Remembering Jeffry Gottfried: “Roll On Jeff, Roll On”
On Monday, July 8th, the Pacific Northwest's wild fish community and environmental advocates everywhere lost Jeffry Gottfried. Jeff was an original NFS member and longtime volunteer, who embodied the knowledgeable and effusive advocate for the natural world that we strive to both serve and nurture at the Native Fish Society. Jeff loved nature and knew it well. From plants to native fish, birds, ecology, and geology - he was a spring of encyclopedic knowledge. And that knowledge was always pressed through a filter of passion and wonder - always presented as a gift to be shared.
Last summer, Jeff, our mutual friend Ken Anderson, and I went fishing in the upper Klamath Basin. We were on another native fish quest, seeking the elusive black drake hatch and the basin’s renowned native redband trout. We stayed in a primitive cabin without electricity and only wood heat located more than an hour from the small town of Chiloquin. We arrived late and relished in the total darkness of the landscape and the wash of Milky Way stars overhead. The next day as we ate breakfast, drove to the boat ramp, and fished, Jeff pointed out wrens, finches, and thrushes and we watched the swallows duck and dive above the mirrored surface of the river as they hunted black drakes.
Despite the picture-perfect conditions - sun, billowing clouds, and the occasional warm rain - and Jeff’s diligent, heron-like fishing, we only managed two fish that day. And they were large non-native brown trout. To Jeff and my satisfaction - for native fish conservation, of course - we kept both of these brown trout, improvising a container for the fish from an empty bag of tortilla chips. As a result, the fish were marinated in salt and grease and were delicious that evening on the grill. Wait a minute!? Fly fisherman harvesting trout - how taboo! But with Jeff, there was a deep and committed understanding to the reality of the situation - removing a large, predatory non-native fish would undoubtedly help the native redband populations in the Klamath basin. So that’s what we did.
The next day all the fish we found along a beautiful stretch of the Williamson River were native upper Klamath basin redband trout. Each one was admired before carefully letting them go on their way.
One of Jeff’s native fish passions was the Cutthroat trout, which is found across the American west in thirteen subspecies. To many of us, just the notion of so many different cutthroat trout is a challenge to wrap our heads around. For Jeff, the local adaptation of these fish was part of an even longer geological history of the North American continent. He would relay that three to five million years ago a common Cutthroat trout ancestor swam east from the Pacific Ocean up the Columbia and Snake rivers to mountain streams where they were isolated over great periods of time due to landslides, floods, and the uplift of mountain ranges. Through Jeff’s depth of knowledge, he would knit together complex details into a story that illuminated the fact that native trout are a way of understanding and connecting directly with this long and evolving story of life on our continent.
Near his family home on the Oregon Coast, Jeff would pursue Coastal Cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii) a fish so nice, he’d remind me, they named it twice. Jeff loved fishing the estuaries and streams for these native trout and would as readily tell stories about the fish he caught as the ones he lost and even the perfect drifts that yielded nothing.
Jeffry knew people as well as he knew nature. I found this combination of traits - closeness to nature and people in a single person exceptionally rare. He would bring forward information, stories, and experiences that would connect and make people light up.
For 45 years, Jeff worked as a science and environmental educator, museum director, and researcher. Jeff's experience included acting as Chief of Education and Public Programs at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, Vice President for Science Education at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, and Founder, Director and Lead Guide of Educational Recreational Adventures. At OMSI, Jeff founded "Salmon Camp" a National Science Foundation funded youth fisheries research team. Taken together, Jeff’s impact on youth, the environment, and native fish has been tremendous. Students of his have gone on to careers in science and academia where they’re working as the next stewards, educators, and interpreters of our natural world.
About two months ago I visited with Jeff at his home in southwest Portland. He invited me into a space that reflected a lifetime of learning, art, adventure, fishing, boats, archery, and fellowship. He popped a cassette tape into a player and disappeared outside to visit with another friend who had stopped by to say hello. The recording was from 2002 when Native Fish Society hosted an event with Northwest writer David James Duncan.
The hour-long pinwheeling story session moved from the funny, to the serious - mixing the two in a potent cocktail. The event closed down as all attendees joined in a sing-a-long of Woody Guthrie’s “Roll On Columbia, Roll On” as rewritten by David James Duncan to honor the Columbia River, scorn the dams, and bust Woody’s spirit out of purgatory for writing the original version, which venerates the Bonneville Power Administration. Jeff came back into the kitchen, singing along with the chorus as the tape quieted down. "Let’s get this out to the NFS membership!" Jeff said. And we will Jeff - just as soon as I hear back from David James Duncan!
The final time I spoke with Jeff was a few weeks ago. He took my call despite being in his hospice bed surrounded by friends and family. I’d learned to play the David James Duncan version of “Roll On Columbia” and we sang all the verses together over the phone while I strummed the guitar. Jeff said, wry as he always was, “With a little more practice (and maybe a singing lesson), you might be able to sing this in public.” We had a good laugh.
I am so grateful for Jeffry’s friendship and his passion, knowledge, and advocacy for native fish. I know that he would want me to share with you that what we’re doing at Native Fish Society - bringing people together to learn about the importance of rivers and native fish and advocate on their behalf (really on behalf of all of us wild animals in need of clean water and healthy rivers) - is deeply important work that he cared about and wants you to get more involved in if you so wish.
Thank you, Jeffry, for all you’ve done to inspire and teach us about the infinitely interesting natural world that surrounds and sustains us!
Visit here to learn more about Jeffry's work as a Native Fish Society Fellow.
