The President's Salmon: Restoring the King of Fish and its Home Waters

The salmon is said to be as old as time and to know all the past and future. Twenty-two thousand years ago, someone carved a life-sized image of Atlantic salmon in the floor of a cave in southern France. Salmon were painted on rocks in Norway and Sweden. The salmon's effortless leaping and ability to survive in both river and sea led the Celts to mythologize the salmon as holder of all mysterious knowledge, gained by consuming the nine hazelnuts of wisdom that fell into the Well of Segais. For 80 years, salmon anglers on Maine's Penobscot River presented the first salmon caught each year to the President of the United States. This tradition forms the framework of The President's Salmon, presenting a rich cultural and natural history of the Atlantic salmon and the Penobscot River, the last bastion for the salmon in America and the best hope for the preservation of this endangered species.