Singing to the Sound: Visions of Nature, Animals & Spirit

For two decades now I have cleaved to the misting, mysterious shores of Washington's Puget Sound...

From wolves to salmon, from the great blue Heron to the gray whale, Singing to the Sound is Brenda Peterson's eloquent refrain to the American West. In this her latest book of personal and journalistic essays, Brenda Peterson explores and illuminates the complicated, but essential relationship between humans and animals, between humans and nature. Whether describing her swims with dolphins in the wild; the healing benefits of animal play; or the ongoing battles over hunting wolves and whales, Peterson gives her readers the opportunity to become "other" as she muses and envisions nature, animals and spirit in new ways.

A treaty has been kept and a treaty broken

Brenda Peterson unravels the complexities of the highly controversial Makah whale hunt, the first off U.S. mainland shores in nearly a century. Since 1996, Peterson's essays on the Makah have appeared in The Seattle Times. For the first time in book form, Peterson, who helped mediate between the Makah and environmentalists, gives an in-depth view of this dramatic and complex story.

From the watery Northwest corner of the United States comes this exquisite collection of nature stories by renowned author Brenda Peterson. Like a misty Seattle weekend, Peterson's contemplative prose invites readers to go inward, to a landscape of rivers, sounds, and oceans, places that host mythical shape-shifters and mer-people, as well as seals, whales, gulls, and salmon.

Whether she is discussing her wind-rattled studio on the shore of Puget Sound or her deep relationships with marine and land animals, Peterson writes with spiritual maturity and environmental authority. Each passionate story examines the way humans commune or collide with the natural world, so that a pearl of wisdom is always found beneath the surface. This gift of wisdom is especially appreciated in the section on the Makah whale hunt, where Peterson takes huge risks as a narrator, willing to delve into the spiritually and politically complicated issues of native whale hunting. When negotiations between Makah representatives and moderate environmentalists (including Peterson) tragically faltered and a 2-year-old gray whale was killed in May 1999, Peterson writes, "We hear only of the wars--the winners and losers. But what of those who battled most to understand themselves and reconcile seeming opposites? What about those who allowed themselves troubling ambivalence and soul searching, without an easy answer?" Indeed it is her willingness to dive into this underworld of ambivalence and soul searching that makes her nature writing so resonant and influential. --Gail Hudson