On a whim, Missoula student, Pete Fromm agrees to spend seven months in the wilderness keeping the Indian Creek salmon nursery ice free when approached by a female co-ed who had to renege on her commitment at the last minute. Fromm envisions himself "mountain man" material after growing up on Jim Beckworth's writings, Lord Grizzly and The Big Sky.

Fromm does prepare well in only two short weeks for his adventure. The book chronicles what he learns in the wilderness, close calls, disappointments a More...

I alternated between liking and disliking this book but in the end, I could not put it down and read it quite quickly. I seem to be on a fix for reading people living alone in wilderness situations. This book was appealing because it was well-written, and it was interesting to watch the transformation of Fromm who, at first, had quite an idealistic view of a "mountain man" lifestyle. After taking a job with Fish and Wildlife (I think) in Idaho, he quickly found out it's not ideal at all. I disli More...

One day in my American Lit. I was posed with a dilemma. I had to choose my semester novel. I knew one thing and one thing only;I needed to choose something that interested my in order to hold my attention. Being from Northwest Montana I love hunting, fishing, hiking etc.,so immediately when I read the back of Pete Fromm's adventurous story it was as if Indian Creek Chronicles was destined for me.

Indian Creek Chronicles captures the mind of any wilderness loving person, young or old. From Pete More...

A chance conversation with a college friend sends the author venturing into the Bitterroot Wilderness along the Montana-Idaho border, where he spends a winter tending to salmon eggs for the Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game. This responsibility takes only minutes out of each day; the rest of the time is his own, and what this gregarious, impulsive, party-loving 20-year-old does with seven months of isolation in the wilderness is the central theme of this book.

Fromm makes clear from the outset that he More...

Yet another "young man goes into the wilderness" story. For a change, nothing really dire happens to this young man. Pete Fromm was a college student when he was offered the opportunity to spend the winter in a tent in Idaho guarding salmon eggs for the National Park Service. With a puppy named Boone and a truck full of supplies, and armed with the Foxfire manuals and Brad Angier's books on survival, he was delivered to his campsite before the first snow with an ax and instructions on how much w More...

I added this book to my list after finding "One Year Off" on Amazon. Reviewers kept referring to this book, so I decided to read it.

Fromm's story is intriguing: a 19 year old boy/man living alone in the Idaho wilderness for 9 months, surviving by his own hands/mind. The writing is rather journalistic and you get to ride along with Fromm as he takes this journey.

The story ends too abruptly for me. I wish he had added a bit about his transition back to "real life".

My main take away from this boo More...

This was my type of book. When I saw it was about a guy surviving in the wilderness I was interested, but was expecting some horrific scenes of life or death situations. But this book is a true story, and although he has some great stories to tell, they were not too horrific or too unbelievable.

I especially liked it because it goes through his transition from city life to isolation and how at first it was difficult, and then he began to embrace it. Funny enough it reminded me of the transition More...

INDIAN CREEK CHRONICLES details the seven months Pete Fromm spent in a tent as a young man in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness guarding salmon eggs. There is much to love in this book, and several times I laughed out loud, as I thoroughly related to Pete’s fascination with the mountain-man mystique. In describing himself as a nineteen year old about to embark on his winter-long endeavor, he says:

“At the last instant I remembered to buy a percolator and a few pots and pans, things I’d never owne More...

Very lowbrow read. From reading the Amazon blurb and the epilogue, I naively thought this story would have more to do with the salmon/eggs that the author was hired by the Idaho Fish and Game Department to watch for 7 months. This is more a coming of age story, and a lousy one at that.

This review from Amazon perfectly sums up how I feel: “This book started out with some humor and potential, but ended up becoming an increasing celebration of drunken hunters and killing animals. The graphic descr More...

8-28-11
Only on page 28

Though it's been exceedingly difficult concentrating for even brief spurts of reading, this Non-Fiction account is, "Like Chris McCandless's Story, but Fromm makes all the RIGHT choices in this story," Blythe Douglas told me as he recommended this loaner.

Well written, intriguing and an easy, short read.

Kaye's Wednesday homework was bring in a Non-Fiction book, one you may wish to read. After she learned Laura Ingalls Widler's "Little House" series was one, I recommended thi More...

Indian Creek Chronicles is about a young man that spends a winter alone in the Montana/Idaho wilderness. He takes a job from the US Forest Service to maintain part of a creek through the winter to protect Salmon from freezing. He takes this job after being "romanced" in college with" Wilderness Men" books and takes a leave from college for this winter job. He had little survival skills and wilderness knowledge going into this job. His only real contact with people was limited and he had his dog More...

This is a great book to read. If you are a outdoors person than this book is good for you. The book is about a collage kid that has a dream of being a mountain man. He finally had a chance. He had to camp in the mountains for seven months and protect a pool of salmon eggs. Just reading that part on the book got me hooked. I rated this book a five star because i have the same life style as he does.
I read this book because I had to do a semester project. My teacher had piles and piles of books More...

In this memoir, Fromm recounts his seven months alone spent in the wintery mountains away from civilization. While he did not in fact die nor chop his foot off with an axe, there was plenty of danger he encountered, and every page seemed to teeter between the high terror and the ineffable boredom of the wilderness, both of which served to keep the reader on edge and tensions high. Although I am far from living alone in a tent in the mountains, I found much to relate to in this book: bumbling, ea More...

