An environmental organizer and former commercial salmon fisherman describes the process through which a determined group of local activists worked to save one of the last purely native races of salmon in California, in the process revealing much about the region's natural history, as well as social and philosophical issues. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
A grave and delightful book, both personal and cosmic. --Gary Snyder, author of
The Practice of the Wild "
Totem Salmon is both a lyric ode to a charismatic animal and a memoir of one man's claling to a regenerative life's work."
-Whole Earth Review "House writes about fishing, salmon and the Mattole River in mystical, almost erotic language, and he succeeds at making us understand his essential argument: that without a connection to the natural world, we are losing a part of ourselves." --Benoit Denizet Lewis,
Contra Costa Times "
Totem Salmon recounts the elaborate, sometimes cantankerous and always exhilarating story of one community's ongoing effort to return the bones -to honor the gifts of nature by giving something back." --Tim McNulty,
Seattle Times "A hopeful, inspirational, and ultimately riveting saga of a community taking action in the most fundamental, hands-on way."
-Outside "With easy yet urgent prose, author Freeman House adds his name to the list of biologists and naturalists who work eloquently with metaphors and tirelessly for the protection of endangered species and habitats."
-New Age Journal "House is a marvelous explainer of how things are and how they work and how, if you grasp the puzzle presented by . . . a native species of salmon, you might better understand yourself." --Barry Blake,
North Coast Journal "A marvelously vivid and thoughtful book."
-California Coast and Ocean "This graceful book is a welcome gift."
-Coast Weekend "Reading [House's] words, I feel I am returning to my own native element: rain flavored with cedar and the exact stone recipe that thrills me home. If a salmon can find clues this subtle, what are we not seeing yet?" --Kim Stafford,
The Sunday Oregonian "Here is the quintessential deep ecology book, with no mention of the controversial and ambiguous term." --Ken Otter,
Deep Ecology News "
Totem Salmon, a lyrical meditation about place, binds together two epic journeys: one about humans, one about fish." --Michael Black,
San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle "A landmark work of environmental activism." --Christopher Camuto,
Audubon "Freeman House masterfully narrates the daily challenges that he and his cohorts have faced in trying to bring back a once almost extinct native Chinook salmon run, and places it all within a larger cultural and historical context." --Mike Helm, Express Books,
East Bay Express "Inspired and well-written . . . a terrific introduction to an ethic called 'bioregionalism.'"
-Publishers Weekly "I know of no book that is as local as House's and no book that is more global in its implications"--Jonah Raskin,
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
