The SOS team has compiled a list of some of our favorite books that we love to read over the holidays and offer as gifts to our friends and family. We hope you join us in reading or gifting the following books that center salmon, orca, natural and human history, and contemporary culture of the Pacific Northwest.

Poetry: 

I Sing the Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State
Edited by Rena Priest
Published by Empty Bowl Press

For this unique collection celebrating salmon, Lummi Tribal member and former Washington State Poet Laureate Rena Priest gathered poems from more than 150 Washington poets ranging from first graders to tribal elders, all inspired by the Northwest’s beloved, iconic salmon. Purchase the anthology from Empty Bowl Press here.

Patriarchy Blues
By Rena Priest

Patriarchy Blues highlights how patriarchy takes on different forms and the clear gender divide continues to perpetuate itself in modern society. Her poems are set against a lyrical, accessible backdrop, and the result is a provocative contemporary critique that will reframe perceptions and the way we see the world. Learn more about the book here. 

WHEREAS
By Layla Long Soldier

WHEREAS confronts the coercive language of the United States government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and Tribes, and reflects that language in its officiousness and duplicity back on its perpetrators. Through a virtuosic array of short lyrics, prose poems, longer narrative sequences, resolutions, and disclaimers, Layli Long Soldier has created a brilliantly innovative text to examine histories, landscapes, her own writing, and her predicament inside national affiliations. Learn more about the book here.

For Love of Orcas
By Andrew Shattuck McBride and Jill McCabe Johnson

After the Southern Resident orca Tahlequah swam with her newly born dead calf for 17 days, scientists, poets, and writers responded to her grief and the plight of the endangered orcas in this moving anthology. The anthology features poetry, essays, and environmental writing from more than ninety esteemed authors. Learn more about the book here.

Non-Fiction:

Jesintel: Living wisdom from Coast Salish Elders
By Children of the Setting Sun Productions
Edited by Darrell Hillaire and Natasha Frey

As the title of a new book Jesintel —“to learn and grow together”— tells, there is more than one community at the heart of this work. Nineteen elders from Coast Salish communities in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia offer a portrait of their perspectives on language, revitalization, and Coast Salish family values. Topics include naming practices, salmon, canoe journeys and storytelling. Jesintel reminds us of the importance of maintaining relations and traditions in the face of ongoing struggles. Learn more about the book here.

ORCA: Shared Waters, Shared Home
By Lynda Mapes

ORCA is an important book project about our Puget Sound region, with meaning and implications that will resonate around the globe. Brought to life by the enduring partnership of two local and independent media—The Seattle Times and Mountaineers Books— and written by award-winning environmental reporter Lynda Mapes, with photos by Times photographer Steve Ringman and others. Learn more about the book here.

Elwha: A River Reborn
By Lynda Mapes

Elwha: A River Reborn is a compelling exploration of one of the largest dam removal projects in the world—and the efforts to save a stunning Northwest ecosystem. Through interviews, field work, archival and historical research, and photojournalism, The Seattle Times has explored and reported on the dam removal, the Elwha ecosystem, its industrialization, and now its renewal. Elwha: A River Reborn is inspiring and instructive, a triumphant story of place, people, and environment striving to come together. Learn more about the book here.

The Salmon Way: An Alaska State of Mind
By Amy Gulick

Alaskans have deeply personal relationships with their salmon. Yet while salmon are integral to the lives of many Alaskans, the habitat they need to thrive is increasingly at risk as communities and decision makers evaluate large-scale development proposals. Through story and images, author Amy Gulick shows us that people from wildly different backgrounds all value a salmon way of life. Learn more about this book here.

Healing the Big River: Salmon Dreams and the Columbia River Treaty
Photography by Peter Marbach

Healing The Big River masterfully combines the art of visual storytelling with passionate essays.The twelve contributing authors, a mix of First Nations, Tribes, and salmon recovery advocates speak of their relationship to the Columbia and advocate for a new treaty that honors Indigenous knowledge and starts the process to restore one of the greatest salmon runs the world has ever seen. Learn more about the book here.

Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America
By Matika Wilbur 

Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America is a photographic and narrative celebration of contemporary Native American life and cultures, alongside an in-depth examination of issues that Native people face, by celebrated photographer and storyteller Matika Wilbur of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes. The body of work Wilbur created serves to counteract the one-dimensional and archaic stereotypes of Native people in mainstream media and offers justice to the richness, diversity, and lived experiences of Indian Country. Learn more about the book here.

