El Salmon; Version Española de Joaquin Usubiaga
Ottawa: Ambiente Canada | Los Servicos Pesqueros Y Marinos [Environment Canada | Fisheries and Marine Service], 1974. Quarto, 31 x 23.5 cm. Variant binding (cf. Cave, A 187). Cased in quarter light brown leather and marbled paper over boards. Title in gilt, framed by two horizontal gilt double-lines, and four raised bands to the spine. Vertical double-fillets rolled in gilt to the edge of the leather, where it meets the marbled paper, on both covers. Matching marbled endpapers. All edges neatly trimmed. pp. [2] 3-79 [1]; including illustrated plates. Minor rubbing to the extremities; the wear is most pronounced on the covering paper at the corners and the leather over the raised bands. Mild adhesive bleeding and staining where the endsheets were tipped to the front of the text-block. A near fine copy. Vianney Bélanger’s gold foil binder’s ticket is neatly affixed to the recto of the rear free endpaper. The text was printed on watermarked Arches paper with horizontal chain lines. It is illustrated with 22 plates, printed on both sides. The plates comprise photographs, three maps, and one drawing, Life Cycle Changes and Development of a Coho Salmon, by David Denbigh. Many of the photographs were supplied by the Government of British Columbia and five span full spreads. Designed by Robert Reid. El Salmon was included, along with its complements in English and French, in Environment Canada’s ambitious Salmon portfolio. The portfolio was distributed widely, to heads of state and other international dignitaries, in an effort to promote salmon conservation: “the Canadian government strived hard to persuade, influence and allure other states to support its carefully crafted goals of salmon conservation and protection with its presentation of the beautiful salmon portfolio… Rehabilitation efforts to improve river habitats favorable to the salmons was an enormous on-going expense underwritten by the Canadian government, and federal agencies didn’t want the enhancement programs already underway to be neutralized by the depletion of salmon stocks on the high seas. The number of portfolios presented to member states varied, depending on the level of influence the Canadian government wished to apply” (Cave 2000, 254). All three versions of the text were also issued separately from the portfolio.
Laid into this copy is a single sheet of Eaton Private Stock paper, printed with the letterhead of ‘Robert Reid & Terry Berger Associates’ but otherwise blank. (Cave, Roderick Haig-Brown: A Descriptive Bibliography. A 187 (a)). Item #407
“Before I left Montreal for New York I undertook a publication of an entirely different kind. The first Law-of-the-Sea conference was coming up in July of 1974 and Canada needed to persuade the delegates to support its position restricting the high seas fishing of salmon before they could get back to spawn. The whole fishing industry was at stake. Rudy Kovach, who taught with me at the Vancouver Art School, was on a plane to Ottawa sitting next to Dave Denbigh of the Department of Fisheries. Dave mentioned they needed a pamphlet to give out at the conference, defending Canada’s position, so Rudy kindly told him to call me in Montreal. We ended up spending half a million dollars on an elephant portfolio of prints relating to salmon that included Haida prints by Bill Reid, who was living in Montreal at the time; watercolours of salmon spawning by Rudy; paintings of the five species of Pacific salmon that Dave had done for B.C. Packers; & old lithographs of Atlantic salmon. We also included a book by Roderick Haig-Brown (issued in English, Spanish & French editions) illustrated with stunning photographs showing the vital importance of salmon to Canadians. With an edition of two thousand sets, no one in Montreal could make the huge portfolio boxes of quality we needed, so I set up a bindery in Old Montreal and taught people how to build them. The boards were covered in cloth & the edges were made from recycled oak church pews. Bill got a woman in Vancouver to make argillite (silver for the two hundred deluxe copies) reproductions of a Haida salmon he had carved, which were inlaid on the front.
Canadian ambassadors around the world hand-delivered deluxe copies of the portfolios to heads of state, each containing a copy of Haig-Brown’s book hand-bound by Vianney Bélanger. The rest of the portfolios, with books in standard cloth bindings, were given out to ministers of all the governments involved in the voting. The result was that Canada’s position prevailed. Faced with our portfolio, the Japanese, who opposed Canada’s position, were left furious that their government had— as Canada initially intended— just a cheap pamphlet promoting its position.” — Robert Reid (quoted in Reid’s Leaves, 32).
Price: $275.00