On an island off British Columbia, fishing and remembering
The Boston Globe - Travel - July 22, 2012
LANGARA ISLAND, British Columbia — The clouds and mist rendered the ocean’s surface indistinguishable from the air above. Below, a school of dark, inch-long needlefish was driven upward by predators, a crossover between worlds that looked like inky rain emerging from the sea.
We were a group of seven fathers, sons, and friends from Atkinson, N.H., who came to the Haida Gwaii, a nearly uninhabited archipelago off British Columbia’s west coast, to try some of the best sportfishing in the world. We were here to celebrate a friend. Our hometown hero, Marine Major Jeremy Graczyk, 33, died a year ago in an off-duty parachuting accident that sent his family into the lonely hell of losing their only son.
When it happened their relatives, friends, and community closed around them, trying to help with food and drink, space and companionship — all of which we hoped would be with us in abundance in Canada.
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