but eventually learn that he was able to move forward and in fact relive his dream of fishing salmon.

1 comment:

  1. Chase, I see stoicism in Percy's gaze. To me that is also in Roberta Blackgoat's expression and I think native Americans have had to weather a lot of trouble and change. It's ironic to me that they were regulated for their "unsafe" fishing practices and land practices, and now we have all these ecological issues stemming from our supposedly more efficient and technological use of the land and natural resources. I think they probably had it right in the first place and we could learn a lot from their cultures and the way they used plants and animals sustainably. Good post!

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