Along the Pacific coast of North America, the fates of people and salmon have been intertwined since the end of the last Ice Age. Salmon Nation leads readers deep into the watersheds of the West Coast in the company of six knowledgeable guides to better understand the most celebrated fish of western North America. Thoughtful essays by Native American writer Elizabeth Woody, fisheries biologist Jim Lichatowich, journalist Richard Manning, former commercial fisherman Freeman House, and environmental writer Seth Zuckerman trace the relationship between people and salmon from the abundance that sustained Northwest Coast cultures to the troubled world of salmon today, and depict a future of rivers restored and fishing livelihoods revived-a future still within our reach. Geographer Dorie Roth's full-color maps of the state of Pacific salmon today offer a powerful "big-picture" perspective that lends a new urgency to efforts to heal the breach between people and salmon.
Though imperiled across much of their range, salmon populations can rebound when people mend their ways. With words, maps, and images, Salmon Nation invites its readers home to a place where people and fish can thrive together.
