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Reviews

Inspiring the Residents of "Salmon Nation"

Salmon Nation: People, Fish, and Our Common Home. Edward C. Wolf, Seth Zuckerman, eds. ISBN 0967636418. Portland, OR: Ecotrust, 2003. (Updated edition of 1999 Salmon Nation: People and Fish at the Edge.)

It's hard to think of a more fitting symbol of the Pacific Northwest than salmon, especially after reading Salmon Nation. No other living thing so completely ties together the land and sea, the forests and rivers of the region; and none has suffered more from the damage man has done to the environment. In this collection of essays, five residents of the region gather to celebrate, and in some cases mourn, the Northwest's signature fish, and to point the way toward its restoration.

Geographically, the "Salmon Nation" in the title covers the land west of the Sierra Nevada, the Great Basin, and the northern Rockies, encompassing all the watersheds that drain into the oceans on the northwestern edge of our continent -- the historic North American range of the six species of Pacific salmon and steelhead. For thousands of years, the lives of people (not to mention bears, trees, and every other living thing) in this region have been intertwined with those of the salmon that swim in nearby oceans, estuaries, and rivers.

Most of the facts in Salmon Nation will be familiar to anyone who has followed salmon issues at all. For beginners, the book is a good introduction to the natural history of Pacific salmon, the role of salmon in the lives of native inhabitants of the region, and the dramatic changes brought by newer human arrivals over the last two centuries. The disastrous results for salmon are illustrated in a series of maps, one for each species, showing historic spawning ranges where salmon are now extinct, at risk of extinction, of special concern, or still healthy. A final section showcases attempts to repair the damage, often at the local level, and suggests other ways for individuals to get involved.

Underlying the basic story of the book -- what went wrong and how we can fix it -- is perhaps the most valuable lesson of all, the state of mind that is Salmon Nation. The five contributors, a Native American artist, a biologist, a former commercial fisherman, and two environmental writers, share a vision of what once was and could be again: a place of almost unbelievable abundance where wild salmon return year after year, feeding the natural system as well as feeding from it, and providing nourishment both physical and spiritual to the region's people.

The traditional salmon-based economy of the Northwest coast (along with the generally benign, well-watered climate) helped support some of the densest populations in the pre-Columbian world. In the opening essay, "Recalling Celilo," Native American writer Elizabeth Woody evokes both the busy, festive scene around the traditional dip-net fishery on the Columbia River (at a waterfall now inundated behind a 1950s dam) and the rituals reflecting the spiritual role of the salmon in the life of the people.

Even those well versed in salmon issues may find some surprises in the middle chapters of the book. That the decaying bodies of spawned-out salmon nourish the next generation of salmon is a familiar concept, but as Richard Manning points out in the chapter "Ghost Town," a salmon run nourishes the very forest it swims into, "importing" energy from "the pastures of the North Pacific" and depositing it hundreds of miles inland, where it provides a substantial share of the nutrients required by the trees along the banks.

Manning also brings a startling analysis to the modern approach to catching salmon. Where traditional salmon fishing was land-based -- in rivers or at their mouths, native people waited for the fish to return on their natural migration, and caught them with traps or dip nets -- modern fishing occurs mainly at sea, and is increasingly energy-intensive. A modern salmon boat, he observes, relies on sonar, computers, and satellite tracking systems to pursue fish farther and farther at sea, but all this technology "catches no more fish than a six-thousand-year-old fish trap once caught." Instead, it helps one fisherman beat another to fish that would "come back to community, if we would wait."

Even when people have realized the natural salmon system was in trouble, many attempts to improve the situation have been misguided, according to Jim Lichatowich and Seth Zuckerman in the chapter "Muddied Waters, Muddled Thinking." They make a good case that salmon hatcheries are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. A natural spawning population of salmon represents countless generations of adaptation to the unique conditions of a given stream, but hatcheries often rely on breeding stock from elsewhere. Hatchery fish that survive to breeding age can then alter the gene pool of the entire stream, often reducing its fitness. Furthermore, rivers with large populations of hatchery fish can support larger fisheries, putting further pressure on the relatively small number of wild fish.

Less convincing are the criticisms of salmon farming, many of which are debatable, from the source of feed ("a secondary fishery that vacuums the ocean floor like a Shop Vac" is a particularly inaccurate description of the pelagic fisheries that supply most fish meal and oil) to the fear of escaped Atlantic salmon colonizing Pacific Coast rivers, something they never managed to do despite decades of intentional effort early in the last century. The economic argument that cheap farmed salmon has depressed the price of wild salmon, forcing fishermen to catch more fish to make a living, has some merit, but as of this writing (May 2004), surging demand for wild salmon and the attendant rise in prices suggests that the tide has turned (in large part due to the effectiveness of this kind of anti-farming writing).

The final section of Salmon Nation, "Toward a New Salmon Economy," finds cause for hope in a growing public awareness of salmon issues on both regional and local levels. Maps and text show an impressive growth in local watershed protection and restoration projects, both rural and urban, during the 1990s. Where local citizens become involved, says Zuckerman, the effects are felt "not only in the modest impact on the numbers of fish, but in the attachment to place that the fish awaken in people."

One may quibble with some of the specifics in Salmon Nation, but it's hard to come away from the book without a greater respect for salmon and the elegant natural system that sustains them -- and us. If the authors' mission is to inspire the reader, they certainly succeed.