Sea Winter Salmon – Chronicles of the St. John River
by Mari Hill Harpur with Eileen Regan McCormack
Events
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Ongoing
Tria Restaurant, North Oaks, Minnesota
Mari Hill Harpur's architectural art installation in two windows of Triä Restaurant in North Oaks, strives to put the accent on the local environment.
The photos of trees in autumn colours allow visibility from the interior while at the same time dissimulating the banal interior view in this area of the restaurant.
Reactions have been so positive that other windows will soon be treated in a similar fashion by the artist.
Ongoing
Mari Hill Harpur's poem named “Mick’s Lullaby from the High Country” was published in a collection entitled: Universal Oneness: An Anthology of Magnum Opus Poems from around the World.
Ongoing
Masterworks Museum, Hamilton, Bermuda
Mari Hill Harpur's image, “Bright, Bold, Bermuda” of local youths by the ocean side will be in the Charman Prize Exhibit at the Masterworks Museum, Hamilton, Bermuda.
The Charman Prize is a showcase competition for art inspired by Bermuda. The exhibit opens October 9, 2019 and will run through January 2020.
www.bermudamasterworks.org/charman-prize-2019
Ongoing
A gallery exhibition about Mari Hill Harpur’s book Sea Winter Salmon: Chronicles of the St. John River are currently on display at 421 St. Paul east, Montreal, Quebec, 514-282-1996 during business hours. Appointments appreciated. www.keziagallery.com
Ongoing
A gallery exhibition about Mari Hill Harpur’s book Sea Winter Salmon: Chronicles of the St. John River is currently available at the Minnesota Historical Society’s James J. Hill House, St. Paul, Minnesota, during business hours, 651 297 2555. Hours posted on their web site. www.mnhs.org/hillhouse
Sept. 25, 2018
Mari Hill Harpur was inducted into the Forestry Leadership Hall in praise of her passion and business initiatives. The ceremony took place at the World Forestry Center, Portland, Oregon September 25, 2018. www.worldforestry.org
May 2017
The Westover Award, presented by the Board of Directors of Westover School, Middlebury, Connecticut. www.westoverschool.org
April 4, 2017
Canadian Club at Brome Lake, Yamaska Valley
128 139 Rte Brome Lake, QC, Canada - West Brome
Free for members, non-members $10
+1 450-266-7552
September 25 – November 24, 2016
240 Summit Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
October 4th, 2016 – 2pm
Waverley Gardens at North Oaks
5919 Centerville Road
North Oaks, MN 55127
+1 651-765-4002
January 25 - September 15, 2016
US Bank – Ascent Private Banking
Private Author Event and photographic exhibition
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
April 15, 2016
International Literary Festival
Linda Leith Publishing
French Edition Book Launch
10 Sherbrooke St. W. Montreal, Québec, H2X 4C9
Sept. 17, 2015 - Jan. 15, 2016
US Bank – Ascent Private Banking
Private Author Event and photographic exhibition
Seattle, Washington, USA
Sept. 12, 2015
Talk and book signing
2053 Chemin du Village,
Mont-Tremblant QC J8E 1K4
+1 819-421-3496
June 28, 2015
Greenwood Centre for Living History
Talk and book signing
254 Main Street, Hudson, Québec, Canada
May 12 - September 1, 2015
US Bank – Ascent Private Banking
Private Author Event and photographic exhibition
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
April 24, 2015
International Literary Festival
Linda Leith Publishing Book Launch discussion
10 Sherbrooke St. W.
Montreal, Québec, H2X 4C9
April 16, 2015
Talk, slide show, signing
April 11, 2015
ImagiNation Writers’ Festival
Quebec City Author Event,
Talk and slide show
44, chaussée des Écossais
Québec, Canada, G1R 4H3
in the heart of Old Québec
+1-418-694-0754
March 6, 2015
The Geraldine Historical Society Museum
Book signing and exhibition
5 Cox Street, Geraldine
New Zealand, 7930
+1 64 (0) 3-693-7028
Reviews
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Review in Quebec Heritage News
"An unusual and most beautiful book has recently been published... The book emphasizes an important aspect of evolution - evolution in the sense that only by adapting to changing conditions can both nature, and man-in-nature, survive and even prosper.
... As a social history, the book is outstanding.
However, the strongest impact of Sea Winter Salmon is visual. Mari Hill Harpur is a gifted photographer. She could have produced a coffee table book of her photos alone. She chose to combine both text and pictures, including many wonderful old photos taken by Hill family members over the generations, outstanding art work by various artists, charts, maps, time lines, and in-depth background information about the region, the people, salmon fishing and conservation methods.
