What do you think?
Rate this book
Mountain in the Clouds: A Search for the Wild Salmon
Describes author's trek through Washington State's Olympic Peninsula, detailing the exploitation of the land and waterways and the devastation of the Pacific salmon
- GenresConservation
249 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
10 people are currently reading
144 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 31, 2022
This has been recommended to me countless times, and I am finally picking it up. When you ask a fisheries biologist the books they recommend, with a focus on the Olympic Peninsula, this is one of the first books that comes to mind. And it has been for many years. This book was published in 1982 and is still widely regarded.
This book talks about how imperiled salmon are, despite all our efforts. The story hasn’t changed 40 years later.
I loved all the history about this area I call home, Washington state, though it’s hard to read about how destructive humanity has been to this amazing place, all in the name of progress, industry, energy, political pressure, etc.
My notes below. No spoilers here unless you didn’t know salmon are kind of f*%^ed and it’s mostly because of us. I have a lot more notes in a note on my phone but I have exceeded the capacity of a Goodreads review.
NOTES:
Salmon used to be so numerous in the rivers of the West that, “As late as 1899, Richard Rathbun of the Smithsonian Institution said simply, “the quantities of salmon which frequent these waters is beyond calculation, and seems to be so great as to challenge human ingenuity to affect it in anyway””(p14). Well, he was wrong.
Salmon have survived repeated glaciation in the past 2 million years, and they have been critical to “…the return of life to the ice – scarred valleys. They were not the only means by which nature reclaimed the waste land of gravel, boulders and clay, but they were among the most important, for they provided the only way of capturing large amounts of nutrients at sea and returning them to the land. (Many biologists believe this is why all Pacific salmon die after spawning, unlike the Atlantic salmon of the more nutrient-stable East Coast.)… the salmon helped recreate the soil which supports the rococo excesses of the modern Olympic Peninsula rain forest”(p22-23).
Salmon have been declining in number. When this book was published, 40 years ago, the author believed that, “the upper Queets is as wild as any place on the [Olympic] peninsula… If the wild salmon can no longer survive here, one might ask, where can they?”(p26). This is how the Olympic Peninsula is still today, though further degraded by logging and development.
Chapter 2 focuses on the Quinault River, which had an even more famous run of salmon than the Columbia River. After logging, it caused redds to be washed away after logging changed the hydrology of the streams, also some channels dried out and fish suffocated, siltation turned redds into a tomb, and it likely even caused respiratory diseases in fry and their food sources. (p34)
“The Quinault Indian Reservation… is generally considered to have been the most savagely logged area in the state of Washington”(p36). He describes it as still being a “brush desert” because the soil can’t support life after repeated wildfires swept over the slash left on the land.
In the 1960s, the Commissioner of Public Lands, Bert Cole, allowed logging of much of the old growth on the Queets because large Western timber companies had over cut their land and there was going to be a lot of job losses. On the surface it was for construction of new schools, but the crest of the baby boom had passed so they didn’t need new school buildings yet. (See around p38) The extensive logging caused 2 massive landslides, native coho populations were impacted for years after, and spraying of herbicides like 2,4-D to control “weed trees” was shown to be problematic when it drifted into rivers, killing salmon.
Logging on Indian reservations was apparently the worst of all, though it was really bad on DNR land and small private operations too. “A report issued by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1979 showed that 50% of recent logging operations on the Quinault Reservation had a direct and deleterious effect on salmon, killing them by “suffocation, poisoning, starvation, thermal shock and disease.” Toxic cedar slash was left piled in streams, culverts were installed so that fish would have to be able to fly to pass through them, logs were dragged through spawning gravel, and stream side vegetation was leveled…”(p41).
Current forest practices would not allow such deleterious effects. It started to change significantly when Bert Cole was finally defeated in 1980. (p41)
The author asks Lestelle, “Why can’t these salmon overcome logging the way they overcame the glaciers?”(p50). Lestelle responds, “We’re burning the candle at both ends. We’ve got problems with logging here in the valley, and then we’ve got overfishing at sea… River systems like the Queets still have the potential to be tremendously productive [for wild salmon], but how can the runs rebuild when not enough fish return from the ocean to spawn? The big threat to these early Chinook probably isn’t what’s happening here… It’s what’s happening in the ocean”(p51).
