Summary
Summary
Combining natural history with beguiling autobiographical and historical narrative, To Sea and Back is a dazzling portrait of a fish whose story is closely intertwined with our own.
'Indispensable and powerful... To Sea and Back mingles history with biography and science... Shelton writes with a poet's ear... A writer to be prized.' -- Tom Adair, Scotsman
The Atlantic salmon is an extraordinary and mysterious fish. In To Sea and Back , Richard Shelton combines memoir and deep scientific knowledge to reveal, from the salmon's point of view, both the riverine and marine worlds in which it lives. He explores this iconic fish's journey to reach its feeding grounds in the northern oceans before making the return over thousands of miles to the burns of its birth to reproduce. Along the way, Shelton describes the feats of exploration that gave us our first real understanding of the oceans, and shows how this iconic fish is a vital indicator of the health of our rivers and oceans. Above all, To Sea and Back is the story of Richard Shelton's lifelong passion for the sea and his attempt to solve the perennial enigmas of the salmon's secret life.
Author Notes
Richard Shelton headed the Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory at Pitlochry from 1982 to 2001. He is currently Research Director of the Atlantic Salmon Trust and Chairman of the Buckland Foundation. He lives in Fife. His first book, The Longshoreman: A Life at the Water's Edge , was published by Atlantic Books in 2004 and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.
Reviews (1)
Booklist Review
Beginning with a male salmon as he heads from the North Sea to the small stream that was his birthplace, this examination of the life of the wild Atlantic salmon should intrigue any natural-history-minded reader. Salmon are famous for hatching in freshwater; migrating to the sea, in which they grow and mature; then returning to their natal waters to spawn and die. There is much more to the story, as the Atlantic Salmon Trust's research director reveals in this encyclopedic yet eminently readable book. Intertwining memoir, history, and natural history, Shelton writes of his first encounter with a salmon, hooked accidentally while trout fishing. We learn of the mystique of salmon angling during the Victorian era that also gave rise to scientific study of the fish and consequent greater understanding of its biology. Overall, this is the story of the fish's transformation from tiny hatchling hiding from a multitude of predators into a swift juvenile, the scourge of its oceanic prey until its triumphant homecoming as a 20-pound adult.--Bent, Nanc. Copyright 2010 Booklist