``I want to say that some of these areas were true gardens of eden , where people were outside in the sun picking fruit and vegetables from abundant natural growth, as in Northwest Coast of the "U.S.", if it is possible to revive the preinvasion ecology there. So the idea is not that it be all rough and rude.'' Charles Brown
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The garden here was based on the ocean. Even over fished and beat down as it is, it is still possible to catch so many that you and all your friends and all the people you know at work and most of their relatives can be completely stuff with salmon from May to November. Even at the rate of fishing once ever other weekend, I was catching more than I could possibly eat or would fit in my small freezer, so I had to smoke some. Then quit going out. The other thing to do is make loks. The method is to cut two giant filets, leaving the outside skin on, salt both meat sides, layer each with fresh dill, then put them together and weigh them down with a couple of bricks over wax paper. After a few days in the refrigerator, you have something like a month's supply, eating giant servings with bagels and cream cheese every day for lunch. I used to walk by the delicatessen counter and check the prices which were 22.00/lb. I had something like several hundred dollars worth in my refrigerator.
SF Bay is at the terminal end of the great NW taiga that in North America starts up in the Alaska coastline---and of course follows across the Bering Sea into Mongolia and Siberia. So we are at the southern tip. The great sea mammal migration runs from Alaska down to Baja California with the whales and passes here in spring and fall on the way back and forth. Everybody is following the cold northern pacific currents. Meanwhile the salmon are mixed in with the rest to the great pleasure of the seals and sea lions who serve at the pleasure of the great sharks, with the anchovies and plankton filling in at the bottom. When the anchovies rise up, the salmon follow and there is a great feeding frenzy on the surface with the salmon chasing the anchovies, while the pelicans, cormorants, and gulls above follow the action, and the sea lions and sharks score below. You can see these goings on from miles away and just follow the commotion.
One interesting exercise is to look at the earth from the north pole, instead of across the equator--so you can imagine the migration routes of the animals and some of the early people. If you had a culture to live in the boundaries between the taiga forests and tundra and their coastlines, then you would have access to every place between Finland and California. It must have been one giant meat farm. I forgot to mention the crabs, lobster, shell fish, and all the rock fish. Some of these are really ugly mothers, but they sure taste good.
Even modest amounts of environmental management and de-industrialization has relieved the Bay a lot---enough so you can eat the striped bass again---and there are plenty of them. So, from that I figure we could extend the life of civilization by many factors, just by chopping off the top of the capitalist pyramid, slowing its machinery down to something short of a buring frenzy, and managing the existing eco-systems, instead of exploiting them all the way down into piles of inert ash. Not that I am holding my breath.
But I am feeling mellow after my bike ride this afternoon. The cows in Tilden were out near the road so I gave them a scare by barking at them like a dog and the nearby ones jumped around giving me weary considered cow looks. What's this weirdo up to? The fat calves were especially sceptical.
Anyway, tell Justin, Spring is the wrong time of year to be complaining about scarcity.
Chuck Grimes