The Salmon Way: An Alaska State of Mind

by Amy Gulick

Overview

2020 Silver Independent Publisher Book Award in West–Pacific, Best Regional Non-Fiction
2019 Silver Nautilus Award in Animals & Nature
2019 Silver Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in Nature
Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Books of 2019

"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." -Kirkus Reviews

• Long before it was the “oil state,” Alaska was the “salmon state”
• Emphasizes that salmon protection is good for Alaska

Alaskans have deeply personal relationships with their salmon. These remarkable fish provide a fundamental source of food, livelihood, and identity, and connect generations and communities throughout the state. Yet while salmon are integral to the lives of many Alaskans, the habitat they need to thrive is increasingly at risk as communities and decision makers evaluate large-scale development proposals. The Salmon Way celebrates and explores the relationships between people and salmon in Alaska. Through story and images, author Amy Gulick shows us that people from wildly different backgrounds all value a salmon way of life.

In researching her new book, Amy spent time with individuals whose lives are inextricably linked with salmon. Commercial fishermen take her on as crew; Alaska Native families teach her the art of preserving fish and culture; and sport fishing guides show her where to cast her line as well as her mind. Each experience expands our understanding of the “salmon way” in Alaska. Learn more at www.thesalmonway.org

To learn more about Braided River and its mission: inspiring people to protect wild places through images and stories that change perspectives, please visit www.braidedriver.org

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781680512380
Publisher:	Mountaineers Books, The
Publication date:	05/01/2019
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	705,066
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 9.80(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Amy Gulick is an acclaimed photographer and writer whose work has appeared in Outdoor Photographer, Audubon, and Sierra. Her book Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rain Forest won an Independent Publishers Book Award and two Nautilus Book Awards. She is a founding Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers. Amy lives on Whidbey Island, Washington. Visit her at www.thesalmonway.org

Editorial Reviews

The Salmon Way is both a work of natural history and a modern-day environmental parable, highly recommended especially for personal and public library collections.

Midwest Book Review

The salmon way, as described by Amy Gulick in her beautiful The Salmon Way: An Alaska State of Mind, is to return a gift with a gift.... Gulick writes knowledgeably of Alaskan ecology, the sustainability of the Alaska salmon fishery and efforts to assure its stability indefinitely, and Alaska Native culture.

Foreword Reviews - Matt Sutherland

"The Salmon Way: An Alaska State of Mind" is a joyous, visually gorgeous book about a physically demanding way of life and the Alaskans who live it, love it, and are fiercely attached to it.

SeattlePI - Joel Connelly

The Salmon Way: An Alaska State of Mind presents salmon as the lingua franca of all Alaskans.... By spending time with commercial fishermen, biologists, seafood processors, Native subsistence fishers, sport fishing guides, and brown bears catching spawning salmon, Gulick gained a deep understanding of how this species shapes Alaskan lives.

Alaska Magazine

Alaska has been a salmon state since long before it became an oil state. A new book of stories and photographs by Amy Gulick, The Salmon Way: An Alaska State of Mind, celebrates the people across the state whose lives are entwined with salmon.... This book does a stunning and astute job documenting an essential aspect of what makes Alaska the complex homeplace that it is.

Edible Alaska

[A] fine photographic documentary.... [Gulick] devotes this book to photographs and interviews with commercial, subsistence, and sport fishermen in remote villages. The spirited folks who spent time with her all depend on salmon... [they value] the sense of wholeness and community that the fish bring to their lives.

Natural History - Laurence Marschall

'The Salmon Way' is a breezy, enjoyable jaunt through the Alaska state of mind.... Gulick proves herself to be not just a fine craftswoman, but a varied one as well.

Anchorage Daily News - David James

★ 2019-04-11
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.

Kirkus Reviews