Adam's River: The Mystery of the Adams River Sockeye

Victor Clulow is a zoology professor at Laurentian University.

This is an instructive and gentle book. A capable and involved writer
(Mark Hume) and a gifted illustrator (Rick Blacklaws) present aspects of
the life and history of a famous fish (the sockeye) in the context of
human societies and history. They show how things were once, are now,
and may be in the future. The appearance of the book is timely: reports
(and consequences) of the collapse of fish populations off the Atlantic
coast have been followed, recently, by intimations that Pacific fish may
be going the same way—in particular, that something is drastically
wrong with salmon numbers returning to their breeding sites.

The clear, informative text is accessible to the general reader without
being skimpy on content; a useful list of sources is included. The
illustrations—a mixture of line drawings, graphs, and photographs
(half-tone and color)—are not only delightful, but also well shot,
cropped, positioned, and produced. A particularly pleasing aspect of the
book is the care taken to present the relationship, past and present,
between the aboriginal people and the salmon.

Adam’s River is recommended as a good primer for understanding what
we know and what we must yet find out about the forces that act on fish
and wildlife.