The look of this book is absolutely beautiful. The colours, the page layouts, the reproduction of art and photos are all of the highest quality. The wonderful, peculiar, changeable light of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the granite shores, the flowing waters, and the generations of people who have lived on this land - all are shown by the skill of an excellent photographer who found the right publisher."
Click for the full review in PDF format.
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Review by Alex T. Bielak
Atlantic Salmon Journal
Summer 2015
Click for the review in PDF format.
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Salmon as a reflection of history and conservation
Sea Winter Salmon: Chronicles of the St John River is about a great salmon river on the lower North Shore of Quebec, and its most important visitor, the illustrious Atlantic salmon.
Very few people have the opportunity or dedication to observe their favourite fish species over a long period of time but Mari Hill Harpur has had a lifelong interest in Atlantic salmon, focusing on this species in a river of a size most New Zealand anglers couldn't imagine. It is much wider and deeper than our Waikato or Clutha rivers, and has a mystique of its own.
In 1889 Canadian and American railroad magnate James J. Hill, who travelled the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, established the log camp on the St. John River that has now been in Hill Harpur's family for five generations.
The author and photographer tracks the special relationship between the salmon and the people of the river through diaries, legal documents, scientific data, rare archival photographs and her own photographic collection.
Dramatic, tragic, amusing, and authoritative, Sea Winter Salmon addresses itself to readers of history, biography, and conservation biology and to fisher-women and men everywhere.
This book is a family memoir and a guide to a river's ecology and the life cycle of the Salmo salar, setting out what it takes to be a good conservationist in a remote and delicate region.
Sea Winter Salmon features photographs Hill Harpur has exhibited in conjunction with many other images taken throughout North America and Canada. Recently, she was the Artist in Residence at the Masterworks Foundation in Hamilton, Bermuda. In 1967 she moved to Canada to attend Bishop's University in Quebec province and in 2012 came to Geraldine - to the residence she and husband Doug enjoy on a back-country station on the banks of the Rangitata River.
"I am never far from a salmon fishery - it's been my focus for so long," she says. "Photography remains a passion."
Peter Shutt, Timaru Herald, NZ
April 4, 2015
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"Mari Hill Harpur's Sea Winter Salmon is beautifully evocative and transporting. It pulled me back in time to that remote Canadian outpost, making me feel is if I were right there with the great James J. Hill and his family and friends at the lodge, on the river, in the canoes. There's an equally important, forward-looking sense to the book that gives it great meaning for today: a reverence for the environment and respect for the area's residents and indigenous people. Mari integrates art and science in such a distinctive, compelling way. James J. Hill and his family would be very proud of her stewardship and delighted with this very engaging, beautifully presented book. Long live the Hill camp!"
Larry Haeg, author, Harriman vs. Hill: Wall Street's Great Railroad War
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“Part memoir, part rhapsody, Sea Winter
Salmon is a fascinating read that brings
insight to a beloved tradition. Through it
all, the great Atlantic salmon prevails. Mari
Hill Harpur illuminates a sport which is
also a science, while paying homage to
friendships and local expertise. In their role
as river stewards, the family’s continuing
active involvement with salmon restoration
programs is inspiring.”
– Karen Molson, author of The Molsons:
Their Lives and Times and Hartland de
Montarville Molson: Man of Honour
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This beautifully illustrated, if somewhat disjointed, narrative is part natural history, part family history, and part memoir. Author and photographer Harpur tells the story of the St. John River in eastern Canada by highlighting the lives of its people and fish. Glaciers carved the river out of the Canadian Shield during the last ice age, and generations of Atlantic wild salmon migrate to it after spending years at sea. Over time, the salmon have provided both sport and sustenance to the river's human inhabitants. One such inhabitant was James J. Hill, Harpur's great-grandfather, who in 1900 purchased 15 miles along the river from the Quebec government and set up the Hill Log Camp. In six chapters, Harpur details five generations of her family's stewardship of the river and its salmon. "The camp had lasted into the new millennium," she writes, "and we possessed the means and desire to protect and prepare our river for future [salmon] generations." Harpur illustrates her book with historic photographs galore, but her attempt to constantly weave family history with natural history results in a somewhat unfocused read. Nonetheless, conservationists and history enthusiasts will find much to appreciate in this wonderfully presented memoir. (Apr.)
Sea Winter Salmon is published by Linda Leith Publishing.
© 2014 – Mari Hill Harpur
Design: Studio Lézard
Site du livre dans sa version française : Pèlerins de la rivière St-Jean – Chronique de saumons et de saumoniers
