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A review by bookishheather
My Story as told by Water: Confessions, Druidic Rants, Reflections, Bird-watchings, Fish-stalkings, Visions, Songs and Prayers Refracting Light, from Living Rivers, in the Age of the Industrial Dark by David James Duncan
3.0
Did you know that fishermen and hunters were the first environmentalists? Take for example Teddy Roosevelt, serious hunter, and serious conservationist. (TR's conservationism is how we got Yellowstone National Park and Yosemite National Park, for starters.) The concept of fishermen/hunters as environmentalists has often confused me, as a vegetarian, and I've often quipped, "We want to save 'em...so we can kill 'em!"
After reading My Story as Told by Water this paradox seems much more plausible. After all, without healthy habitat, wildlife would cease to be abundant. And not all fishermen aim to kill—that's not necessarily what they enjoy most about the activity. In 2010, Henry Winkler was promoting his book [b:I've Never Met an Idiot on the River: Reflections on Family, Fishing, and Photography|10132285|I've Never Met an Idiot on the River Reflections on Family, Fishing, and Photography|Henry Winkler|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403567437s/10132285.jpg|15030183] and when interviewed on "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" (NPR) he talked about how he always catches to release during his annual fishing trips to Montana. He is on the river for more inward reasons—complete focus on one activity, thinking like a fish, that sort of thing.
Looking for an A to B to C trajectory in your environmentalist memoirs? Nothing to see here. This book meanders around like the rivers Duncan waxes philosophic about throughout. In the beginning he's recalling his childhood, but before you know it he's including a speech given to a group of steelheaders (I'm going to assume this was Oregon Steelheaders) on the Sternwheeler while it paddled up and down the Columbia River. Then he's ranting about cyanide leach mining, in a piece that feels in many regards dated considering this book's release 15 years ago. Then he's including a piece of fiction which is a thinly veiled story (although quite amusing!) about the aforementioned method of mining. Ranting again, about damming the Snake River. Offering advice on how to get along with people who claim wildly different political views. Then recalling a dream where he helps [a:Sherman Alexie|4174|Sherman Alexie|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1333515890p2/4174.jpg] catch an enormously large fish. Including a rejected essay about his favorite fishing guide, who happens to be invisible—framed by a conversation with the fishing magazine editor who called him to reject it.
I suppose since I was expecting a more singular story (and was quite enthralled by his discussion of his early personal life in my hometown of Portland, and why he chose to move to the place I'd like to move), the jumps around weren't really my thing. Talking about fishing wasn't really my thing, although my understanding of fishing in general has increased since reading [b:A River Runs Through It and Other Stories|30043|A River Runs Through It and Other Stories|Norman Maclean|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386924914s/30043.jpg|2455271]. Of course, now living a stone's through from Maclean's stomping grounds and sharing a passion for fishing, Duncan gets compared to Maclean an awful lot, but also uses Maclean's most famous piece as a touchstone in the book.
Since there's a LOT in the book, I'd say there's probably something for everyone, including people who may not otherwise read a book published by the Sierra Club. Personally, my favorite parts of the book were when he talks about his childhood in Portland, Oregon. He speaks of places I know, and his narrative serves as an oral history of the development of East Multnomah County in the post-war years:
I felt so panic-stricken by Fairview Creek's death that I tried—as if attempting to keep a stranded fish alive in a bucket—to transfer my need for water, whole, to the other stream in easy driving distance: Johnson Creek, source of my first glimpse of a coho and an inner realm. But a decade and fifty thousand industrious new human inhabitants had been murder on this old friend, too. I encountered none of the magic of Fairview Creek, little of the wildlife, no native fish species, few of the birds. Johnson Creek's only catchable trout were drab hatchery rainbows, planted in March by Fish and Wildlife to entertain local yokels on the April Opening Day. By May, no one fished for them because the same Fish and Wildlife people pronounced them too toxic to eat.
(I live about three blocks from Johnson Creek, and the story of the creek is the story of man attempting to interfere with nature. As I write, it continues: the City of Portland has been working to "restore" certain stretches along the creek. In the case of the stretch they're currently working on, this has required diverting the creek...which is how Fairview Creek died in the author's narrative.)
Duncan also tells of how he came to live in Montana. As a person who spent six months in Missoula and who is now convinced her hometown is just not good enough anymore, I found Duncan's words in "Who Owns the West Wrong Answer #3: The Personal Geography" to ring true for me: "...just as the Hudson is as far west as Joe can go without ceasing to be the Manhattanite he is, so the Continental Divide is as far east as I can go without ceasing to be me." And of course when Duncan calls upon Norman Mclean, he includes the universally acknowledged truth: "the world...[is] full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the farther one gets from Missoula, Montana."
