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ASTORIA - The hundred-year history of Pacific Northwest salmon troll fishing will be featured in "Coming Home Was Easy - The West Coast Salmon Trollers," a new documentary which premieres in January.

The documentary will be shown at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 11 at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, and at 3 p.m. the next day at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. The program shows how, through a combination of adaptation and what the filmmakers call just plain stubbornness, trollers continue their way of life into the 21st century.

"Coming Home Was Easy" was sponsored by OSU Extension Sea Grant and is part of a community effort to preserve the maritime heritage of the Pacific Northwest.

The Clatsop County Oral History Fund sponsored the interviews. The script is by Margaret Hollenbach, a cultural anthropologist and writer who has covered marine fisheries issues for Pacific Fishing magazine. The music is by guitarist Dan Compton and other Northwest folk musicians: Creighton Lindsay, Susan Songer, George Penk, Clyde Curley and Mick Doherty. It features both newly filmed footage and archival film of trollers going about their difficult and dangerous work.

The taped recollections of 15 West Coast men and women grew from a series of oral history interviews begun in February 1992. The program is the second produced by Jim Bergeron and Lawrence Johnson, whose award-winning documentary "Work Is Our Joy - The Story Of The Columbia River Gillnetter" has been shown throughout the Northwest.

Salmon trolling is a hook-and-line fishery that supported West Coast families for most of the 20th century. Made up mostly of small boats with simple gear, the salmon trolling fleet sprang up after the invention of the seagoing gasoline engine around the turn of the century. Today, trollers follow the fish and the fishing seasons from Alaska to central California.

From the beginning, trolling attracted men and, later women, who loved their independence and weren't afraid of hard, physical, outdoor labor. The program title comes from an interview with Port Angeles troller Dave Peters describing the hard 10-day ocean trips to find and deliver the fish. "Coming home was easy," he said, "Going back was hard."

The documentary is available on videotape ($25 plus $3.50 postage) from Oregon Sea Grant Communications, Oregon State University, 322 Kerr Admin. Bldg., Corvallis, OR 97331-2131.

Producer Jim Bergeron grew up on a farm in northern Minnesota and went to college in that land-locked state. But after he graduated, he went to Corvallis to complete his education at OSU and his life has revolved around the sea ever since. He earned a master's degree in oceanography at OSU and completed all requirements for a doctorate in the subject except a thesis. He taught high school and oceanographic technology at Clatsop Community College and taught commercial fisheries courses at Kodiak Community College. After working in the fishing industry for several years, he took the position of Extension Sea Grant agent at Astoria, a position he held 27 years, until retiring in January 2002.

Director Johnson has been making documentary films and videos since 1983. His work in history and culture has received many awards. He writes and produces programming for museums across the country.