WildLife

About the Book

Fishermen like holidays because they keep other folks off the water. The way they celebrate traditional holidays like Thanksgiving, obscure holidays like Arbor Day, and as yet-to-be-declared holidays like National Cabin Fever Day depends on whether one fishes or not.

In WildLife: Volume Three: Fisherman’s Holidays, author Pat Neal examines our unrealistic expectations toward holidays through a collection of previously published newspaper columns. Written from his research as an historian and the wild and wooly life of a guide on the rivers of the Olympic Peninsula, these stories attempt to answer the eternal question: why can’t the Skunk Cabbage Festival last all year? Gleaned from the commentary page of The Peninsula Daily News, Neal offers a year’s worth of fisherman’s holiday stories.

WildLife provides humorous insight from a fisherman’s point of view into a host of holidays from Thanksgiving to the solstice to election day and more.

About the Author

Pat Neal, a fishing guide, began writing the newspaper column WildLife in 1998.These stories offer a natural history of the Olympic Peninsula based on his research as a historian for the Washington State Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation and the life of a guide. He lives among big trees along the Hoh River. This is his fourth book.