A well-known British Columbia biologist and angler, Tony Pletcher, died of a heart attack recently while fishing. Those of us who knew him feel it was a good way for Tony to die. He was pursuing his passion. Some of the mysteries of this passion for angling are revealed in vivid and poetic descriptions in River of the Angry Moon: Seasons on the Bella Coola. Mark Hume, a dedicated fly-fisher and senior correspondent with the Vancouver Sun, describes fishing for salmon and trout in B.C.’s famous Bella Coola River with the intimacy of someone who shares the angler’s obsession.

But this book is about more than fishing. It is about the history of the Bella Coola ecosystem. For this, Hume relies on the observations and field notes of his collaborator, Harvey Thommassen, a family physician and naturalist who lives on the river. Together they describe the river’s rich biodiversity. The book is also about a tragedy that is befalling many B.C. salmon streams as the anadromous salmon and trout stocks dwindle in the face of excessive harvest and misuse. Hume is careful to distribute the blame among the commercial fishing and forest industry and between the federal and provincial governments. He also includes himself and the sport fishing fraternity among those responsible for the decline. Even more courageously, he does not spare the native community, citing the wastefulness and wanton disrespect for Bella Coola’s salmon shown by some members of that community. This book uses many personal anecdotes but relies more on catch and spawning statistics to chronicle the decline. The sources for these numbers, however, are seldom documented, diminishing the book’s value as an authoritative reference.

This story is about loss, greed, and short-sightedness, and society as a whole is responsible for this loss according to Hume, as the tragedy repeats itself relentlessly and we are left to question if it can end.