Maynard Hubbard "Dutch" Salmon II (March 30, 1945 – March 10, 2019) was an American outdoor writer, publisher, and founder of High-Lonesome Books, a publishing company in Silver City, New Mexico. He was a conservationist, environmental activist, fisherman, and homesteader based in

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. Salmon was also a

coursing Coursing by humans is the pursuit of game or other animals by dogs—chiefly greyhounds and other sighthounds—catching their prey by speed, running by sight, but not by scent. Coursing was a common hunting technique, practised by the nobility, ...

sighthound Sighthounds (also called gazehounds) are a Dog type, type of hound dog that hunts primarily by sight and speed, unlike scent hound, scent hounds, which rely on scent and endurance. Appearance These dogs specialize in pursuing prey, keeping it ...

breeder, trainer, and hunter.

Biography

M. H. Salmon was born in

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States. With a population of 148,620 and a Syracuse metropolitan area, metropolitan area of 662,057, it is the fifth-most populated city and 13 ...

, on March 30, 1945. Salmon attended

Nottingham High School Nottingham High School is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private fee-charging day school for boys and girls in Nottingham, England, with an infant and junior school (ages 4–11) and senior school (ages 11–18). There were 1177 stu ...

in Syracuse, and The

Winchendon School The Winchendon School is a coeducational, preparatory boarding and day school composed of two campuses; one in Massachusetts, and another in Herald Square, Manhattan, New York. Founded in 1926, The Winchendon School has an average classroom siz ...

in Winchendon, Massachusetts. After a short stint at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

, he transferred and graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in English and history from Trinity University in San Antonio in 1967. Salmon taught school in the

San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...

area from 1968 to 1971 before moving to

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

to become an outdoorsman and writer. Salmon moved to southwest

in 1981 and began his work to preserve the free-flowing

Gila River The Gila River (; O'odham ima Keli Akimel or simply Akimel, Quechan: Haa Siʼil, Maricopa language: Xiil) is a tributary of the Colorado River flowing through New Mexico and Arizona in the United States. The river drains an arid watershed of ...

. Salmon died on March 10, 2019, in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Salmon’s father, John Pomeroy Salmon, fought in World War II with Edson's Raiders in the South Pacific. His 4th great-grandfather was

Moses Van Campen Major Moses Van Campen (1757–1849) was a soldier during the American Revolutionary War. He was a prominent figure in Pennsylvania and parts of New York (state), New York. His primary involvement in the Revolutionary War was in fighting against ...

, a veteran of the American Revolution, who fought the Native Americans in the frontier of western Pennsylvania.

Conservation and environmentalism

In the spring of 1983, when the

was in danger of being dammed, Salmon took a trip along the river where he was inspired to create what would later become his bestseller, ''Gila Descending.'' He co-founded the Gila Conservation Coalition in 1984 to protect the free flow of the Gila and San Francisco Rivers as well as the Gila and

Aldo Leopold Wilderness Aldo Leopold Wilderness, along with Gila Wilderness and Blue Range Wilderness, is part of New Mexico's Gila National Forest. It became part of the National Wilderness Preservation System in 1980 by an act of the United States Congress and has ...

areas. The Gila Conservation Coalition successfully lobbied against the Hooker and Conner dams and Mangas diversion in the 1980s and 1990s. It helped to close the San Francisco River to motorized vehicles and kept the East Fork of the Gila River closed to the same. Starting in 2001, Salmon opposed the diversion threat under the Arizona Water Settlements Act. In January 2020, New Mexico senators

Tom Udall Thomas Stewart Udall ( ; born May 18, 1948) is an American diplomat, attorney, and politician who had served as the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States senator for N ...

and

Martin Heinrich Martin Trevor Heinrich ( ; born October 17, 1971) is an American businessman and politician serving as the senior United States senator from New Mexico, a seat he has held since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Heinrich served as the ...

introduced the M. H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila River Wild and Scenic Act to protect The Gila River.

Affiliations

Salmon was a member of several commissions and boards throughout his life: * New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, 1985-1987 * Founder and Chairman, Gila Conservation Coalition, 1984-2019 * Chairman, New Mexico Wilderness Coalition 1989-1995 * Board Member, Quivira Coalition 2000-2006 * Board Member, New Mexico Wildlife Federation 2005-2009 * Board Member, New Mexico Water Dialogue, 2007 * Board Member, Gila Resources Information Project 2004-2019 * Member, New Mexico State Game & Fish Commission, 2005-2011 Salmon received the Lifetime Conservation Award from the Gila Natural History Symposium in 2008. In 2009, he was awarded the Lifetime Conservation Award by the Gila Conservation Coalition. He received the Conservation Voters New Mexico’s Local Conservation Hero Award in 2013. In 2014, the New Mexico Community Foundation awarded Salmon the Luminaria Award.

Bibliography

Non-fiction

*''Gazehounds & Coursing - An Illustrated Guide to the Art and Sport of Hunting with Sight Hounds'' (1st edition, 1977) Saint Cloud, MN, North Star Press, *''Tales of the Chase -- Hound Dogs, Catfish, and other Pursuits Afield,'' (1991) Silver City, NM, High-Lonesome Books, *''The Catfish as Metaphor -- A Fisherman's American Journey,'' (1997) Silver City, NM, High-Lonesome Books, *''Gazehounds & Coursing - The History, Art and Sport of Hunting with Sighthounds'' (expanded & revised 2nd edition, 1999) Silver City, NM, High-Lonesome Books, L *''Country Sports – The Rabid Pursuits of a Redneck Environmentalist,'' (2004) Silver City, NM, High-Lonesome Books, * ''Gila Libre: The Story of New Mexico’s Last Wild River,'' (2008) Albuquerque, NM, University of New Mexico Press, NM, *''Gila Descending -- A Southwestern Journey,'' (4th edition, 2009) Silver City, NM, High-Lonesome Books, *''Country Sports II – More Rabid Pursuits of a Redneck Environmentalist,'' (2015) Silver City, NM, High-Lonesome Books,

Fiction

* ''Home is the River'' * ''Signal to Depart'' * ''Forty Freedoms'' He was also the editor and publisher of the short-lived 1980s outdoors literary quarterly, ''Basin & Range''.

References

__FORCETOC__ {{DEFAULTSORT:Salmon, M 1945 births American nature writers American male non-fiction writers 2019 deaths Writers from Syracuse, New York Writers from Minnesota Writers from New Mexico Schoolteachers from Texas American conservationists Trinity University (Texas) alumni University of Michigan alumni 20th-century American male writers American male novelists 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American male writers American magazine writers People from Silver City, New Mexico