Chapter 4 is about the Elwha River, going back to when the dams were constructed and talking about the politics of the time.
Salmon caught in the Elwha could be 100 pounds, even in 1930, after dam construction, exceptionally large. This is probably because they needed to be large in order to get to the upper river where their more ideal spawning ground were, primarily in Lost River and Creek, with strong rapids along the way there. These were referred to as tyee or chief.
This is an example of how “all successful salmon runs develop this type of highly specific adaptation to the rivers they frequent. They know through the genetic legacy of their parents where to hide, what their prey looks like, went to run to the sea and went to return. Since every river as unique as flow pattern and terrain, every run of wild salmon is necessarily different genetically from all others. The distinction may be obvious, as in the comparison of Elwha tyee to Chinook from nearby rivers, but even when the fish look exactly the same, important differences remain”(p62).
There used to be so many salmon and rivers, that it would terrify horses trying to ford rivers. Harold Sisson’s mother is referenced on p63, having to back her terrified horse across Little River in 1909 because the number of pink salmon were so great. When this book was written, there were no pink salmon left and few tyee in the Elwha.
Chapter 5 starts with the Graywolf River, which I have camped along many times. I learned where it got it’s name. “Fifty years ago this steep valley rang with the howling of the wolves that gave the river its name. The now extinct Olympic Peninsula timber wolves favorite the Graywolf above all others and made their last stand against the government-paid killers in it’s upper reaches”(p75-76).
He sees a few Chinook with “large patches of white fungus on their heads from trying to get through the hatchery weir downriver”(79). Just from rubbing against it? I wish he had elaborated.
He also talks about the history of the Dungeness Valley.
- [ ] When Captain George Vancouver explored the area in 1792, it reminded him of “a sentimental favorite that flows into the English channel near Dover“, so he gave it the same name.
- [ ] The forced removal of the Klallam Tribe in 1868 after the Point No Point Treaty. “… federal troops were sent to burn the Klallam villages at Port Townsend and Diamond Point which was quickly turned into a leprosarium. All Indians who could be found were towed in their canoes down Hood Canal behind the government cutter to the reservation in Skokomish. The few Indians who managed to remain in the Dungeness area were forced to pay $500 in gold for 210 acres of logged-off land at the place they named Jamestown“(p81-82).
- [ ] The Sequim Dungeness had already mostly been cleared “by axe or by fire” by 1902. In that year, there was so much clearing by fire that “the entire Olympic Peninsula experienced its famous “Dark Day“ when 110 forest fires raged simultaneously from British Columbia to Central Oregon”(p82). “Potatoes, oats and peas were planted among the stumps, and early yields were so heavy that the Dungeness quickly became one of the principal exporters of agricultural products in western Washington. New settlers push the clearing to the edge of the prairies around Sequim and into the hanging Valley in the foothills of the Olympics ten miles from the strait”(p82).
- [ ] Irrigation systems were constructed to divert water from the Dungeness, but without fish ladders and rarely without screens. Fish would get trapped in the irrigation system and couldn’t escape. Also, “ Warm water does the salmon senses, and above 55°F… it prevents them from spawning. Water returning from irrigation ditches was warmer still, and often contained manure, pesticides and other poisons”(p84). Irrigation also consumed most of the water in the river, 2/3 in good years, but during a drought, sometimes taking almost all of it just leaving “pools and trickling rivulets”. This was happening all over the arid west, with the US Bureau of Reclamation irrigating more than 3,000,000 acres of Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Wyoming, and Colorado. Many dams were built for irrigation.
