In his latest of two books about the Gila River country, Dutch Salmon sets a new gold standard for popular history. If historians would follow Salmon's Gila Libre model, kids wouldn't be bored with history and adults wouldn't repeat so many of its mistakes.
The author walks his readers through a fast-paced and compelling overview of the highlights of the history of this very colorful region of the country from the pre-European period right up to his own fishing exploits with his young son. Then he turns all of this perspective and insight towards a few contemporary subjects of interest: sustainable agriculture, wildlife management, and water rights politics. It is the perfect historical teaching formula: [(good scholarship + fascinating storytelling) x contemporary relevance]/current controversy = highly relevant works of history that are fun to read! When an author gets it right...as M. H. Salmon has done in Gila Libre, the book will be widely read by those with an interest in the subject matter and the author's argument will have a major impact on the issue(s) or become a major part of the historical record surrounding it...depending on whether the author's intent was to inform or to persuade.
Fishermen will like Gila Libre for the colloquial fishing stories of the Southwest's last untamed river. Southwestern history fans will simply find this book fascinating. The Gila country saw a lot of action from the prehistoric Mimbres Mogollons to Geronimo, and from Billy the Kid to Aldo Leopold. In fact, even some of the more contemporary history of the Gila is pretty darned insteresting: mounted confrontations between ranchers and federal agents over cattle and fish, a modern self-proclaimed mountain man dubbed "The Gila Monster" who wore glasses and killed other people's cattle to "live off the land" in the Gila Wilderness and thought he was misunderstood and under-appreciated, and Doc Campbell and the story of the Gila Hot Springs Ranch. Environmentalists and ranchers reading Gila Libre will find a friend in Mr. Salmon even though he's a hunter and a fisherman. Farmers and foresters will find interesting conversation-starter chapters in the book, too. And through it all, Dutch Salmon's passion for what he once dubbed "The Sierra del Gila" shines through with infectious clarity. The Gila National Forest has had no greater advocate since the passing of Doc Campbell than M. H. Salmon.
Smoky Joe "kickin' it" at base camp.
The Coleman Roadtrip LXE crankin' out some Johnsonville brats.
