A SALMON STORY

A sense of urgency infuses this account of hatchling salmon swimming downstream and encountering a deadly new threat to their survival when they reach the sea.

Writing in rhyming text and enlarging on each verse in matching blocks of prose, Poll (Métis) chronicles salmon’s reproductive cycle as they hatch, go through stages of growth from alevin to smolt, then set off downstream to an estuary. Here they come across natural predators as well as open-net pen fish farms overcrowded with captive fish that fill the surrounding waters with waste, parasitic sea lice, and disease microbes. The consequent decline in wild salmon populations affects both ocean and upstream ecosystems, as the fish are a keystone species whose post-egg-laying deaths benefit over 135 species of flora and fauna. Trainor-Mattis, an Indigenous artist, incorporates Northwest Coastal designs into her depictions of salmon and other wildlife, with solid-black human figures in traditional dress looking on in the backgrounds from riverbanks and boats. Emotion infuses both text and visuals—the anguished faces of salmon trapped in nets are especially moving. The backmatter features no concrete suggestions for remediating the farming problem but does include a note from Lakál’t (a knowledge keeper from the Lil’wat Nation) and salmon-related glossaries in English and three Indigenous languages.

An eloquent, richly illustrated cry for attention to a pressing ecological issue.