- [ ] Farmers who were lucky enough to be on land federally irrigated by the Bureau of Reclamation, paying very little, were able to dominate the market and existing farms were put out of business by the subsidized competition. “Inevitably, some of the smaller local agricultural areas that had lost their markets began to atrophy and fall prey to urban sprawl. Among the farming valleys that used to supply Seattle, one of the first lost in this manner was the Dungeness.… The Dungeness grew a variety of common urban blight. The cooperative creamery was closed in 1954 when the small dairymen could see the hand writing on the wall. A few larger dairies survived, along with some cabbage seed farms and other assorted agricultural operations, but by the 1960s much of the valley was being transformed through the magic of real estate offerings. “For Sale\Small Acreage\Easy terms,” “Acreage View Tracts For Sale,” “Open House/Condominiums\House Sites,“ the bright signs among the quaint abandon fields proclaimed. Many of the retirees who moved into the Dungeness area added signs of their own: “Keep Out, “”Beware of Dog”…”(p86).
I wanted to have this whole chapter saved! So much good history here.
We meet Earnest Brannon who worked for the Dungeness hatchery and collected eggs from wild salmon for the hatchery.
When dams shut off water, salmon would be stranded. The adult fish would do ok, but juveniles would perish. Their instinct is to dig into the gravel substrata. Hatcheries are also more detrimental to juveniles than adults because they are raised on an accelerated schedule due to the cost of food, released ASAP into rivers and this results in smaller fish and shorter life spans. No more 100 lb chinook.
Sounds like whatever the Federal Power Commission wants goes, even if it’s “in violation of the expressed desires of a considerable segment of people of the state of Washington, the will of the legislature, and the will of the people of the state”(p99). Those were the words of the Washington State Supreme Court, after Tacoma City lights was still able to dam the Cowlitz despite majority opposition and a voter passed initiative.
The belief was that a hatchery would supplement the declining wild fish populations, but much of the evidence shows they only result in decreasing wild populations. Why? It’s what happens every time a hatchery goes in according to Harry Wagner (p115). “RC Johnson of the Washington Department of Fisheries found in the early 1970s that the success of chum and pink salmon returns was inversely related to hatchery coho production in Puget Sound, and plants of coho, which occupy the dominant position in the pool feeding order, have also been shown to diminish the survival of wild steelhead”(p 120).
Issues with hatcheries:
- [ ] They spread disease to wild populations. Diseases like Bacterial Kidney Disease (BKD), and cold water disease.
- [ ] Direct competition because they crowd out wild fish. They also are more aggressive, a necessary behavior in the hatchery. The aggressive behavior combined with their pack tendency drives wild fish away. Sometimes the wild fish will go off on their own to avoid the hatchery fish, which reduces their likelihood of finding food and survival.
- [ ] Loss of genetic diversity when wild fish breed with hatchery fish. This is an issue for many reasons, but is critical for salmon who depend on that genetic diversity to survive their migration. They are more vulnerable without that genetic diversity.
The author talks a lot about the history of hatcheries in Washington. Even after hatcheries in Canada showed that hatcheries didn’t result in increased escapement and drained wild salmon populations of their eggs, Washington kept building hatcheries because it provided jobs and tried to quell the decline of fish populations.
He also talks about the conflict between native and nonnative fishermen. Washington has the inauspicious distinction of being the first state to try to eliminate natives rights to fish. In 1963, native fishermen were being arrested on the Puyallup and Nisqually Rivers. “Speaking for the state, Assistant Attorney General Joseph Coniff told the US Senate that “the unregulated Indian net fishery … is totally incompatible with with any intelligent management program designed to conserve this great natural resource.””(p155). This was despite the fact that natives caught 6% of the salmon, compared with 12% for white sports fishermen and 82% for commercial white fishermen. But it was the natives who were blamed for overfishing.
The author furthers his points about hatcheries - that they have been more of a detriment than the solution to restoring salmon sticks after dams, etc. Hatchery runs are rarely able to meet their escapement goals and fish production costs are exceedingly expensive. The author calculates that “the full cost to the public of that four-pound, $18 coho in the Port Angeles supermarket would actually be between $28 and $42”(p224).
When these costs were showing to be prohibitive and hatcheries ineffective at restoring stocks, a hatchery in Willapa was being proposed. Staff at Department of Fisheries recognized that maybe it shouldn’t be built. There was too much political pressure to avoid construction.
In 1980, Tribes we’re finally given the right to half the hatchery fish (not just the wild). After that, the war between non-native fishermen and Tribes escalated. Native fishing boats were destroyed by arson as was the Squaxin Tribal Center.
