Dianne Herman
West Side Stories
These oral histories chart the personal stories of individuals with a longtime connection to the west side of Kodiak Island, defined for the scope of this project as the area buffeted by the Shelikof Strait that stretches from Kupreanof Strait south to the village of Karluk. The project endeavored to create historical primary source material for a region that lacks substantive documentation and engage west side individuals in the creation of that material.
Dianne Herman was interviewed by Anjuli Grantham on June 22, 2015, in Village Islands, Uganik Bay, Alaska, as part of the Kodiak Historical Society’s West Side Stories project. Dianne was born in Michigan in 1945, and after studying and traveling for a number of years, moved to Alaska in 1976 seeking adventure and wilderness. She wound up in Kodiak and began beach seining with locals at Packers Spit. She talks about the differences between beach seining and setnetting, tells colorful stories of well-known community characters, and her experiences with setnetting and the Uganik cannery, homesteading and housebuilding, and working the Iditarod. She notes the heavier prevalence of drinking and fighting in the past, and the change to more family-oriented sites in the present. She also touches on the positive impact of safety regulations after fatalities in the industry.
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