Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30138 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From Publishers Weekly
It was an act of bravado that prompted 19-year-old Fromm to leave college and accept a winter job with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game in 1990. His assignment was to check daily on two million salmon eggs planted in a channel between the Selway River and Indian Creek. The nearest road was 40 miles from camp; by mid-November the only access was by snowmobile. Fromm had dreamed of being a "mountain man"--a la Jim Bridger or Jedidiah Smith--but he was a tenderfoot, hardly prepared to spend seven months alone with his dog Boone in the wilderness. Fromm gives an engaging account of that winter; his job took about 15 minutes a day, so he had to combat loneliness and fill the hours. He learned to hunt, to tan leather, to preserve meat. There were occasional parties with hunting groups, brief visits by the game wardens, a few narrow escapes. A fine tale of adventure and self-sufficiency.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA-An absorbing personal account. Disenchanted with college, 20-year-old Fromm accepted a job with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and set off to spend the winter in the middle of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. For 15 minutes a day, 7 days a week, he checked salmon eggs planted in the channel between the Selway River and Indian Creek, and made sure ice was cleared from the end of it. The closest plowed road was 40 miles away and the closest person 60 miles. The fruit of his labors was about 20 fish returning to Indian Creek out of the 2 1/2 million he watched over. Entertaining nonfiction.
Pamela B. Rearden, Centreville Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
What do you get when you drop into the remote, icy wilderness of Idaho an impulsive tenderfoot who remanticizes the "mountain man" ethos? Death or a darn good story. After narrowly eluding the former, Fromm delivers the latter. His job--chipping ice out of a channel--only took a few minutes a day, so in addition to enduring bitter cold and extreme hardship, he had to face an oppressive amount of "free time." Hiking, hunting, reading, and cooking helped pass it, but boredom drove him to stupid, perilous outings. Fromm had sporadic contact with backwoods hunters and eventually became a true mountain man scornful of the rangers zipping out of the woods to return to desk jobs. This is a good example of "new nature writing" typified by the straight-ahead narratives of Rick Bass rather than the more literary styles of Barry Lopez or Annie Dillard. Antihunting activists and the squeamish may dislike parts of this book, but it is still recommended for most nature and adventure fans from high school age up.
- Jim Dwyer, California State Univ. at Chico
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Indian Creek Chronicles
VERY ENTERTAING AND HOLDS YOUR INTEREST VERY WELL; PETE IS A
REAL PERSON ON A REAL ADVENTURE.

Indian Creek Chronicles
Some friends of mine are certainly going to get "Indian Creek Chronicles" for Christmas this year. A wide variety of interests will enjoy this book.

Pete Fromm is justly known as an excellent writer. This memoir is some of his early material and describes some of his earliest wilderness experiences. He was a tenderfoot in an alien environment. Thus this becomes a true story written on a clean slate. A person must believe that the experience had a profound influence on him and on his writings that we enjoy as they reach publication today.

Fromm makes it sound as if it were almost an accident that he ended up deep in Idaho's Selway wilderness while he was still a teen. However, it is never truly an accident that a person strikes out on an adventure. When the adventure works out well, it is usually because the circumstances match a certain makeup in the person's being. Fromm was searching his way through a program at the University of Montana when an opportunity appeared to spend the winter far from civilization watching over a bunch of salmon eggs too small to see. Without really thinking about what it meant to spend months without human contact or access to help if he needed it, he postpones his education and accepts the job. That the job required only a few minutes each day added to the loneliness but provided time to learn from the wilderness.

He lands in a wall tent without much instruction on what supplies he should have brought or how he should survive the challenges he might face. The winter weather in that part of the country is renowned for deep snow, severe temperatures, and long duration. Fortuitously, he brought a young dog that proves to be a good companion and a focus during times of loneliness. He also brought a pioneering spirit without which the adventure would have been a disaster.

The book relates a self-taught crash course in survival skills, learning about one's self, and discovering the ways of nature in the wilderness. There was something unexpected around every corner, and the corners were close together.

One expects the unexpected in such a situation. The phone hanging on a nearby tree doesn't work - this is before wireless - adding to the isolation, and also the risk. On the other hand, snowmobiles unexpectedly appear occasionally with outfitters, hunters, or forest rangers. An attempt by Fromm's brother and father to ski in on a visit ends unsuccessfully, and Fromm's concern over the possible consequences causes him to put himself at risk.

There is some superlative nature writing here, such as the emotions aroused by an eclipse of the sun. Human interaction with the changing seasons and the animals of the wilderness receive a fresh look through the eyes of someone just learning about such things. There is an "Afterword" chapter that brought tears to my voice as I was reading the book aloud.

Regardless of whether your interest turns to the outdoors or to the enjoyment of human nature, you will enjoy this book. It is the kind of book you will refer to frequently in conversations with your friends.

I hope you like snow
Hard to find many faults with this book. It had about everything a guy could want. Life in the Bitterroot mountains, a good dog, a little hunting and trapping and fishing, and lots of snow. This is a well told story of the romantic and somewhat serendipitous transition of a Midwest college kid from the life of a dorm rat to the life of a mountain goat. He has a friend, Rader, who pops in from time to time, and his faithful dog Boone, but otherwise is pretty much a hermit. The author does a great job of describing both the beauty and hardship of solitary mountain life without over dramatizing either. It is an easy read, but not without some depth, but mostly it is just good "escapist non-fiction". Even though he admits the book came from an expansion of a series he had written for an outdoor magazine, it never has the feel of being "padded".

Just as an aside, even though there is a bit of hunting and trapping, it's hardly a blood fest. Outside of his grouse hunting he took it pretty easy on the wildlife population of Idaho. That aside, I think you'll enjoy the read.