Upstream: Searching for Wild Salmon, from River to Table

With superb writing and story-telling, Langoon Cook produced an awesome book in Upstream. Obviously endless research preceded his writing and not in libraries but in the field along the Pacific Coast from Alaska to California. In recounting his field research and work, he introduces the readers to many, many people, all with one thing in common: salmon. These are friends, volunteers related to salmon habitat preservation, state and local officials, commercial and amateur fishermen, chefs (insisting on sustainability), and other salmon devotees. The book is easy to read and filled with stories. For anyone with any interest in salmon, this volume is a must. It will provide weeks of reading as the book is best read slowly and over time to fully enjoy it. Salmon fishing has a long history, going back at least ten thousand years, and the greatest salmon run and longest continuous human habitation along the Columbia River is partly thanks to the annual salmon run, a suicide mission of the spawning salmon. You will learn about the steadily declining salmon population due to damns, hatcheries, and destruction of their habitat. You will learn about dating salmon by its inner-ear bone and many other fascinating facts.