Last night I went to see Sig Hansen talk about his memoir "North by Northwestern: A Seafaring Family on Deadly Alaskan Waters" (written with Mark Sundeen) in part because Michael Harthorne, sole reporter for the Ballard News-Tribune was going to be at the Youth and Family Initiative meeting instead. I stayed because it was fascinating.
The hall was full. Doug Warne of The Scandinavian Hour managed to interrupt even expansive Sig Hansen to make a pitch for joining the Sons of Norway. "We used to be members," Hansen said.
"Join again." Warne replied.
I've never seen so many real fisherman in one place before, and to my maternal horror there were also many children in attendance. Evidently the Discovery Channel "bleeps" Sig's profanities. In person this doesn't happen (the kids looked unfazed, I was in shock). One woman did ask, "What does your mother think about your using all these f-bombs?"
Both brothers looked over at their beaming, still beautiful mother and said, "She used to it. Keep in mind she had three idiot boys in the house, four including our dad." Sig admitted, "She didn't have it easy, believe me. We had more cars in the driveway, parts everywhere. Hell, my brother Norman had a still in his closet."
An audience member asked Sig about the time he drove a car off a cliff. His brother Edgar, ever the seeming straight man but with a perfect dose of sarcasm added, "I think we all did stuff like that but we just don't brag about it like he does."
Often answering audience questions by saying, "It's in the book. Read the book" Sig Hansen's drink was often replenished by a blond in the front row. He claimed to be drinking vodka and coca-cola, also known as "Norwegian Champagne."
While a line formed for his book-signing, Sig Hansen disappeared. I waited a bit by the table stacked with books to get a photo for Michael until it dawned on me that if Sig wasn't in the men's room then he was outside having a smoke. ("I gotta quit smoking," he'd said earlier.) Sure enough, speaking Norwegian with another fisherman and still shadowed by a film crew (who where those guys?) Sig Hansen was in front of the lodge with other smokers.
I got my photo and went home to write up some notes before bed. Read that piece here, if only because the photo image deserves to be seen in full pixels.
In my favorite moment of the one-of-kind open bar Sons of Norway book signing a little girl in pink asked the brothers, "How big is King Crab?"
Brothers Edgar and Sig Hansen