Sea Winter Salmon – Chronicles of the St. John River

by Mari Hill Harpur with Eileen Regan McCormack

Sea Winter Salmon: Chronicles of the Saint John River is the story of a wealthy man's fishing camp and his family's passion for nature. The book describes a place of leisure; where vacation time involves interacting with the environment and the wildlife within it. The sense of what nature bestows brings about the realization that one has the ability and a responsibility to help ensure the environment’s health and continuity as a means to reciprocate the favour.

Much has already been written about James J. Hill, the Empire Builder, and how he contributed to the settlement of the American North-West. This book will support those publications but rather than focusing on his business and agricultural skills, Sea Winter Salmon is about Hill’s personal passion for fishing with good friends and his family. This is a chronicle of how the camp came to be and how Hill spent his leisure time.  It is a rare glimpse into how a great man relaxed.

That said, the book is an accurate historical document thanks to the preservation of Hill’s archives that exist with the Minnesota Historical Society and with various private collections.The task was to bring the facts together and assemble them into a comprehensive narrative. This challenge was undertaken by Mari Hill Harpur, James J. Hill's great-granddaughter and co-keeper of the family’s Hill Camp flame.  She felt the need to revive this story re-assemble it, and uncover generations of dust. This proved to be a daunting journey during which a fervent archivist in the person of Eileen McCormack, her co-author, accompanied her. Together, they weave a story which is sometimes dramatic, occasionally tragic, often amusing and, at other times, informative with regard to the challenges of this remote and delicate region. This book addresses itself to historians, biographers, conservation biologists and no less, to fisher women and men everywhere.

As this story unfolds it takes us through a thorough documentation of five generations of family ownership and management of this river. This is the story of that particular river and the people who have been touched by its magic.  For anyone with an interest in fly-fishing and a river’s ecology, the history of a river’s life, this is a tale worth exploring.