A rich, compelling look at a thriving yet increasingly threatened natural resource and those who depend on it.
A writer and photographer offers a thoughtful exploration of the vital role played by salmon in Alaskan communities.
Gulick (Salmon in the Trees, 2010), whose work has appeared in Audubon and National Wildlife, follows up her preceding book with this well-reported and gorgeously illustrated volume about the intimate, complex relationship between salmon and the Alaskan people. Salmon is a gift, the author explains, and those who receive it all share a “deep connection to these remarkable fish,” though they may sometimes disagree on the best way to use and protect the prize they’ve been given. Alaska is one of the few places that still has a flourishing population of wild salmon, Gulick asserts before interviewing people whose very existence depends on the continued health of salmon runs. Some are transplants who run the sport-fishing businesses that attract tourists to America’s last frontier; others are commercial fishermen; and several are Alaska Natives who keep centuries-old traditions alive when they catch and preserve the flavorful fish. The author provides an up-close look at “the salmon way” as she ventures out on a fishing boat, travels by seaplane into the wilderness, encounters bears, and sits down for many meals as she gets to know “the salmon people of Alaska.” The result is a vivid portrait of a place that will likely be foreign to many readers; 18% of the population still harvests fish, game, and plants in order to survive. Those who embrace a subsistence way of life (either by choice or necessity) might seem poor to outsiders, but they “consider themselves the richest people in the world,” with access to the vast variety of nature’s bounty, as Gulick explains. Her conversations with those who depend on salmon deftly show how the fish are a vital link in the state’s environmental and economic systems but also how they bind families and communities together. Few who read this illuminating book or see the author’s awe-inspiring color photographs will fail to come away with a sense that this is a way of life well worth preserving.
A rich, compelling look at a thriving yet increasingly threatened natural resource and those who depend on it.Pub Date: May 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68051-238-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Braided River
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PROFILES
The many faces of parenting, from doting to feckless, are given a mulling in this fine exegetic study from Allport (Explorers of the Black Box, 1986, etc.). Allport raises sheep, and one of them was an unenthusiastic mother, which gave her pause. If maternal behavior is instinctive, why does it sometimes fail, why does ``this most ordinary, most extraordinary of things'' go haywire? Is it a hormonal failure, immaturity, a behavioral short circuit, a simple mistake? What are the tethers that bind child to parent? Why are some born with parenting skills, while others must learn, and still others just never make the connection? Allport tackles these quandries by turning to theoretical literature: to the research of such figures as psychologist John Bowlby and biologist Robert Trivers; to mother's milk and attraction theory; to the work that has been done on bats, beluga whales, and birds. She also deploys good old common sense, intuition, and the knowledge she gains from watching her backyard bestiary to connect the parenting dots, culling what she feels are erroneous Freudian and behavioralist influences. She scours some pretty scientific terrain in prose that is not just splendid, but inviting and clarifying. She is fascinating when discussing the parenting style of sea horses, bluebirds, and (knowing what will most strongly hold the attention of readers) homo sapiens, detailing patterns in child care and parenting behavior that are as much a signature as plumage on a bird: the need to form attachment to a caregiver; the loose bonds (at first) that make adoption so successful; the slackening of allegiance in industrial society, where men and women are not so critical to each other's survival. Heady, roiling, gutsy stuff, which Allport handles with aplomb. It is a wondrous dance, this parent-child two-step, and Allport perfectly catches the magic nature of the bond. (b&w illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-517-70799-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1997
A slight book of reminiscence, seemingly meant for English majors who love the outdoors. Tallmadge (Literature and Environmental Studies/Union Institute Graduate School) charts his academic course from campus to campus, teaching and learning. In his telling, his career seems unremarkable (he was denied tenure, about which he writes at some length), although he clearly knows his subject, American nature writing, and emerges as a committed and engaging teacher. His ``teacher's path'' becomes considerably more interesting when it departs from campus and heads for the mountains. There, in the Wasatch, the Wind River, the Appalachians, the Sierra Nevada, and other ranges, Tallmadge affectingly describes his search for a place to call home, which, he eventually realizes, is ``not a place one finds, but a place one makes.'' Along the way, the author discusses books and authors like Henry David Thoreau (whom he idolizes), Edward Abbey (whom he does not), and other important players in what he calls the ``infinite game of reading.'' The book is at its best at self-critical moments, such as when Tallmadge examines our latter-day nature-loving spirit in the light of the idealism of the '60s, when his contemporaries ``saw in the wilderness, with its healthy and interdependent communities, a model for just and sustainable human societies''—but then scorned the uninitiated who did not share their budding Green sensibilities. This volume is at its worst when Tallmadge falls into sentimentalizing about ``the wisdom and beauty of the land'' and the teacher's role in ``healing both society and the earth.'' This suffers from not treating any one of its many subjects at quite enough length. The result is neither a book of personal essays as such, nor a vade mecum for teachers, nor even a book about nature strictly defined, but a glancing coming-of-age story that is of narrow interest.
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-87480-530-9
Page Count: 218
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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