Tribes used to protest hatcheries, partly because at that time they were given no share of hatchery fish and wild stocks had continued to decline. Now, “Many of them were attracted to the higher rate of harvest allowed with hatchery fish, and the fact that it was possible to determine through the run-timing of a hatchery run who will have a chance to intercept the fish. “Through stock manipulation you can control the fishery,” said Dave Herrera. “We’re very aware of this because it’s been used against us for so many years. “With the help of federal funding, the Quinault, Quileute, Makah, Klallam and Skokomish tribes were all operating hatchers of some sort by the early 1980s”(p227). “Inevitably, however, the tribes increased reliance on hatcheries has involved them in some of the practices they have protested for years… fish were released at a stage that maximizes residualization and conflict with wild salmon” (p228) because costs are too prohibitive otherwise.
Not all hatcheries have had poor returns, but even those successes don’t meet the true bar they were expected to meet. “Not once has the Department of Fosheries been able to replicate the number, variety or quality of the wild salmon runs killed by major developments such as dams. Despite 3/4 of a centuries labor on rivers like the Elwha, Skokomish, Cowlitz and the once mighty Columbia itself, not a single Washington dam is in compliance with the letter of the states hatchery lieu law, which requires “compensation” (or full replacement) for the fish lost. Hatchery salmon do well where wild salmon do well, and they do badly where the wild fish also suffer. State and federal hatcheries have yet to demonstrate that they can succeed on rivers where the environment has been seriously degraded and … they may actually have a lower tolerance for pollution in the wild fish with which they compete. The wild salmon or a different fish with a different ecological function”(p230).
This book talks about how imperiled salmon are, despite all our efforts. The story hasn’t changed 40 years later.
I loved all the history about this area I call home, Washington state, though it’s hard to read about how destructive humanity has been to this amazing place, all in the name of progress, industry, energy, political pressure, etc.
My notes below. No spoilers here unless you didn’t know salmon are kind of f*%^ed and it’s mostly because of us. I have a lot more notes in a note on my phone but I have exceeded the capacity of a Goodreads review.
NOTES:
Salmon used to be so numerous in the rivers of the West that, “As late as 1899, Richard Rathbun of the Smithsonian Institution said simply, “the quantities of salmon which frequent these waters is beyond calculation, and seems to be so great as to challenge human ingenuity to affect it in anyway””(p14). Well, he was wrong.
Salmon have survived repeated glaciation in the past 2 million years, and they have been critical to “…the return of life to the ice – scarred valleys. They were not the only means by which nature reclaimed the waste land of gravel, boulders and clay, but they were among the most important, for they provided the only way of capturing large amounts of nutrients at sea and returning them to the land. (Many biologists believe this is why all Pacific salmon die after spawning, unlike the Atlantic salmon of the more nutrient-stable East Coast.)… the salmon helped recreate the soil which supports the rococo excesses of the modern Olympic Peninsula rain forest”(p22-23).
Salmon have been declining in number. When this book was published, 40 years ago, the author believed that, “the upper Queets is as wild as any place on the [Olympic] peninsula… If the wild salmon can no longer survive here, one might ask, where can they?”(p26). This is how the Olympic Peninsula is still today, though further degraded by logging and development.
Chapter 2 focuses on the Quinault River, which had an even more famous run of salmon than the Columbia River. After logging, it caused redds to be washed away after logging changed the hydrology of the streams, also some channels dried out and fish suffocated, siltation turned redds into a tomb, and it likely even caused respiratory diseases in fry and their food sources. (p34)
“The Quinault Indian Reservation… is generally considered to have been the most savagely logged area in the state of Washington”(p36). He describes it as still being a “brush desert” because the soil can’t support life after repeated wildfires swept over the slash left on the land.
In the 1960s, the Commissioner of Public Lands, Bert Cole, allowed logging of much of the old growth on the Queets because large Western timber companies had over cut their land and there was going to be a lot of job losses. On the surface it was for construction of new schools, but the crest of the baby boom had passed so they didn’t need new school buildings yet. (See around p38) The extensive logging caused 2 massive landslides, native coho populations were impacted for years after, and spraying of herbicides like 2,4-D to control “weed trees” was shown to be problematic when it drifted into rivers, killing salmon.
