Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness [Paperback]

Pete Fromm (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2003

Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award, Indian Creek Chronicles is Pete Fromm’s account of seven winter months spent alone in a tent in Idaho guarding salmon eggs and coming face to face with the blunt realities of life as a contemporary mountain man. A gripping story of adventure and a modern-day Walden, this contemporary classic established Fromm as one of the West’s premier voices.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It was an act of bravado that prompted 19-year-old Fromm to leave college and accept a winter job with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game in 1990. His assignment was to check daily on two million salmon eggs planted in a channel between the Selway River and Indian Creek. The nearest road was 40 miles from camp; by mid-November the only access was by snowmobile. Fromm had dreamed of being a "mountain man"--a la Jim Bridger or Jedidiah Smith--but he was a tenderfoot, hardly prepared to spend seven months alone with his dog Boone in the wilderness. Fromm gives an engaging account of that winter; his job took about 15 minutes a day, so he had to combat loneliness and fill the hours. He learned to hunt, to tan leather, to preserve meat. There were occasional parties with hunting groups, brief visits by the game wardens, a few narrow escapes. A fine tale of adventure and self-sufficiency.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA-An absorbing personal account. Disenchanted with college, 20-year-old Fromm accepted a job with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and set off to spend the winter in the middle of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. For 15 minutes a day, 7 days a week, he checked salmon eggs planted in the channel between the Selway River and Indian Creek, and made sure ice was cleared from the end of it. The closest plowed road was 40 miles away and the closest person 60 miles. The fruit of his labors was about 20 fish returning to Indian Creek out of the 2 1/2 million he watched over. Entertaining nonfiction.
Pamela B. Rearden, Centreville Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Picador (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312422725
• ISBN-13: 978-0312422721
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,121 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #85 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Essays

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Page-turner about a young man's winter wilderness adventures, June 29, 2003

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness (Paperback)

A chance conversation with a college friend sends the author venturing into the Bitterroot Wilderness along the Montana-Idaho border, where he spends a winter tending to salmon eggs for the Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game. This responsibility takes only minutes out of each day; the rest of the time is his own, and what this gregarious, impulsive, party-loving 20-year-old does with seven months of isolation in the wilderness is the central theme of this book.

Fromm makes clear from the outset that he's almost utterly unprepared for this experience, with little guiding him but a fascination for the rugged, self-sufficient mountain men whose adventures he has read about. Packing a couple books on outdoor survival, he plans to figure it out as he goes, and given a need to keep himself busy and his mind off the isolation, he acquires a range of on-the-job skills, from operating a chain saw, to camp cooking, skinning animals, and curing meat. He also hunts for game, subsisting on grouse and squirrel until he amazingly (and illegally) bags a moose with a muzzle-loader.

In fact, Fromm is not entirely alone -- he has a dog as a constant companion -- and there is a trickle of visitors throughout the winter. Besides the occasional visit by the wardens, who bring mail and packages, there are hunters and their guides who trek in on snowmobiles (snowmachines, as he learns to call them). Welcoming the company -- and curious -- he goes along on hunts, witnessing the shooting of a mountain lion.

There are some disappointments. His father and brother travel from Milwaukee and attempt to ski in but are turned back by cold and bad trail conditions. A planned "vacation" with friends in Missoula has to be cancelled when snowslides make access difficult. He consoles himself after killing and skinning an injured bobcat that he wouldn't have had this experience if he hadn't been on his own.

The book invites comparison with C. L. Rawlins' "Broken Country," in which the author recalls a college-boy summer as a cook and horse wrangler for a sheepherder in the mountains of western Wyoming. A reader will also be reminded at times of Edward Abbey's youthful "Desert Solitaire."All exhibit a willingness to abandon themselves to adventure without considerable forethought, but there's a relative lack of reflectiveness on the part of Fromm, who is able to report straightforwardly what he observes but tends to avoid making connections to the ideas of other people or to think deeply or critcally about his experience. This makes the book more of a page-turner; you rarely put it down to let something he's written soak in.

