Here’s Walt talking about his first dive. He’d gone to Alaska to watch the deep-sea divers work, maybe interview a few and write articles based on that experience. He did not expect to work as a diver for an entire summer, inspecting fishing traps and salvaging underwater wreckage.
In this clip, Walt describes feeling the weight of the entire ocean on his chest, the thrill of diving, and what it was like to sink down into the depths of an Alaska sea, never knowing what he might encounter below. These diving experiences went on to inspire Walt’s 1971 book, Deep Trouble, about a teenaged boy in Alaska diving traps, encountering sharks, and finding himself at the brink of Alaska statehood. Deep Trouble weaves Walt’s adoration for the state and its people with real experiences from his own dives. (Quintessential Walt Morey at 3:50)
In this recording he refers to a fellow diver named Virgil. Virgil Burford was a friend of Walt’s who’d brought him to Alaska to live and work, and to tell the stories of divers, fishermen and Alaskans. They wrote a book together in 1969, North to Danger, about life in Alaska. They wrote several pulp stories and magazine articles. Virgil Burford was lost at sea while diving during a storm.
These diving experiences went on to inspire Walt’s 1971 book, Deep Trouble, about a teenage boy in Alaska diving traps, encountering sharks, and finding himself at the brink of Alaska statehood. Deep Trouble weaves Walt’s adoration for the state and its people with real experiences from his own dives. He dedicated Deep Trouble to his old friend:
To Virgil Burford—
who disclosed to me
the world beneath the sea