Logging on Indian reservations was apparently the worst of all, though it was really bad on DNR land and small private operations too. “A report issued by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1979 showed that 50% of recent logging operations on the Quinault Reservation had a direct and deleterious effect on salmon, killing them by “suffocation, poisoning, starvation, thermal shock and disease.” Toxic cedar slash was left piled in streams, culverts were installed so that fish would have to be able to fly to pass through them, logs were dragged through spawning gravel, and stream side vegetation was leveled…”(p41).
Current forest practices would not allow such deleterious effects. It started to change significantly when Bert Cole was finally defeated in 1980. (p41)
The author asks Lestelle, “Why can’t these salmon overcome logging the way they overcame the glaciers?”(p50). Lestelle responds, “We’re burning the candle at both ends. We’ve got problems with logging here in the valley, and then we’ve got overfishing at sea… River systems like the Queets still have the potential to be tremendously productive [for wild salmon], but how can the runs rebuild when not enough fish return from the ocean to spawn? The big threat to these early Chinook probably isn’t what’s happening here… It’s what’s happening in the ocean”(p51).
Chapter 4 is about the Elwha River, going back to when the dams were constructed and talking about the politics of the time.
Salmon caught in the Elwha could be 100 pounds, even in 1930, after dam construction, exceptionally large. This is probably because they needed to be large in order to get to the upper river where their more ideal spawning ground were, primarily in Lost River and Creek, with strong rapids along the way there. These were referred to as tyee or chief.
This is an example of how “all successful salmon runs develop this type of highly specific adaptation to the rivers they frequent. They know through the genetic legacy of their parents where to hide, what their prey looks like, went to run to the sea and went to return. Since every river as unique as flow pattern and terrain, every run of wild salmon is necessarily different genetically from all others. The distinction may be obvious, as in the comparison of Elwha tyee to Chinook from nearby rivers, but even when the fish look exactly the same, important differences remain”(p62).
There used to be so many salmon and rivers, that it would terrify horses trying to ford rivers. Harold Sisson’s mother is referenced on p63, having to back her terrified horse across Little River in 1909 because the number of pink salmon were so great. When this book was written, there were no pink salmon left and few tyee in the Elwha.
Chapter 5 starts with the Graywolf River, which I have camped along many times. I learned where it got it’s name. “Fifty years ago this steep valley rang with the howling of the wolves that gave the river its name. The now extinct Olympic Peninsula timber wolves favorite the Graywolf above all others and made their last stand against the government-paid killers in it’s upper reaches”(p75-76).
He sees a few Chinook with “large patches of white fungus on their heads from trying to get through the hatchery weir downriver”(79). Just from rubbing against it? I wish he had elaborated.
He also talks about the history of the Dungeness Valley.
- [ ] When Captain George Vancouver explored the area in 1792, it reminded him of “a sentimental favorite that flows into the English channel near Dover“, so he gave it the same name.
- [ ] The forced removal of the Klallam Tribe in 1868 after the Point No Point Treaty. “… federal troops were sent to burn the Klallam villages at Port Townsend and Diamond Point which was quickly turned into a leprosarium. All Indians who could be found were towed in their canoes down Hood Canal behind the government cutter to the reservation in Skokomish. The few Indians who managed to remain in the Dungeness area were forced to pay $500 in gold for 210 acres of logged-off land at the place they named Jamestown“(p81-82).
- [ ] The Sequim Dungeness had already mostly been cleared “by axe or by fire” by 1902. In that year, there was so much clearing by fire that “the entire Olympic Peninsula experienced its famous “Dark Day“ when 110 forest fires raged simultaneously from British Columbia to Central Oregon”(p82). “Potatoes, oats and peas were planted among the stumps, and early yields were so heavy that the Dungeness quickly became one of the principal exporters of agricultural products in western Washington. New settlers push the clearing to the edge of the prairies around Sequim and into the hanging Valley in the foothills of the Olympics ten miles from the strait”(p82).
