To Sea and Back

Combining natural history with beguiling autobiographical and historical narrative, To Sea and Backis a dazzling portrait of a fish whose story is closely intertwined with our own.

'Indispensable and powerful... To Sea and Back mingles history with biography and science... Shelton writes with a poet's ear... A writer to be prized.' -- Tom Adair, Scotsman


The Atlantic salmon is an extraordinary and mysterious fish. In To Sea and Back, Richard Shelton combines memoir and deep scientific knowledge to reveal, from the salmon's point of view, both the riverine and marine worlds in which it lives. He explores this iconic fish's journey to reach its feeding grounds in the northern oceans before making the return over thousands of miles to the burns of its birth to reproduce. Along the way, Shelton describes the feats of exploration that gave us our first real understanding of the oceans, and shows how this iconic fish is a vital indicator of the health of our rivers and oceans. Above all, To Sea and Back is the story of Richard Shelton's lifelong passion for the sea and his attempt to solve the perennial enigmas of the salmon's secret life.