David James Duncan

David James Duncan is the author of the novels The River Why and The Brothers K and several works of nonfiction. His work has won a Lannan Fellowship, the 2001 Western States Book Award for Nonfiction, a National Book Award nomination, three PNBA Awards, two Pushcarts, an honorary doctorate from University of Portland, the American Library Association's 2003 Award (with Wendell Berry) for the Preservation of Intellectual Freedom, inclusion in three volumes of Best American Spiritual Writing, and many other honors.

David has spoken all over the U.S. on wilderness and rivers, literary and imaginative freedom, the irreplaceable importance of wild salmon, the pathos of fly-fishing, and on the writing life, the nonmonastic contemplative life, and the nonreligious literature of faith. He is a contributing editor to Orion. He scripted and narrated an award-winning 2005 documentary on the natural history of bamboo fly-rods titled Trout Grass (see troutgrass.com), and is doing the same for The Fire in Water, a film on the unnatural history of the Interior West's vanishing wild salmon.

David writes, "home-churches," "river-schools" and lives with his wife, the sculptor Adrian Arleo, and their family on a western Montana trout stream.

I just saw "Salmon: Running the Gauntlet" on PBS Nature and saw that David James Duncan was in it. Watch the full episode here: Salmon: Running the Gauntlet ~ Video: Full Episode | Nature | PBS and listen to a related interview with David James Duncan here: Salmon: Running the Gauntlet ~ Interview with David James Duncan | Nature | PBS.

Lost River, a limited edition print with an essay by renowned author and conservationist David James Duncan, was released in 2005 by Save Our Wild Salmon. The image was created by photographer Frederic Ohringer and the project was underwritten by Patagonia. The words are just as poignant today as they were 6 years ago:

I dreamed the people who fished the river never knew want, seldom knew confusion, & with the salmon’s self-sacrifice to guide us we could always find love. I dreamed I obeyed the river so gratefully the name of every rapid, fall & riffle engraved itself on my tongue, & the salmon came back to us again & again, & I never once doubted they would bless my family’s table forever.

I dreamed Big & Little Dalles & Methow & Priest Rapids & Lodgepole & Entiat Rapids. I dreamed Coulee Bend & Kettle Falls & beautiful Celilo. I dreamed Chalwash Chilni & Picture Rocks Bay & Spanish Castle & Victoria & Beacon Rocks. I dreamed Black Canyon & Deschutes & Klickitat Canyons & Rocky Reach & Ribbon Cliff. I dreamed I fished by the peach groves of the place called Penawawa, drunk on the river’s sweetness within the fruit.

I dreamed I fell asleep to the sound of water, & when I woke a cloud had enveloped the minds of the ruling pharaohs, & they had attacked the river as if its song & flow were curses. I dreamed 227 dams clogged the river & all that I knew was submerged.

I dreamed the salmon young lost strength & direction in the slackwaters, couldn’t reach the sea, & when they no longer brought the ocean back to us we grew as lost as they. I dreamed my people stood shoulder to shoulder in casinos the way we’d once stood by the river, our fists full of quarters, our minds full of broken hope & smoke.

I dreamed I asked why the salmon had to die & the pharaohs told me, “So wheat can ride the slackwater in barges.” I dreamed I tried to reason, telling them of wheat shipped by railroad, & they laughed & marched off to conduct business hard to distinguish from war.

I dreamed I led the last salmon people out into the wheat fields, & in a golden light we launched our dories, & we went fishing in the stubble. I dreamed I cast the Spey of a Nez Perce named Levi, & the beauty of hidden salmon gleamed in field & sky, & our fishing became prayer. But still the pharaohs ruled the water. I dreamed the one who reads even lost rivers then said, “It is finished,” & the last salmon floated by us as a cloud above us.

I dream I am an old man, & Levi & the farmer whose fields we sailed sit with me at Penawawa beside a river finally freed. I dream we hold rods in one hand, sweet peaches in the other, & our lines run true as prayer into the shine. But whether the salmon come, whether they bring the lost ocean back to us, my dreams, like the river, refuse to say.

–David James Duncan

More at MOLDY CHUM: Lost River.

David James Duncan

• The Pioneer Seeking solace: Interview with David James Duncan (March 2011)
• Seattle Times Newspaper - The Arts A Q&A with David James Duncan, author of 'The River Why' (February 2010)
• 1859 Magazine The River Why's David James Duncan on water, salmon and the policies that are killing them (Fall 2009)
• Powell's Q&A
• Orion: He Sets Me in the Stream - A short story (September/October 2007)
• Grist: By Hook and By Book - Duncan answers editors' and readers' questions, including his current literary work and activism and his dislike of the word "environment." (April 2, 2007)
• Grist: The River Dry - Sarah Kraybill Burkhalter's report of Duncan and friends rowing through a wheat field to illustrate connections between farmers and fishermen. (January 25, 2007)
• Extinction Stops Here - The rally's keynote speech by Duncan. (September 19, 2006)
• Orion: What Fundamentalists Need for Their Salvation - A fresh look at Christianity's call to nature. (August, 2005)
• High Country News: A Native Son of Oregon Writes of Heartbreak, Determination - Interview by Adam Burke focusing on My Story as Told by Water. (May 26, 2003)
• Orion: When Compassion Becomes Dissent - Essay on the effects of war-making on language and on people. (February, 2003)