- [ ] Irrigation systems were constructed to divert water from the Dungeness, but without fish ladders and rarely without screens. Fish would get trapped in the irrigation system and couldn’t escape. Also, “ Warm water does the salmon senses, and above 55°F… it prevents them from spawning. Water returning from irrigation ditches was warmer still, and often contained manure, pesticides and other poisons”(p84). Irrigation also consumed most of the water in the river, 2/3 in good years, but during a drought, sometimes taking almost all of it just leaving “pools and trickling rivulets”. This was happening all over the arid west, with the US Bureau of Reclamation irrigating more than 3,000,000 acres of Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Wyoming, and Colorado. Many dams were built for irrigation.
- [ ] Farmers who were lucky enough to be on land federally irrigated by the Bureau of Reclamation, paying very little, were able to dominate the market and existing farms were put out of business by the subsidized competition. “Inevitably, some of the smaller local agricultural areas that had lost their markets began to atrophy and fall prey to urban sprawl. Among the farming valleys that used to supply Seattle, one of the first lost in this manner was the Dungeness.… The Dungeness grew a variety of common urban blight. The cooperative creamery was closed in 1954 when the small dairymen could see the hand writing on the wall. A few larger dairies survived, along with some cabbage seed farms and other assorted agricultural operations, but by the 1960s much of the valley was being transformed through the magic of real estate offerings. “For Sale\Small Acreage\Easy terms,” “Acreage View Tracts For Sale,” “Open House/Condominiums\House Sites,“ the bright signs among the quaint abandon fields proclaimed. Many of the retirees who moved into the Dungeness area added signs of their own: “Keep Out, “”Beware of Dog”…”(p86).
I wanted to have this whole chapter saved! So much good history here.
We meet Earnest Brannon who worked for the Dungeness hatchery and collected eggs from wild salmon for the hatchery.
When dams shut off water, salmon would be stranded. The adult fish would do ok, but juveniles would perish. Their instinct is to dig into the gravel substrata. Hatcheries are also more detrimental to juveniles than adults because they are raised on an accelerated schedule due to the cost of food, released ASAP into rivers and this results in smaller fish and shorter life spans. No more 100 lb chinook.
Sounds like whatever the Federal Power Commission wants goes, even if it’s “in violation of the expressed desires of a considerable segment of people of the state of Washington, the will of the legislature, and the will of the people of the state”(p99). Those were the words of the Washington State Supreme Court, after Tacoma City lights was still able to dam the Cowlitz despite majority opposition and a voter passed initiative.
The belief was that a hatchery would supplement the declining wild fish populations, but much of the evidence shows they only result in decreasing wild populations. Why? It’s what happens every time a hatchery goes in according to Harry Wagner (p115). “RC Johnson of the Washington Department of Fisheries found in the early 1970s that the success of chum and pink salmon returns was inversely related to hatchery coho production in Puget Sound, and plants of coho, which occupy the dominant position in the pool feeding order, have also been shown to diminish the survival of wild steelhead”(p 120).
Issues with hatcheries:
- [ ] They spread disease to wild populations. Diseases like Bacterial Kidney Disease (BKD), and cold water disease.
- [ ] Direct competition because they crowd out wild fish. They also are more aggressive, a necessary behavior in the hatchery. The aggressive behavior combined with their pack tendency drives wild fish away. Sometimes the wild fish will go off on their own to avoid the hatchery fish, which reduces their likelihood of finding food and survival.
- [ ] Loss of genetic diversity when wild fish breed with hatchery fish. This is an issue for many reasons, but is critical for salmon who depend on that genetic diversity to survive their migration. They are more vulnerable without that genetic diversity.
The author talks a lot about the history of hatcheries in Washington. Even after hatcheries in Canada showed that hatcheries didn’t result in increased escapement and drained wild salmon populations of their eggs, Washington kept building hatcheries because it provided jobs and tried to quell the decline of fish populations.
