About this item

The salmon is said to be as old as time and to know all the past and future. Twenty-two thousand years ago, someone carved a life-sized image of Atlantic salmon in the floor of a cave in southern France. Salmon were painted on rocks in Norway and Sweden. The salmons effortless leaping and ability to survive in both river and sea led the Celts to mythologize the salmon as holder of all mysterious knowledge, gained by consuming the nine hazelnuts of wisdom that fell into the Well of Segais. The Presidents Salmon presents a rich cultural and biological history of the Atlantic salmon and the salmon fishery, primarily revolving around the Penobscot River, the last bastion for the salmon in America and a key battleground site for the preservation of the species.



About the Author

Catherine Schmitt

Catherine Schmitt is the author of A Coastal Companion: A Year in the Gulf of Maine from Cape Cod to Canada, published by Tilbury House in 2008; The President's Salmon: Restoring the King of Fish and its Home Waters, from Down East in 2015; and Historic Acadia National Park, from Lyons Press in 2016, part of a series celebrating the centennial of the National Park System. She writes frequently for newspapers, magazines, and literary journals. Her writing is informed by her background in environmental science and field experience working in rivers, lakes, forests, wetlands, and beaches throughout the Northeastern U.S., including in Acadia National Park and throughout the Penobscot River watershed. She has dangled from a helicopter to sample high-elevation lakes, measured sea level rise in coastal marshes, canoed across flooded rivers to study the impact of dam removal, mapped oyster farms, retraced the steps of nineteenth-century naturalists, and taught science writing to college students and professional scientists. She lives in Maine.



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