The Fly Fisher and the River ─ A Memoir

On angling as a woman in the first half of the twentieth century.

Like fast moving currents, the fishing tales in The Fly Fisher and the River move us through a selection of Max Atherton's experiences both within rivers' waters as well as at their outer edges. They remind us that alongside the (then-) radical environmentalist-explorer part of her, there was a playful joie de vivre, someone who appreciated the company of good-looking, intelligent outdoorsmen. Even before her husband's death, Max enjoyed the attention she got as a fisherwoman. While she cherished a few female friendships, Max held the opinion that women did not generally engage their minds as much as they could and tended to settle for less in their lives than she was willing to. The men she likededucated, with leisure time to fishhad more freedom and could have adventures and talk about ideas, politics, and the intricacies of fly fishing. This refined form of angling provided an escape from the mundane, and Max enjoyed the adrenaline rush of fishing and camping in the great outdoors as much as the meditative quiet time in nature. Her expertise provided the entree she needed to thrive in a man's worlda fact reflected in her writing about the joys of casting her lines into one river after another.

Maxine Atherton learned to fish with her father and attended the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) where she met her future husband, John Atherton, the renowned painter and illustratorand avid angler. After John’s untimely death in 1952 while fishing on the Miramichi in New Brunswick, Max embarked on an extended angling adventure in France and Spain that led to many more adventures over the next four decades. In 1962 Max publishedEvery Sportsman’s Cookbook. She spent her last years writing in Manchester, Vermont, and died in January 1997.

Catherine Varchaver is the granddaughter of Maxine Atherton and senior stewardship officer at World Wildlife Fund’s headquarters in Washington, DC where she writes extensively about global conservation programs to inspire individual philanthropy. Catherine received her bachelor’s from Oberlin College in Ohio, master’s in teaching from the School for International Training in Vermont, and certification as a holistic nutrition counselor at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in New York. Catherine and her son, Sasha Tidwell, live in Takoma Park, Maryland.