He also talks about the conflict between native and nonnative fishermen. Washington has the inauspicious distinction of being the first state to try to eliminate natives rights to fish. In 1963, native fishermen were being arrested on the Puyallup and Nisqually Rivers. “Speaking for the state, Assistant Attorney General Joseph Coniff told the US Senate that “the unregulated Indian net fishery … is totally incompatible with with any intelligent management program designed to conserve this great natural resource.””(p155). This was despite the fact that natives caught 6% of the salmon, compared with 12% for white sports fishermen and 82% for commercial white fishermen. But it was the natives who were blamed for overfishing.
The author furthers his points about hatcheries - that they have been more of a detriment than the solution to restoring salmon sticks after dams, etc. Hatchery runs are rarely able to meet their escapement goals and fish production costs are exceedingly expensive. The author calculates that “the full cost to the public of that four-pound, $18 coho in the Port Angeles supermarket would actually be between $28 and $42”(p224).
When these costs were showing to be prohibitive and hatcheries ineffective at restoring stocks, a hatchery in Willapa was being proposed. Staff at Department of Fisheries recognized that maybe it shouldn’t be built. There was too much political pressure to avoid construction.
In 1980, Tribes we’re finally given the right to half the hatchery fish (not just the wild). After that, the war between non-native fishermen and Tribes escalated. Native fishing boats were destroyed by arson as was the Squaxin Tribal Center.
Tribes used to protest hatcheries, partly because at that time they were given no share of hatchery fish and wild stocks had continued to decline. Now, “Many of them were attracted to the higher rate of harvest allowed with hatchery fish, and the fact that it was possible to determine through the run-timing of a hatchery run who will have a chance to intercept the fish. “Through stock manipulation you can control the fishery,” said Dave Herrera. “We’re very aware of this because it’s been used against us for so many years. “With the help of federal funding, the Quinault, Quileute, Makah, Klallam and Skokomish tribes were all operating hatchers of some sort by the early 1980s”(p227). “Inevitably, however, the tribes increased reliance on hatcheries has involved them in some of the practices they have protested for years… fish were released at a stage that maximizes residualization and conflict with wild salmon” (p228) because costs are too prohibitive otherwise.
Not all hatcheries have had poor returns, but even those successes don’t meet the true bar they were expected to meet. “Not once has the Department of Fosheries been able to replicate the number, variety or quality of the wild salmon runs killed by major developments such as dams. Despite 3/4 of a centuries labor on rivers like the Elwha, Skokomish, Cowlitz and the once mighty Columbia itself, not a single Washington dam is in compliance with the letter of the states hatchery lieu law, which requires “compensation” (or full replacement) for the fish lost. Hatchery salmon do well where wild salmon do well, and they do badly where the wild fish also suffer. State and federal hatcheries have yet to demonstrate that they can succeed on rivers where the environment has been seriously degraded and … they may actually have a lower tolerance for pollution in the wild fish with which they compete. The wild salmon or a different fish with a different ecological function”(p230).
February 1, 2022
I read 2 chapters and cried. I found it too depressing to finish. What's even sadder is that this was written 40 years ago.
March 31, 2023
A nature narrative journalist tale of lost futures. Bruce Brown describes in a clear voice the destruction of our salmon's ecology. His dissection of the causes rings true then as it does now. Wish I had read his book sooner. I worked for forty years as an Aquatic Ecologist in the Pacific Northwest. It seems I spent my forty years underscoring what was already known. The root of the current plight of our salmon is as old as time, seven deadly sins. It is a sad read as I winced at the opportunities lost.
Bruce Brown's keen eye for imagery captured my senses. His writing style is fluid and left lasting impressions.
Coincidently, I simultaneously read Ray Jordon's, Yarns of the Skagit County, He describes the same behavior and treatment of the natural world as benefits. The loggers, farmers, and fishers are heroes. The likes of which we will never see again. The people who cleared the land, felled the trees, built the dams and hatcheries, are champions of conquests. So, it was eerie to read both at the same time.
Thank you both for your tales and takes on the saying, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
Bruce Brown's keen eye for imagery captured my senses. His writing style is fluid and left lasting impressions.
Coincidently, I simultaneously read Ray Jordon's, Yarns of the Skagit County, He describes the same behavior and treatment of the natural world as benefits. The loggers, farmers, and fishers are heroes. The likes of which we will never see again. The people who cleared the land, felled the trees, built the dams and hatcheries, are champions of conquests. So, it was eerie to read both at the same time.
