I came across this book in the Fish and Wildlife Service office when I was stationed down in Katmai/King Salmon for a search and rescue event this summer. After walking the halls of the office late one night admiring the unbelievable photos and moving prose that adorned the walls of the hallway, I had to ask where they had all come from.
As it turns out, all of the photos and text clippings came from this book. Perhaps it has been mentioned here before, but in case not, it is well worth a look and read.
A few bits from the book.
"Mature, they awaken to the call of their natal waters, and follow clues subtle and disparate as magnetic fields and the bouquet of stones to the streams of their birth to spawn and die. Loving and dying in home ground is a primordial urge. Salmon embody this for us, our own loving deaths at home in the world. Salmon dwell in two places at once, in our hearts and in the waters, and they know the way home."
"The salmon weaves through the life stories of nature's creatures and becomes the food, the sustenance, the life for fish, birds, mammals, and man. And after the salmon dies, the threads of the web continue to be spun, as the flesh breaks down in the basic nutrients needed by all life to survive. In thousands of streams and bays around the Pacific Rim, the salmon come no more. When the salmon disappear, the birds, the bears, orcas, and other creatures do too. And the web breaks."
"The community of salmon can still be found in the dreams of our youth and in the whispers in our hearts and in the faded memories of a time before the raging rivers were dammed, the vast forests cut, and the views of mountains blocked by city skylines. If we try, we will remember when we lived closer to the earth. We will remember and then we will wonder why we have journeyed so far from home."
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