Ron Charles & Josh Wisniewski

Ron Charles is a member of the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe and a life-long resident of his tribe’s reservation. He was born in 1943 at the Indian hospital on the Tulalip Reservation. Ron served four years in the U.S. Navy. He served as his tribe’s chairman from 1973 to 1987 and again from 1999 to 2009. Ron recalls digging clams as a young boy to earn spending money and had a long career as a gill net fisherman beginning in 1976. Ron was extensively involved in implementing the Boldt Decision and has always been a fierce protector of his tribe’s treaty rights. Though retired, Ron remains involved in several tribal committees as an advisor on fisheries issues and is often seen hanging gill nets for his tribe’s treaty fishermen.

Josh Wisniewski is an anthropologist and commercial fisherman. He has worked with the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe on several historical research projects since 2011. Other recent projects include Beyond the Breakwater, a collection of fishermen oral histories from across the Gulf of Alaska, archived by the American Folklife Center. He lives with his wife, Marissa, in Seldovia, Alaska. Fishing together, they set net for salmon, jig and pot fish for cod, and long line for halibut on their beloved FV Sable in their home waters of Kachemak Bay and Lower Cook Inlet.