Thank you both for your tales and takes on the saying, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
October 1, 2019
A good review of policies and decisions and ignorance that led to the systematic destruction of Pacific Northwest forests and rivers on the Olympic Peninsula and around Puget Sound during the 20th century. An update on the situation would be interesting, as we are now pouring millions of dollars of public funding into restoring these same forests and rivers.
October 17, 2019
This book was an enjoyable read, but more importantly it serves as a vital historical record of the trials of salmon on the Olympic peninsula. It's similar to Cadillac Desert in terms of documenting the players and policymakers responsible for the ecological and cultural devastation that's unfolded, but also interweaves the author's personal experiences to help the story flow.
June 12, 2017
This book looks at the history of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. It was informative and talks quite a bit about how human activities have impacted the salmon populations.
Read
March 10, 2020Very Interesting!
July 29, 2020
Older book on salmon in the PNW so it’s a little dated. Otherwise, a good natural history of the Olympic Peninsula highlighting some of the devastating effects of logging and damming.
August 31, 2024
Well-written, informative and evocative. However, mind boggling and frustrating the level of environmental degradation in the name of the dollar that has happened.
December 23, 2022
beautifully written and heartbreaking. This was published decades ago and Brown's worst fears have all been exceeded.
January 6, 2026
Mountain in the Cloud is an excellent book for someone wanting to understand the history and politics of salmon in Washington State. Bruce Brown has researched and analyzed the ongoing tragedy of salmon depletion through terrible choices in the past decades by loggers, canners, and most of all the state and federal government. This book is filled with details about the terrible choices of various government officials of environmental departments, including shocking treatment of the Native Americans, who were denied land and rivers, but also fishing licenses on the grounds that they were not US citizens. It tells of the false choice of hatcheries instead of fish ladders. It also shares fascinating information about the salmon themselves-- their sense of smell that leads them home to spawn, the Chum's ability to change color like an octopus, their value in bringing nutrients from the sea to the land. Although beautifully written, with vivid scenes that bring the reader into a kayak on the river, it's not a hopeful book. It would benefit from an afterword, with examples of the exciting work conducted now by our Commissioner of Public Lands, bringing the salmon closer to their ancestral homes, culvert by culvert.
January 14, 2014
Actually a 4.9 because of a couple of problematic statements ignoring the fact that white people couldn't have been the first people to do certain things. However, beyond that, I loved this book. I am continually blown away by the lengths people in our culture will go to do destroy life. Dams, hatcheries and industrial/commercial fishing have been such amazingly destructive objects/activities, and keep going on despite all we know about how destructive they are to the people/creatures (basically anything that lives in regions shared by salmon) of the Pacific Northwest. I like Brown's analysis of all this, and would say that in a perfect world, the contents of this book would be common knowledge.
Currently reading
March 1, 2011Great read for anyone interested in salmon and related natural resources. Brown paints the broad canvas with historical context and the many players involved in the story of the salmon, and does so with great depth and color. His writing brings you right into the river, right into the boots of the fish biologist, practically into the salmon itself. Immensely informative for anyone wishing to understand the complex factors that impact the current state of the wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest.
January 5, 2009
Brown, Bruce. 1982. Mountain in the clouds : a search for the wild salmon. Simon & Schuster, New York
Purchased at Earthbound Books. $1.00 ISBN: 0-671-49264-0 pbk.
Depressing account of the establishment of salmon fish hatcheries and dams, mostly on Washington states' Olympic Peninsula,which resulted in the destruction of natural salmon runs. Not fun to read, but a good account of what's happened to Pacific Northwest salmon
Purchased at Earthbound Books. $1.00 ISBN: 0-671-49264-0 pbk.
Depressing account of the establishment of salmon fish hatcheries and dams, mostly on Washington states' Olympic Peninsula,which resulted in the destruction of natural salmon runs. Not fun to read, but a good account of what's happened to Pacific Northwest salmon
January 21, 2016
Outdated, yet eloquent review of salmon policy on the Olympic peninsula.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews