A two-page spread in Oregon Humanities Magazine was devoted to Linfield’s Dory Fleet Project, a two-year oral history project spearheaded by Professors Brenda DeVore Marshall, Tyrone Marshall, Jackson Miller and Kathleen Spring, along with students Casee Clark ’12, Chris Forrer ’13, Caitlyn Olson ’13 and Stephanie Raso ’13.
Pacific City, Ore., is home to one of the most unusual fishing fleets in the world, and one of the last of its kind. A dory fleet has been in the small coastal town for a century, with dory fishermen and women once numbering in the hundreds. Now the old-timers are passing on and the industry is in decline.
In a unique two-year project, students and professors from Linfield are preserving the voices and images of dory fishermen. Linfield students are eliciting stories about stray octopuses, the dangers of deep sea fishing, and fish the size of the anglers themselves.
They are also preserving the culture with posters and scholarly papers, and the Linfield Theatre and Communication Arts Department will create a dramatic script for a multi-media theatre production that will play to audiences in McMinnville and Pacific City.
The push to preserve the dory culture has been spearheaded by Linfield College, in partnership with the Pacific City Arts Association and the Pacific City Dorymen’s Association.