Thunder in the Mountains
By Daniel J Sharfstein

In the summer of 1877, General Oliver Otis Howard, a champion of African American civil rights, ruthlessly pursued hundreds of Nez Perce families who resisted moving onto a reservation. Standing in his way was Chief Joseph, a young leader who never stopped advocating for Native American sovereignty and equal rights. Thunder in the Mountains is the spellbinding story of two legendary figures and their epic clash of ideas about the meaning of freedom and the role of government in American life. Learn more about the book here.

Message from Frank’s Landing
By Charles Wilkinson

In Messages from Frank’s Landing, Charles Wilkinson explores the broad historical, legal, and social context of Native American fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest, providing an account of the people and issues involved, and a focus on Billy Frank Jr and his father and the river flowing past Frank’s Landing. A Messages from Frank’s Landing points to the significance of the traditional Indigenous world view - the powerful and direct legacy of Frank’s father, conveyed through generations of Native people who have crafted a practical working philosophy and a way of life. Learn more about the book here.

River Teeth
By David James Duncan

In River Teeth, a uniquely gifted American writer, David James Duncan, blends two forms, takes the reader into the rivers of truth and make-believe, and all that lies in between. At the heart of Duncan’s tales are characters undergoing the complex and violent process of transformation, with results both painful and wondrous. Equally affecting are his nonfiction reminiscences, the "river teeth" of the title. He likens his memories to the remains of old-growth trees that fall into Northwestern rivers and are sculpted by time and water. These experiences—shaped by his own river of time—are related with the art and grace of a master storyteller. Learn more about the book here.

A Watershed Runs Through You: Essays, Talks and Reflections on Salmon, Restoration and Community
By Freeman House

The essays and talks in A Watershed Runs Through You, Freeman House shares lessons learned from four decades working with his community to restore the Mattole River watershed: the idea of watershed as an organizing principle; the realization that the work of restoration and recovery, for watersheds as for people, has to come from within; and that this undertaking comes to us as lived experience. In these essays, House reminds us that restoration requires both interspecies knowledge and community cooperation and asks us not only to learn to think like a watershed but to recognize—with humility—our place as humans within it. Learn more about the book here.

What Water Holds
By Tele Aadsen

In What Water Holds, a series of lyrical essays, Tele Aadsen examines questions of equity, identity, community, the changing climate, and sustainability with loving, detailed attention, revealing the complexities within their many shades of gray. Weaving stories of what lies beneath the surface and the possibilities beyond, What Water Holds speaks to anyone who has fallen under the spell of the sea, struggled to find their own uncharted path, and wrestled with big philosophical questions—in short, anyone seeking to live a full, deeply considered life. Learn more about the book here.

A River Lost
By Blaine Harden

Washington Post journalist Blaine Harden returned to his small-town birthplace in the Pacific Northwest to follow the rise and fall of the West's most thoroughly conquered river. A River Lost: The Life and Death of the Columbia is a personal narrative of rediscovery, joining a narrative of exploitation: of Native Americans, of endangered salmon, of nuclear waste, and of a once-wild river now tamed to puddled remains. Learn more about the book here.

Murder At The Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy Of Lies, And The Taking Of The American West
By Blaine Harden

Murder at the Mission is a story of two missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman and Reverend Henry Spalding who in 1836 set out to convert members of the Cayuse and Nez Perce Tribes but they would soon fail their mission. However, Spalding would invent a story that recast Whitman as a hero, and helped to fuel the massive westward migration. Murder at the Mission reminds us of the cost of American expansion, and the problems that can arise when history is told only through one perspective. Learn more about the book here.

River of Life, Channel of Death
By Keith Petersen

River of Life, Channel of Death tells the history of the four Lower Snake River dams and their impact on Northwest salmon and the long struggle to bring navigation to Lewiston and hydro-power to a region; of the influence of powerful congressional representatives and booster organizations; of a clash of cultures; and of the role of the federal government in Western settlement. Learn more about the book here.

Looking for additional salmon, orca, and river gifts for your friends and family...or yourself? Check out Save Our wild Salmon and Northwest Artists Against Extinction's official storefront.

We’re excited to offer apparel, water bottles, coffee mugs, tote bags, and beanies with incredible artwork from Annie Brule, Alyssa Eckert, Britt Freda, Jen McLuen, and Claire Waichler. These amazing artists located across the Pacific Northwest have generously donated their artwork to support NWAAE and our collective efforts to restore and repair our region's native fish and their rivers.  

Shop the storefront here! This online store will continue to grow with additional pieces from NWAAE collaborating artists in the upcoming year—stay tuned!