Let me reveal this bias. I've rafted my share of western rivers and the Selway River in Idaho is my absolute favorite. Right after graduating from college (in the late 70s) Fromm spent a winter on the Selway in a canvas tent, just a man and his dog. His job was to chip ice from a river side channel as necessary for some kind of salmon study. The job took about 15 minutes a day.

This book reminds me of Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild" but Fromm is resourceful. He picks up the fundamentals of trappin More...

This book Indian Creek Chronicles:A Winter Alone in the Wilderness, by Pete Fromm is a great fascinating book. It is about a boy named Pete Fromm who excepts a job guarding salmon eggs in a river alone in the winter for 7 months. All he has is a dog named Boone. Pete has always been fascinated with mountain man stories. Because his roommate Jeff Rader got him into it. He excepts the job, because he wants new experience in the outdoors. He wants to be respected for excepting this job. For being o More...

This is the best book that I've read in a while; I worked through it in under a week, which is pretty quick for me.
A beautiful, poetically written story about a college student that takes a job that requires him to live in solitude over winter in a tent in remote Idaho. The way the author paints the picture is beautiful. He will stumble on animal tracks and then imagine how they came to be there, and, with great detail, will describe the scene he imagined. The struggles with solitude and then la More...

A very disappointing book. A tale (and seemingly, a tall one), of a young, immature, naïve boy who decides college is too difficult, and on a whim, takes a position with Idaho Fish and Game. His job is to spend a winter alone in the wilderness, protecting a bed of salmon eggs. Never mind that the author has absolutely no experience in anything other than swimming and heavy drinking. He has no clue of how to survive in the wild, other than having read a few “old mountain man” books. Never cut woo More...

Pete Fromm was the author-in-residence at my high school when I was in 9th grade. I didn't like his stories when he read aloud to us. He didn't like my story about the mysterious murder of my math teacher (or that more than one student wrote about killing that particular teacher, who really did suck). I did not want to read this book, but it was the very first selection ever for my book club, so I sucked it up and dove in. And really liked it. It was great. I need to get around to reading some o More...

This is an outstanding memoir, perhaps the best one that I have yet read, and one that I may read again. The narrator exhibits a wry innocence in this coming-of-age story, and the prose is earnest, highly accessible, and at times even lyrical and haunting. The imagery is often arresting, and the insights will easily reverberate with a broad audience. This memoir could compete with the best of the Bildungsroman genre, and with the exception of the inclusion of a certain alliterative epithet that More...

I think many people have fantasized about doing exactly what the author did: pick up and leave civilization and live alone in the woods. There is much to laugh at in the book, and you will laugh out loud at some of his antics. Like in the beginning when the rangers told him to put up seven cords of wood and he basically says "sure....what's a cord?''. At that point I thought this guy was going to be a mess out there. Yet the growth he shows as a person, someone who can live alone, brave the elem More...

This is an autobiographical account of a college student taking some time off from college to guard millions of salmon eggs in the middle of nowhere. (Montana Idaho border)
The protagonists romantacizes montain men and adventures in the woods, decides to live by himself in the woods so remote it is hard to get to even by snowmobiles. During the time spent in the woods, he does encounter many adventures and find beauty in solitude. Along the way, he makes mistakes and lots of it. I found I could r More...

Pete Fromm's story of the seven months he spent in near isolation, monitoring salmon eggs for the Idaho Fish and Game department, is both fascinating and haunting. The book is well written and clear, with a slight suspense hovering over each page as I wondered what lay in store for Fromm. The story of the bobcat and the deer in chapter 16 was particularly moving, and will stay with me for a long time.

This is Pete Fromm's tale of the seven winter months he spent in the alone, except for the company of his dog Boone in the forests of Idaho, guarding a fish run. Stark in it's isolation, and the number of times that Pete could easily have lost his life, his prose places you right at the heart of his winter and his encounters with the wildlife, hunters, forests and mountains that he called home for that time.

An amazing book and well worth a read.

This book is about the author's winter spent guarding salmon eggs in the west while living in a canvas tent. He is mostly cut off from the outside world, the only other people he sees are hunters that have a cabin in the valley nearby. While he is supplied at the beginning of the season, he is still forced to deal with the cold and elements and the isolation he faces.

The is one of the books that changed my self perception and my place in the world. That's how the story spoke to me but not everyone I've referred it to came away with that impression. So much of the story is man surviving nature, but like Fromm (the author) I saw the struggle of man owning his place in the natural world and finding peace within himself.

This is one of my very favorite books. I love how Pete Fromm laughs at his romantic notions throughout. His descriptions of interactions with animals, both when he's hunting them for food or experience, as well as seeing nature up close, are gripping. A great book if you love wild places and humans who venture out by themselves into them.

I teach American Literature and every year I have students choose this book for their semester novel project. I enjoy Fromm's writing and I highly recommend this book, especially for reluctant readers who are into the "outdoors." Fromm uses brutal honesty and humor in his story.

Every once in a while you come across a book that came out of nowhere. This book made an impression on me as I can remember a lot of details from this book. It helps that Fromm was living my dream while he was out there but still, he did a very good job putting it all together.

I finished this book in a day, because it hard to put down. As someone who works with fish and struggles through the elements I related especially well to this book. I especially love it when he repeats the age-old mantra that miserable experiences make for better stories.

I have to admit that I was surprised that I enjoyed this book so much. It is about a man in the woods by himself for 7 months. I wasn't sure there would be much to it. I was wrong. It was a quick read. His writing style was extremely descriptive. I was able to imagine the scenery vividly. The book clearly portrayed his transition from a young man with big ideas about becoming a mountain man to a young man with a deep appreciation of nature.