Reaching Home: Pacific Salmon, Pacific People [Hardcover]

Natalie Fobes (Author), Bradford Matsen (Author), Tom Jay (Author, Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1994

An inspiring, enlightening, powerful book! Winner 1995 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, 1995 RMBPA Design Award

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There's nothing like a salmon plucked fresh from the waters of the Pacific Northwest. But this precious fish is more than a foodstuff, more than a commodity, says Natalie Fobes. "It is a theme that cascades relentlessly through [the] spirits" of Native Americans, Russians, Japanese, fishermen, biologists, and salmon farmers, an enigmatic creature that has shaped the culture of the Pacific Rim since ancient times. "What is it about the salmon that touches a person's soul?" asks Fobes. Whatever it is, she has captured it on film. The photographer complements her eye-opening color images with poetic word pictures, augmenting the eloquent essays by Tom Jay and Brad Matsen. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

How one kind of fish swam its way into the culture of a portion of this continent is well chronicled in this very handsome volume. The salmon is at the heart of Pacific Northwest Native American culture and also a key industry of the region's whites; its ability to return, after swimming thousands of miles in the open Pacific, to the stream in which it hatched made it seem supernatural to Native Americans; whites saw in the same ability economic opportunity for the fishing industry. The book's four-color photographs cover the fish quite nicely, while the text discusses salmon evolution and how salmon became a mainstay of Native American diet and then an industry when whites took over. Now, what with dams that generate power yet block access to spawning fish and with the destruction of streams and rivers caused by logging operations, the salmon faces a difficult future. This is a book that a reader can pull off the shelf, sit down with, and, without ever getting up, take a trip. Jon Kartman

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 143 pages
• Publisher: Alaska Northwest Books; First Edition edition (October 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0882404490
• ISBN-13: 978-0882404493
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 9.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #788,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)