In the end, you forgive him his youth, give him credit for surviving (there are some close calls that may have turned his story into another "Into the Wild"), and appreciate the clean, clear style and the ability to create and maintain suspense (for example when his father and brother fail to arrive). I'm happy to recommend it to anyone with an interest in Western nonfiction, wilderness adventures and the psychological aspects of isolation.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my personal favorites of this genre, January 22, 2007

By 

Shawn T. Prince (Utah) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness (Paperback)

I truly loved this book on many levels, from the hunting and fishing experiences the author shared to his personal reflections on several moral issues, which I felt were very poignant and truthful.

The majority of this book covers the author's seven-month stay in a canvas tent, deep in the Idaho wilderness during the months of October through May. His job was to watch over and protect millions of salmon eggs that had been cached in the gravel of a nearby river.

His love of mountain man books and the thrill of experiencing nature in all of its variety are ideals that initially lead him to volunteer for the long winter assignment. Later, his enthusiasm changes to loneliness and regret as he faces his separation from his friends and family.

On the surface, his tale recounts his meetings with hunters, guides, outfitters, forest rangers, wardens, and outdoors enthusiasts as they pass by his lonely tent in his remote meadow. He speaks of the extreme winter weather he faced, the wildlife he encountered, and the steps he took to survive in an isolated and severe environment.

The real beauty of this book, however, comes when the author shares how painful moments of loneliness affected him and ultimately how these experiences changed him into a person who became very secure with his own creative abilities and very comfortable with his own company.

He records some very personal reflections regarding what it meant to him to shoot various animals for meat during his long winter stay. As he accompanies various guides and hunters on their hunting trips, he recounts how he felt when others did not view their kills as the resources he believed they were.

The author writes of loss, of waste, of fully utilizing one's resources, of missing one's family and friends and how dear trusted loved ones are to a soul, and of the gloriousness of wildlife and wilderness. He revels in the beauties that surround him and comes to truly appreciate his experience alone for several months in the mountains.

My words cannot do justice to the lessons I watched him learn and to the maturing and self-discovery he experienced. I also cannot do honor to the beautiful way he describes nature, its wildlife, and the incredible beauty to be found in truly wild places. Thus, you should experience this book for yourself if you love these types of things.

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An easy and enjoyable read, November 14, 2004

By 

D. Sean West (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness (Paperback)

I was initially somewhat defensive when I started reading this book because the author was two years younger than I am now when the events that this book are based on took place (although I am not sure how old he was when he actually got to writing about it). These are the same defensive feels that I get when someone tells me about how the Olsen twins, despite being a few years younger than I, are already billionaires- it makes me wonder what I have been doing with my life...

But those initial defensive impulses not to like him quickly melted within the opening pages in large part because of Pete Fromm's unflinching honesty in Indian Creek Chronicles, never trying to hide his mistakes or ignorance. This book detailing his learning experiences in nature invites the reader to learn along with him and to never feel looked down upon (as no doubt those snobbish Olsen twins would!)

At the age of 20 or so Fromm drops out of college for a year on an implus so that he could accept a job working for the wildlife service which basically just involves living in a tent in the middle of nowhere, by himself for the winter. Inspired by (largely fictionalized) accounts of "mountain men" he finds himself deposited in on the Montana and Idaho border at Indian Creek soon to be sealed away by the snows of winter (the nearest accessible road 30 miles away.

What follows is the story of that (surprisingly eventful) winter in solitude, punctuated only occasionally by hunter or parks officials on snowmobiles (Fromm, along with the reader, learns that you are suppose to call them snowmachines if you want to sound like you know what you are talking about).

While yes he learns much about living in the wild the greater learning experience is what the experience teaches him about himself- which makes him far more interesting to read about than any cardboard mountain men from cheep fiction.