Have you ever been surprised by a book? This one has got me and I can't stop reading it. I'm a fiction kinda guy. This unfortunately is not fiction. I look at the world differently and I'm only 3/4 of the way through this book. Subaruwoman and I took a short trip to the Spokane/Seattle, WA area this past weekend. We saw some of the most beautiful country we'll probably ever gaze upon--The Spokane River gushing over boulders because of the snow melts. We stopped on the way to Seattle at a scenic overlook at the Columbia River on Interstate 90. Breathtaking. We passed acres and acres of beautiful farmland with tons and tons of irrigation equipment. I then wondered how many of these beautiful rivers that we saw eventually hit a damn. Then I wondered how many Salmon died when the damns were erected in order to provide the irrigation needed to support the farmland. I drank a wonderful beer made with local hops from Yakima, WA, and I wondered where the water came from to grow the hops. Ridiculous? I dunno. I'm just wondering. Did you know some damns never needed to be built? That politicians with deep pockets aligned with mining companies with deeper pockets have lied to communities so they could dig their holes, give jobs to non-locals to mine it and pollute the water table so bad that fish, land animal, bird and, yes, people became sick or died? Did you know that no more gold needs to be extracted from our Earth? We have enough to sustain out gold fetish for quite some time. But the political machine must roll on, right over you and me.
David James Duncan is a liberal though I would imagine he hates being defined by such relative terms. He is critical of both Republican and Democrats for laying waste to our rivers and air. Duncan does not mince his words and I appreciate it. I now know that we can reclaim a lot of the lands we have used for farming we don't need. Duncan makes me want to go fishing on an unsquandered river, if such a thing exists. He makes me want me to be a tree hugger and a proud one, to boot. I would be a total hypocrite. (Even Duncan struggles with his own hypocrisy.) The most I do is recycle and mow my yard with a push reel mower much to my neighbor's confusion. Ooo and I have some of those crazy looking energy saving light bulbs in the house. Point being, the task to save the Earth seems like a lost cause, Duncan speaks to his own frustrations but also gives hope of both conservative and liberal and those in between coming together to fight those that don't give a happy damn about our water table as long as they pad their dirty wallets.
Does it matter if we permanently kill off Salmon that have traveled and spawned on the same rivers long before any European stepped foot on the Eastern shores of this land? I really think it does matter. It is a spiritual practice to care. For one, we have killed a beautiful animal only to make our lives easier. Most of us can't go there though. The companies are too big and the lies are too. Perhaps it our responsibility to at least discover what the truth is when someone wants to build a gold mine next to a river near you. Perhaps it is our spiritual responsibility to find more creative ways to meet the needs of farmers and those of fisherman and those of families who drink water. Yea that's you.
If you are of a more conservative stripe, this book will piss you off. Take a chance. No one is asking you to suffer, just to do your part and when you do take advantage of our natural resources (like I do) that you know what you're doing.
2 comments:
I wish Duncan would write more novels. Does he still write?
I think he mentions in this book that he is working on novel. He now lives in Wyoming because all the rivers he loved in Oregon are being damned or drained dry. But I think his new novel will still be set in the Pacifice NW.
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