Documenting a Vanishing Pacific Northwest Ecosystem and Culture

April 30, 2021 Update -- Yesterday apnews.com reported "California officials will again truck ['more than 16.8 million'] young salmon raised at fish hatcheries in the state’s Central Valley agricultural region to the Pacific Ocean because projected river conditions show that the waterways the fish use to travel downstream will be historically low and warm due to increasing drought."

I'm grateful to MoonPath Press in Oregon for publishing my new book documenting vanishing Pacific Northwest salmon culture. Previously I posted about this from a historical perspective, and this book continues that theme, except it is based on people I met, places I fished, and climate emergency we are experiencing.

The book's MoonPath Press Website reports "a Metro Vancouver BC study noted unless carbon emissions are quickly reduced, 'Vancouver [BC] would be warmer than present-day San Diego by the 2050s' as reported [by Larry Pynn] in the Vancouver Sun in 2017 ." What will that mean for salmon and salmon people?

It mentions my 2016 “Letter” at The Columbian daily newspaper in Vancouver, Washington: "[In 2015] the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife trucked salmon up low rivers to spawn, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife trucked salmon out of Central Oregon due to warm waters, and California trucked smolts to the ocean."  Similarly, "an email from Bob Lackey, Professor of Fisheries at Oregon State University, [noted] 'In a 100 years wild salmon runs south of Canada will be reduced to remnant runs.'"

In response, my book reflects some of the water magic before it may be gone. I wrote about my fishing buddy Slim Bracken, other fishermen, fellow whale watching and charter fishing captains, my time fishing out of Depoe Bay, Oregon and Washington people, "The Wolf in Estacada’s Safari Club," "Wild Trout," "80-year-old sturgeon/cruising river bank" -- in short, many scenic gifts of the Pacific Northwest for 10,000 years.  

The back cover of my previous book Hawk on Wire noted "the INDC (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) agreed to in Paris in 2016 of 3.5° C (6.3° F) over pre-industrial levels are insanely irresponsible to present and future generations of all species." As I wrote before, "Amanda Erickson noted in the Washington Post October 11, 2018, 'Few countries are meeting the Paris climate goals.'" and, according to Datawrapper and  Raftery et.al, 2017, a "4 C + WORLD" means "Deadly heatwaves every summer, hundreds of drowned cities, devastation of the majority of eco-systems, more tipping points are crossed, leading to intensified warming." More people are aware of this than ever before, as shown in U. S. President Biden's April 22/23 Climate Summit, but each year the CO2 numbers keep rising.  

The book's MoonPath Press Website notes my "Manifesto from Poet on a Dying Planet" which includes a Robert Bly quote "It’s a poet’s job to defend nature.” My activism and poetry are part of that.

The MoonPath site mentions Robert Wilson’s essay “Will the end of the world be on the final exam?” in the book Teaching Climate Change in the Humanities. One of Wilson’s “teaching assistants [led] a discussion section about climate change: ‘My soul is crushed’ she began. ‘I thought we were going to have this fabulous conversation about framing arguments, the role of science, finding allies and figuring out how to effectively communicate [climate science to the public]. The class – and I don’t just mean two or three vocal people – basically came up with this: all of Bangladesh could die, the temperature could increase six degrees, tons of species could die, and people in other places could suffer from drinking water and crop shortages, and we wouldn’t care at all [ . . . . ]’” This means in addition to making fossil fuel companies pay for mitigation and adaptation, and colleges/universities and pension funds divest, we must also find ways to increase capacity for caring in developed nations before many more human and nonhuman inhabitants globally will be forced to migrate and/or die early and awfully.

Oregon author Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion) wrote a 1993 letter to Allen Ginsberg: "Ancient Advice Left in cave by Wise French Caveman: 'When Bigbad Shit come, no run scream hide. Try paint picture of it on wall. Drum to it. Sing to it. Dance to it. This give you handle on it.' So Twister is my try."

Endorsements for my book are below.

"Mindful of environmental degradation, Scott T. Starbuck's poetry offers those needed songs of redemption, rising from his love of forests, water, and fish. He has composed some of the finest fishing poems I've ever read-vivid, pulsing, and honest-with humble, understated humor and insight expressing great wisdom. Exploring the dynamics between the shared and owned, poor and rich, young and old, ghosts and the living, Between River & Street mediates our divisive, troubled times. Like the mythological Raven of the Northwest, Starbuck is a 'Flamekeeper, ' and his poetry a bright beacon for the wild and sacred."-Henry Hughes, Oregon Book Award-winning poet and author of Back Seat with Fish

"Trust a contemplative fisherman of Northwest rivers to give us a wise poem collection like Between River & Street. Scott T. Starbuck brings the tender respectful eye of the naturalist; the nudge of the environmentalist; the long thoughts of the tribe; the brush of a painter sending exquisite lines of ink down paper. He also has an ear for a good story, scattering characters throughout-not the 'suits' in the street who'd never know 'what the salmon said' or what the ancients knew, but people met or recounted at riverbanks, little bookstores, out-of-the-way cafes, bars. My favorite is 'the woman behind the counter, ' or is it Crazy Lucy and her roller rink in the barn or Maynard who loved his cow more than most? You'll read this book more than once and find your own."-Florence Sage, author of Nevertheless: Poems from the Gray Area and The Man Who Whistled, The Woman Who Wished: A Polish-Canadian Story

"With Between River & Street, Scott T. Starbuck is deep listener, ace observer, shape-shifting storyteller. He's historian, philosopher, climatologist, ecologist, lover, rememberer. He's salmon, and salmon fisherman. Those who know Northwest rivers will want to pass this passionate book to friends. Those streetwise to our environmentally-challenged world will catch these smart, tough poems in order to release as seems right. Like the late Oregon poet, William Stafford, Starbuck writes of place with integrity, authenticity, humanity."-Ken Waldman, author of The Writing Party and Leftovers and Gravy

"Scott T. Starbuck's poems are Oregon poems-humble yet heartfelt, all the way to the bone. Like filets of rosy salmon flesh, cooked on bonfire coals; these words lift easily from the carcass of felt sense. Between River & Street is a collection of mostly short but never simple poems, reflecting a life lived with daily presence and purpose. Starbuck's poems attend to fish and to fish stream-the moss and fern, salal and spruce, wet stone and rivulet-but also the hominids, on the shores and in the quik marts and cafés of classic hometowns from Astoria south to the Siskiyou. These pages honor Oregon existence: good folk whose unfettered reverence plays potent role in the annual cycle of lives lived out in place. Readers, be ready; pull on your waders, step into the stream. Starbuck casts words like caddis flies; these poems hit the heart, like a trout hits the hook, lies briefly in careful hand, caught-and released into gratitude and requisite grief. Travel down the coast and up tributaries of the inland soul. These are poems of a citizen who is denizen, engaged in each damp day, and witness to those moments when clouds part and sun shimmers with 'shadow on the once-magic-waters.'"-Nancy Cook, author of Siltwater, a collection of essays. She teaches writing in Astoria, where for eight years she also served as the editor of RAIN Magazine.

"If you're not concerned about the imminent collapse of the ecosystems of earth, then you should be. Such is the overarching theme of Scott T. Starbuck's Between River & Street. Awareness is a call to action, to give up our citified car culture and rediscover our original home. About that home, Scott celebrates the natural world of fish (especially fish), birds, animals, and the manifold flora of his local ground, the Columbia Gorge and Pacific Coast. Scott's poems tell of some people unaware of that world, while other encounters yield insight on how we really live on earth. Scott's brief poems carry hope for the human future."-Bill Siverly, author of Nightfall, co-editor of Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place