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Rating: 
Summary: Loss of Wilderness = the loss of innocence
Review: How can it be that there are only two other reviews of this fine book since 1995?M.R. Montgomery does the thinking, the exploration, the examination and the analysis; all we have to do is read his book. His descriptions of cutthroat trout and their environs, First Nations peoples (Native Americans / Indian), the steady changing of history "ripping pages out of the history book" as he calls it, and the incredible pace of destruction are both fascinating and chilling. Kathie Durbin's fine work on The Tongass, "Tongass: Pulp Politics and the Fight for the Alaska Rain Forest", is a work of journalism, and it describes, with a very sharp focus, the same practices at work that Montgomery reveals in, "Many Rivers to Cross", in the U.S. Nation's very first park. Montgomery had it right from the start. Law and public policy may be on the side of preservation and conservation, but as M.R. Montgomery and his colleagues make clear, "wise use" is anything but "wise" and once used, its gone. Edward Abbey's, "The Monkey Wrench Gang", is, apparently, the only answer that makes for popular reading. This is a shame where Montgomery's prose and observational style are just as accessible as Abbey's. Read this fine book, check out Ms. Durbin's excellent piece of journalism and consider whether Mr. Abbey was writing a novel or a policy proposal. In a day and age where greenhouse gasses are increasing, the US will not participate in the Kyoto accord and the lumber industry is nothing but a byproduct of the pulp industry - only books like these (ironically printed on pulped wood fibers) can educate us about the last of the wilderness. Teddy Roosevelt created the parks. . .M.R. Montgomery shows that it is impossible to argue that wilderness conservation is limited to people with only one political view or to just one special interest group.
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Summary: A rare find
Review: Montgomery's gentle quest for the last haunts of native cutthroats is worth reading twice. A more gifted writer than most of his more celebrated contemporaries.
Rating:
Summary: A rare find
Review: Montgomery's gentle quest for the last haunts of native cutthroats is worth reading twice. A more gifted writer than most of his more celebrated contemporaries.
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting and thought provoking read
Review: The author travels to unlikely western destinantions in search of native cutthroat trout. The difficulty encountered finding pure strains (those unpolluted by stocking) is an eye-opener; there are few places remaining where man's hand has not altered the biology of US streams. The devestating impact of cattle ranching on streams is also explored. You are left with the sad knowledge that many of these populations of wild trout are not far from extinction.
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Summary: A literate oasis in the field of angling books
Review: The late American author, William Humphrey (a fine writer and fly fisherman), noted that there were two types of people that wrote about fishing-fishermen that wrote and writers that fish. He recommended reading the latter. M.R. Montgomery of The Boston Globe fits into the latter class. This elegant book takes the reader into the vanishing world of the cutthroat trout in the western United States.
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Summary: This is a marvelous book that deserves a wider audience.
Review: The valuable insights, gentle humor and wistful beauties it contains should not be reserved just for the fishing fraternity. M R Montgomery describes, with wit and sensitivity, his search for the last remaining bastions of the native trout of the mountain west, the cutthroat. He describes the people who help him on his quest with humor and with empathy. In those remote places, his interest and his eyes wander to show us paticularities of landscape and peculiarities of the flora and fauna that cohabit there with the trout. Beneath the surface Montgomery is addressing concepts like "wilderness", "preservation" and "stewardship" without referring to them directly. He begins his story near the Little Big Horn Battlefield, but the last stand that he wants us to contemplate is not Custer's.
Rating:
Summary: This is a marvelous book that deserves a wider audience.
Review: The valuable insights, gentle humor and wistful beauties it contains should not be reserved just for the fishing fraternity. M R Montgomery describes, with wit and sensitivity, his search for the last remaining bastions of the native trout of the mountain west, the cutthroat. He describes the people who help him on his quest with humor and with empathy. In those remote places, his interest and his eyes wander to show us paticularities of landscape and peculiarities of the flora and fauna that cohabit there with the trout. Beneath the surface Montgomery is addressing concepts like "wilderness", "preservation" and "stewardship" without referring to them directly. He begins his story near the Little Big Horn Battlefield, but the last stand that he wants us to contemplate is not Custer's.
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