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Kokanee: The Redfish & the Kootenay Bioregion (New Star $16)
The Kokanee River runs between Castlegar and Nelson where Don Gayton lives. He is a big bearded ecologist with a nice smile who won the U.S. National Outdoor Book Award. Don't know if there's an Indoor Book Award, but maybe he can win that, get two trophies, use 'em as bookends. Anyway, Don has written this little book, Kokanee: The Redfish & the Kootenay Bioregion (New Star $16).
First thing I noticed about this new 'Transmontanous' title is that kinda scientific sounding name. Transmontanous on the spine reminds me of my grade nine Latin teacher Mr. Brown who threw chalk. Agricolae meant farmers. Don Gayton is more like a guide instead of a teacher. He takes you all the way from the Ice Age to Ice Beer. In just 92 pages. If Don had only written 92 pages about beer, he'd have something for the Indoor Book Award.
Anyway, this one is about the fish. The Kokanee is a landlocked sibling of the sockeye salmon. Don really likes his fish. He says it slips into the Pacific Ocean, an elusive flash of molten silver, a lustful reproductive torrent of fire-engine red, an icon of regional culture, a pawn of industry and a marvel of interior adaptation.
Wow. That's pretty good for a fish. Other times Don's book is more serious than poetic. That's okay because there are lots of pictures. It's not all bioregions. Other times he gets personal, too. He talks about going fishing with his son. He talks about fishing with his father, too. When that happens, you're not sure if Kokanee is really about the fish or not. That's the best part.
"My father was deeply offended by the hippie movement of the 1960s, particularly by its rejection of technological progress and established values, not to mention the hair. I, in turn, as part of that movement, was deeply offended by technology and established values, not to mention Vietnam.
"When our mutual affronts had weathered down to the point that my father and I could talk again, the condition of rivers, oceans, lakes, and fishing was generally a safe area for conversation. On our rare meetings I would probe on those issues to gauge the reactions of this hard-edged man.
"For a time he lived in northern California, near a rusting Louisiana-Pacific pulp mill, which regularly polluted the saltwater bay it sat in with a toxic, foul-smelling effluent. Testing him, I mentioned how destructive LP's dumping practice must be to the fish habitat. He responded by saying, 'You're damn right, it's a terrible thing, and whenever anyone makes any noise about it, LP just threatens to close down
the mill and put people out of work.'
"I absorbed that statement in stunned silence. From this oracle of conservative, establishment, and technocratic values came a shocking bit of eco-political analysis. I look back on that comment as a belated endorsement and a kind of cross-generational mandate.
"If the condition of rivers, lakes, oceans, and salmonids made my earth-moving, engineer father say that, then they were indeed in bad shape and I had better act on that endorsement. In the confused tangle of our lives together, my father had found a free end and offered it to me.";
It gets spiritual. Gayton talks about fiery red spawners and how the fish is part of him, a clean and dignified and rooted part. I find all that nature business a bit spooky myself. Gayton doesn't. "[My father], like many men, fished from a curious combination of motivations: a passionate attachment to nature, an enduring mystification about his role in society, and a kind of primitive male satisfaction in showing he could still bring occasional food home from the wild.";
Up here in Campbell River, I recently spread my Dad's ashes near a beach, like he asked. Maybe some ashes blew out with the tide. Fish come and go there. That would be a bioregion thing, eh? Friend of mine told he heard somewhere recently that David Suzuki, the Nature of Things guy, has this new deal where you go to his website to register your name if you're doing just three of ten possible things that we could all be doing to stop global warming. Sounds like progress to me. 0-921586-85-X (2003) By Charlie Chum.
[Spring 2003 BCBW] "Environment" "Fishing"
First thing I noticed about this new 'Transmontanous' title is that kinda scientific sounding name. Transmontanous on the spine reminds me of my grade nine Latin teacher Mr. Brown who threw chalk. Agricolae meant farmers. Don Gayton is more like a guide instead of a teacher. He takes you all the way from the Ice Age to Ice Beer. In just 92 pages. If Don had only written 92 pages about beer, he'd have something for the Indoor Book Award.
Anyway, this one is about the fish. The Kokanee is a landlocked sibling of the sockeye salmon. Don really likes his fish. He says it slips into the Pacific Ocean, an elusive flash of molten silver, a lustful reproductive torrent of fire-engine red, an icon of regional culture, a pawn of industry and a marvel of interior adaptation.
Wow. That's pretty good for a fish. Other times Don's book is more serious than poetic. That's okay because there are lots of pictures. It's not all bioregions. Other times he gets personal, too. He talks about going fishing with his son. He talks about fishing with his father, too. When that happens, you're not sure if Kokanee is really about the fish or not. That's the best part.
"My father was deeply offended by the hippie movement of the 1960s, particularly by its rejection of technological progress and established values, not to mention the hair. I, in turn, as part of that movement, was deeply offended by technology and established values, not to mention Vietnam.
"When our mutual affronts had weathered down to the point that my father and I could talk again, the condition of rivers, oceans, lakes, and fishing was generally a safe area for conversation. On our rare meetings I would probe on those issues to gauge the reactions of this hard-edged man.
"For a time he lived in northern California, near a rusting Louisiana-Pacific pulp mill, which regularly polluted the saltwater bay it sat in with a toxic, foul-smelling effluent. Testing him, I mentioned how destructive LP's dumping practice must be to the fish habitat. He responded by saying, 'You're damn right, it's a terrible thing, and whenever anyone makes any noise about it, LP just threatens to close down
the mill and put people out of work.'
"I absorbed that statement in stunned silence. From this oracle of conservative, establishment, and technocratic values came a shocking bit of eco-political analysis. I look back on that comment as a belated endorsement and a kind of cross-generational mandate.
"If the condition of rivers, lakes, oceans, and salmonids made my earth-moving, engineer father say that, then they were indeed in bad shape and I had better act on that endorsement. In the confused tangle of our lives together, my father had found a free end and offered it to me.";
It gets spiritual. Gayton talks about fiery red spawners and how the fish is part of him, a clean and dignified and rooted part. I find all that nature business a bit spooky myself. Gayton doesn't. "[My father], like many men, fished from a curious combination of motivations: a passionate attachment to nature, an enduring mystification about his role in society, and a kind of primitive male satisfaction in showing he could still bring occasional food home from the wild.";
Up here in Campbell River, I recently spread my Dad's ashes near a beach, like he asked. Maybe some ashes blew out with the tide. Fish come and go there. That would be a bioregion thing, eh? Friend of mine told he heard somewhere recently that David Suzuki, the Nature of Things guy, has this new deal where you go to his website to register your name if you're doing just three of ten possible things that we could all be doing to stop global warming. Sounds like progress to me. 0-921586-85-X (2003) By Charlie Chum.
[Spring 2003 BCBW] "Environment" "Fishing"
Submitted on June 2, 2003 in By David.
