I’m going to start this by saying I was pretty lucky in getting to know Doug Dixon.
If you live in Ballard or were ever involved in the fishing or Norwegian communities here in Seattle–which often overlapped–you knew Doug Dixon. Doug was a total character. He was one of those guys that, if you met him, you would never forget him.
For as long as I knew Doug, he was the General Manager of Pacific Fishermen, also known as Pac Fish, the shipyard in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, where some of the most famous fishing vessels went to be serviced. The Virginia 5, those boats you’ve seen on TV’s “Deadliest Catch”, and so on.
But besides running the business side of things at the shipyard, he turned it into a combination museum, gathering place and event venue.
As Ballard businesses went under over the years, Doug was quick to snap up a sign from that soon-to-be-history establishment. For now, those signs from places like Ponti’s, the Yankee Roaster, Coppergate and Crown Hill Hardware decorate the entrance of the shipyard, all thanks to Doug’s efforts. There’s talk of the new G.M. not being fond of those signs. I sure hope they stay.
Doug also turned the shipyard into a gathering place, where if he had something to discuss or just wanted buddies to hang out with him at the end of another day, you’d find yourself invited to arrive around 3pm for “Scotch & Cigars!” When Doug semi-retired as the General Manager, he left his main office and relocated to another one in a loft across the parking lot. If you made the guest list, you’d see some of his regulars and whatever business was conducted was done so in a smoke-filled room, with bottles of Scotch on the table, a container of ice and reinforcements along with empties on the wall. I think everyone present knew to cherish this arrangement, as the days of gathering to smoke cigars and drink at work were fading fast.
Doug also made the Pacific Fishermen shipyard the go-to place for gatherings of 100+ people. Even if the weather didn’t cooperate, there were covered areas. On the really nice days, you’d find yourself along the waterfront and maybe you’d wander over and see the ships they had been working on lately. Almost every event I attended at Pac Fish involved that mouth-watering alder-smoked salmon that the crew had perfected. It’s exactly what you can also enjoy at the annual Ballard Seafoodfest.
Over the years, Doug hired me to produce various videos for Pacific Fishermen, including one on the time that Norway’s King Harald visited. I had a press pass that allowed me quite a bit of access as the King visited Ballard that day, including at the shipyard. Hard to believe that was already 9 years ago.
Now, a reminder that I’m a radio guy and only recently (within the last 20 years or so) did I start to dabble in the world of video production. Doug reached out to me quite a bit over the years for projects that allowed me to hone those skills. One of our annual traditions was to meet up for the annual Pacific Marine Expo (formerly known as “Fish Expo”).
Doug and I would rendezvous at the show, I’d shoot a bunch of b-roll, interview him and then put it all together in a video for Pac Fish. Geeze, we started doing them in 2014 and continued all the way up until the pandemic canceled the show in 2020.
My favorite in our collection was this one from 2018, where Doug just let me have fun.
This past year, when the Expo rolled around in November, Doug had said he would meet me down there once again to shoot another classic. I arrived, grabbed the b-roll, hung out for a couple of hours…but Doug never showed. To be honest, I was kind of ticked. Like I had nothing better to do than wander around, collect footage and then have nothing to produce.
Several days later, Doug let me know he was in the hospital.
I never saw Doug again. The word in the community was that he had received bad medical news. The next thing you know, we found out he was in hospice and while he saw a few people, he preferred everyone just text him to say hi.
So, there I was, wanting to send a note, not sure of what to say. I mean, if you know your time is running out, do you want people texting you to say, “So sorry you haven’t got long.” So, I wrote what I hoped would bring a smile to his face.
Yeah, Doug, just had to get in one more dig. That was SO Doug. Relocating over to the Peninsula, Doug’s beachfront home had a line-shot to the Everett radio station that I recently worked for and he had become quite a regular listener during my final days of radio.
It won’t be hard to think of Doug this coming Friday, the 17th of May, also known as Norwegian Constitution Day. Since before Washington was a state, the Ballard area has held a 17th of May Parade every year and I have been lucky enough to have been a parade announcer for the past decade. It’s always a big party and this year, with it falling on a Friday, hang on.
But someone who was a very big part of the Norwegian community–even though he wasn’t Norwegian; like me, he married into it–will be missing. When I think of Doug and that day, I flashback to a Syttende Mai parade a few years back when Doug decided to drive his “Deadliest Sweeper” (a street sweeper, decked out in a “Deadliest Catch” theme) and maybe, just perhaps, he had a few too many soda pops. He accidentally crashed into a car at the end of the parade, but fortunately, no one was hurt and the guy who owned the car was a member of Norwegian Commercial Club, so they worked it all out.
The last thing I’ll share about Doug is that there was a time when the producers of “The Deadliest Catch” approached him about doing a reality show based on happenings at the shipyard. They even shot the pilot episode but, the story goes, that Doug couldn’t reach an agreement with the producers. He felt they should have offered more for the opportunity and so the show was scrapped. Fortunately, he shared that pilot episode with me, so I could share it with you.
Talk about a guy who made it count. My biggest hope, Doug, is that you’re feeling all the care and love from the people you left behind. You are seriously missed.
Mental man hugs!
Tim Hunter