“Between fish, my father and I, two men who are as comfortable with each other’s voice as we are with each other’s silences, talk about the purpose of things, and how everything fits into the overall design.”

This book is like no memoir you’ve ever read. Paul Rath writes with the soul of a poet, his prose alive with vibrant images and metaphors that capture the raw beauty and challenges of fishing for white fish in the frigid November air – “when the wind takes us into her cold mouth, and crunches us between her teeth. Her cold makes our eyes freeze – until they feel like stones, frozen in their sockets of mud ...” Yet this no mere fish story. As much as this book is about fishing, it is even more about relationships. Fishing with My Fathers explores the deep bonds that form between men of the earth, between men and the land and the water and the creatures that feed their spirits. Rath, the eldest son of a Lutheran pastor, pays homage to his father and tribute to the men who shaped and challenged him, even as he claimed his own space and place in their lineage.

With wonderful humour and genuine sensitivity, he regales the reader with tales of his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, as well as of his mentors – of the men who taught him how to grow up, how to control his emotions, how to work, how to grow his spirit, how to love, as well as how to fish.

Paul D. Rath is a Canadian who was born in Brazil to Lutheran missionaries Ernest and Crystal Rath. When he was five his parents brought him home to Canada. He has lived in the Peace River country of Northern Alberta, the Okanagan Valley, and Victoria. He currently lives with the catch of his life, his wife, Lisa, in the uppermost northwest corner of British Columbia, above Haines, Alaska, where the mountains are many and the people are few. Rath studied creative writing at the University of Victoria and graduated with a B.A. in 1980. He has worked as a grocer, a letter carrier, a life insurance salesman, and is now retired from the Canada Border Services Agency, which he served in both Osoyoos and as a supervisor in Prince Rupert. Rath is a contributing writer for What’s Up Yukon, an arts and entertainment magazine, in which he shares his passion for stories about fishing, community life, and whatever else is happening along the Haines Highway in Alaska, British Columbia, and the Yukon. He is also working on a book of family stories for his grandchildren. To say Rath is an avid fisherman is a gross understatement. Besides fishing for white fish, kokanee, perch, and trout in the Okanagan Valley, he has caught salmon, halibut, and steelhead on the Pacific North Coast; as well as bluegills and sunfish in the U.S. Paul has caught muskellunge on Lake Sinclair with Detroit visible in the distance; pike (or jackfish) in Alberta, Ontario, and Great Slave Lake; pickerel in Georgian Bay and in Alberta; sailfish off the coast of Costa Rica, while dolphins danced around him; and mahi mahi and barracuda off the coast of the Dominican Republic. When Rath is not fishing or writing, he is tending to his garden or fussing over his grand composting adventure.