IN 1989, SAM Woods was retraining for a career at North Seattle Community College.
He was also reading Mountain in the Clouds — A Search for Wild Salmon, considered the seminal book for the movement to remove the Elwha River dams.
Needing a topic for speech class, Woods decided to talk about what the salmon runs were like in the old days and how they had changed.
Then, he saw that the Seattle Aquarium was planning an event where people could make a charcoal rubbing of a giant Elwha salmon.
So he went down and made one, using the rubbing, which was 5 feet long, to illustrate his speech.
Then, he kept the rubbing, thinking that someday, he would like to have a sculpture made from it.
Last Saturday, Woods, a retired electrician who lives in Sequim, drove to the Sequim Farmers Market to pick up a carving of a giant Elwha king made from the rubbing by carver Steve Mangutz.
Crab, seafood festival
Woods plans to exhibit the replica at events, starting with the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival in Port Angeles in October.
“The idea is to show how big the kings were before the dams went in,” Woods said.
Woods commissioned the carving from Mangutz two months ago after seeing his work at the market.
For the wood, Mangutz went to the logging pile where he hauls trees that had been felled on his and spouse Cindy Mangutz’s property above Discovery Bay.
He chose a 12-foot-long slab of red cedar, 3 feet in diameter, that had been on top of the pile for three years.
It was what is called a hooked butt, meaning twisted, so not suitable for milling.
Following the lines of a template made from the rubbing, Mangutz started cutting away pieces using power tools and wedges.
Making the first cut, he said, is always an act of faith. But once he finds his focus, he just goes.
“Sometimes the wood has to help,”Mangutz said, “and it always does.”
It took him four days to complete the carving, Mangutz said, noting he does a lot of sanding to get the finish as smooth as possible.
Ripple pattern
The ripple pattern in the dorsal fin was created by the twist in the log, Mangutz said, and is serendipitous, echoing the pattern of rippling water.
Of the 30-plus salmon Mangutz has carved so far, the Elwha king is the largest.
“I like the girth of it,” he said of the salmon’s muscular body.
The Elwha River produced large salmon, Woods said, because the ascent to get to the spawning grounds is so steep.
As a result, only the strongest fish were able to reach the spawning grounds.
“It took them six years in the ocean to get big enough to make it,” he said.
The carving is based on a king salmon that weighed 126 pounds.
When I told my husband that, it reminded him of the Elwha salmon that Ernie Brannon Sr. used to show to groups at the Elwha Fish Hatchery in the 1970s.
Brannon kept a giant king salmon in the freezer and brought it out to illustrate talks.
The fish, which had freeze-dried over time, was probably one of the last of the giant kings to return to the river in the 1960s.
“It was nearly as tall as he was and weighed more than 100 pounds,” my husband said.
Brought down dams
Published in 1981, Mountain in the Clouds by Bruce Brown is now billed as “the book that brought down the Elwha dams.”
But whether the removal of the dams, which started last week, will result in the return of the giant kings is still subject to debate.
Woods is optimistic.
“The big question,” he said, “is are they going to come back while I’m still in good enough shape to catch them?”
The 55-pound carving, meanwhile, will travel around the Olympic Peninsula in the bed of Woods’ truck.
Mangutz rebuilt an old wooden dolly and gave it to Woods so he would have a way to transport and display the fish.
Woods hopes seeing the life-size carving will spark discussion about the issues surrounding dams, hatcheries and salmon restoration.
The carving also holds a lesson in ecology. Cedar is connected to the salmon’s life cycle: When the giant kings reached the headwaters of the Elwha River, their spawned-out carcasses fertilized trees growing along the riverbank.
Woods, who has other salmon sculptures inside and outside his house, said he hasn’t thought about taking the Elwha king to schools for education talks.
Because, as he admits: “I never did become much of a public speaker.”
Steve Mangutz accepts commissions for large carvings. For more information, phone 360-531-4057 or email cindymangutz@gmail.com.
The Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival is Oct. 8 and 9 in Port Angeles.
For more information, visit www.crabfestival.org.
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Jennifer Jackson writes about Port Townsend and Jefferson County every Wednesday. To contact her with items for this column, phone 360-379-5688 or email jjackson@olypen.com.
