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The Lost Coast: Salmon, Memory and the Death of Wild Culture
A 2008 Kiriyama Prize "Notable Book"
Finalist for the Writers' Trust Nereus Non-Fiction Prize
Finalist for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, BC Book Prize
Finalist for the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction, Alberta Literary Awards
Longlisted for the British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-fiction
Somewhere between joyous affirmation of British Columbia's splendour and momentous grief for the destruction of a once thriving salmon culture comes the newest work from acclaimed poet and novelist Tim Bowling. "The Lost Coast" is a lyrical, impassioned lament for the home Bowling once knew and for the river and creatures that continue to haunt his imagination.
Raised in Ladner, BC, by a gillnetting family, Bowling was a fisherman himself until the mid-1990s. The loss of the West Coast's salmon culture is felt deeply by Bowling; this is a betrayal of his birthright and a decimation of his children's heritage. "The Lost Coast" asks hard questions of politicians, fishermen, fish farmers, industrialists and of the three million people currently inhabiting Greater Vancouver. What is the story behind the pioneers who built this province? What is the secret life of the killer whale and the great blue heron? And above all else, who caused, and continues to hasten, the diminishment of the Pacific salmon, British Columbia's most totemic creature?
With a poet's attention to details of the spirit, and a novelist's flair for character and story, Tim Bowling elevates his cherished homeland to the realm of enduring myth.
Finalist for the Writers' Trust Nereus Non-Fiction Prize
Finalist for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, BC Book Prize
Finalist for the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction, Alberta Literary Awards
Longlisted for the British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-fiction
Somewhere between joyous affirmation of British Columbia's splendour and momentous grief for the destruction of a once thriving salmon culture comes the newest work from acclaimed poet and novelist Tim Bowling. "The Lost Coast" is a lyrical, impassioned lament for the home Bowling once knew and for the river and creatures that continue to haunt his imagination.
Raised in Ladner, BC, by a gillnetting family, Bowling was a fisherman himself until the mid-1990s. The loss of the West Coast's salmon culture is felt deeply by Bowling; this is a betrayal of his birthright and a decimation of his children's heritage. "The Lost Coast" asks hard questions of politicians, fishermen, fish farmers, industrialists and of the three million people currently inhabiting Greater Vancouver. What is the story behind the pioneers who built this province? What is the secret life of the killer whale and the great blue heron? And above all else, who caused, and continues to hasten, the diminishment of the Pacific salmon, British Columbia's most totemic creature?
With a poet's attention to details of the spirit, and a novelist's flair for character and story, Tim Bowling elevates his cherished homeland to the realm of enduring myth.
255 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 21, 2019
This isn't a literary work you're holding. It's a school of wild words. When the last wild salmon dies, these pages will be dust. p70
TB writes with a poets assurance and the authority of one who knows what he is talking about. This account is at once a memoir and a warning, a celebration and a lament. When he writes of "...the tragic imperatives of industry, science, and greed" p126 you know he has witnessed enough to realize where it is all headed.
The wild gives way to commerce, cold-eyed and edgy, each man for himself. p135
TB writes with a poets assurance and the authority of one who knows what he is talking about. This account is at once a memoir and a warning, a celebration and a lament. When he writes of "...the tragic imperatives of industry, science, and greed" p126 you know he has witnessed enough to realize where it is all headed.
The wild gives way to commerce, cold-eyed and edgy, each man for himself. p135
October 21, 2023
this book was published in 2007, and should have been enough to make (at least some) people pause, or intervene in the destruction humans (at least some) are wreaking on this planet. Reading in in 2023 makes me sad.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews