“Kate and Mark”

Producer: R.A. Beattie

RA Beattie’s short film about the relationship between Alaskan guide Mark Rutherford and his daughter Kate is one of the first of the young filmmaker’s high-quality productions. It tells a heartwarming story about the bonds created between parent and child as they fly fish and guide in the Alaska wilderness.

Beattie tells the story behind “Kate and Mark:”

“In July of 2006 Mark Rutherford, of Wild River Guides, and I were dropped at the headwaters of an un-run tributary of the Upper Nushigak River in Bristol Bay Alaska. We were strangers. We had only spent the last 20 hours together before this point, but had created enough trust during a winter of phone conversations to attempt a dangerous endeavor: a first descent of a virtually unknown river. Our trip was a monumental success, but did not come easy. We struggled through a twelve-hour portage from our landing pond to the headwaters, fought hypothermia during viscous storms, sustained almost entirely on salmon (which were sometimes difficult to find), and managed to capture some astounding footage.

Fast forward to the summer of 2007 and we are back at it again, this time completing a second descent of a tributary of The Good News River (Mark has the original 1st descent), where we completed nearly 60 miles before our rendezvous with the float plane. We called this our ‘warm up’ for the real adventure, our return to the river we floated the year before. Our goal was to return to our first descent river to complete filming, this time bringing a larger group consisting of Kate Rutherford (Mark’s daughter), Mike Cuseo (my filming partner) and Mike Schaefer (noted photographer and Kate’s boyfriend). We completed yet another successful descent of the river and captured the epic journey in high definition. The short film titled ‘Kate and Mark’ is a byproduct of the larger film that could be released late July… but we are planning one more first descent in the region, on a river we consider to be a bit more dangerous but with more prolific fish returns….

To learn more about our travels take a look at Mark Rutherford’s detailed trip reports found at www.wildriverfish.com.”