Lou Ureneck's BACKCAST in Seattle Times

"Backcast" | A father's promise, a boy's reward

By Susan Gilmore
The Seattle Times, Thursday, December 6, 2007

"Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-Fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska"
by Lou Ureneck
St. Martin's Press, 304 pp., $24.95

There must be an easier way for a father to reconnect with his teenage son after a failed marriage than spending thousands of dollars to go to the remote regions of Alaska on a fishing trip.

But then, Lou Ureneck was a fisherman. No matter that he'd never been to Alaska before, and the fact his son was not exactly a willing companion.

Years earlier, when he was on a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University and his son was living with him, Ureneck and his son were sitting at the kitchen table tying trout flies and talking about fishing: "Adam, tell you what. When you graduate from high school, that summer, we'll go fishing in Alaska."

It was an expensive, extravagant promise; with gear, airfare, lodging and guides, it would cost the equivalent of a semester's tuition at a private college.

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