Duncan eventually moved from Portland to Tillamook County and then settled in Lolo, which is just eight miles south of Missoula. So he knows. : )
After reading My Story as Told by Water this paradox seems much more plausible. After all, without healthy habitat, wildlife would cease to be abundant. And not all fishermen aim to kill—that's not necessarily what they enjoy most about the activity. In 2010, Henry Winkler was promoting his book [b:I've Never Met an Idiot on the River: Reflections on Family, Fishing, and Photography|10132285|I've Never Met an Idiot on the River Reflections on Family, Fishing, and Photography|Henry Winkler|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403567437s/10132285.jpg|15030183] and when interviewed on "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" (NPR) he talked about how he always catches to release during his annual fishing trips to Montana. He is on the river for more inward reasons—complete focus on one activity, thinking like a fish, that sort of thing.
Looking for an A to B to C trajectory in your environmentalist memoirs? Nothing to see here. This book meanders around like the rivers Duncan waxes philosophic about throughout. In the beginning he's recalling his childhood, but before you know it he's including a speech given to a group of steelheaders (I'm going to assume this was Oregon Steelheaders) on the Sternwheeler while it paddled up and down the Columbia River. Then he's ranting about cyanide leach mining, in a piece that feels in many regards dated considering this book's release 15 years ago. Then he's including a piece of fiction which is a thinly veiled story (although quite amusing!) about the aforementioned method of mining. Ranting again, about damming the Snake River. Offering advice on how to get along with people who claim wildly different political views. Then recalling a dream where he helps [a:Sherman Alexie|4174|Sherman Alexie|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1333515890p2/4174.jpg] catch an enormously large fish. Including a rejected essay about his favorite fishing guide, who happens to be invisible—framed by a conversation with the fishing magazine editor who called him to reject it.
I suppose since I was expecting a more singular story (and was quite enthralled by his discussion of his early personal life in my hometown of Portland, and why he chose to move to the place I'd like to move), the jumps around weren't really my thing. Talking about fishing wasn't really my thing, although my understanding of fishing in general has increased since reading [b:A River Runs Through It and Other Stories|30043|A River Runs Through It and Other Stories|Norman Maclean|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386924914s/30043.jpg|2455271]. Of course, now living a stone's through from Maclean's stomping grounds and sharing a passion for fishing, Duncan gets compared to Maclean an awful lot, but also uses Maclean's most famous piece as a touchstone in the book.
Since there's a LOT in the book, I'd say there's probably something for everyone, including people who may not otherwise read a book published by the Sierra Club. Personally, my favorite parts of the book were when he talks about his childhood in Portland, Oregon. He speaks of places I know, and his narrative serves as an oral history of the development of East Multnomah County in the post-war years:
I felt so panic-stricken by Fairview Creek's death that I tried—as if attempting to keep a stranded fish alive in a bucket—to transfer my need for water, whole, to the other stream in easy driving distance: Johnson Creek, source of my first glimpse of a coho and an inner realm. But a decade and fifty thousand industrious new human inhabitants had been murder on this old friend, too. I encountered none of the magic of Fairview Creek, little of the wildlife, no native fish species, few of the birds. Johnson Creek's only catchable trout were drab hatchery rainbows, planted in March by Fish and Wildlife to entertain local yokels on the April Opening Day. By May, no one fished for them because the same Fish and Wildlife people pronounced them too toxic to eat.
(I live about three blocks from Johnson Creek, and the story of the creek is the story of man attempting to interfere with nature. As I write, it continues: the City of Portland has been working to "restore" certain stretches along the creek. In the case of the stretch they're currently working on, this has required diverting the creek...which is how Fairview Creek died in the author's narrative.)
Duncan also tells of how he came to live in Montana. As a person who spent six months in Missoula and who is now convinced her hometown is just not good enough anymore, I found Duncan's words in "Who Owns the West Wrong Answer #3: The Personal Geography" to ring true for me: "...just as the Hudson is as far west as Joe can go without ceasing to be the Manhattanite he is, so the Continental Divide is as far east as I can go without ceasing to be me." And of course when Duncan calls upon Norman Mclean, he includes the universally acknowledged truth: "the world...[is] full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the farther one gets from Missoula, Montana."
Duncan eventually moved from Portland to Tillamook County and then settled in Lolo, which is just eight miles south of Missoula. So he knows. : )