Senator John McCain

   


   
     It would be difficult to find anyone, other than the current President of the United States, who did not think that Senator John McCain was an honourable man who dedicated his life to serving his country. From one of the obituaries I read today, I have extracted a small portion which relates to his military career and an unfortunate event he experienced prior to the very unfortunate one he lived as a prisoner of war for over five years.

     “Sen. McCain requested and got orders to do a Vietnam combat tour, joining a squadron on the supercarrier Forrestal in the Tonkin Gulf. On July 29, 1967, having flown five uneventful bombing runs over North Vietnam, he was preparing for takeoff when a missile accidentally fired from a nearby fighter struck the fuel tank of his A-4 Skyhawk, Sen. McCain wrote in his memoir. It set off explosions and a fire that killed 134 crewmen, destroyed more than 20 planes and disabled the ship so severely that it took two years to repair.
     His own injuries being relatively — and miraculously — minor, Sen. McCain, then a lieutenant commander, volunteered for dangerous duty on the undermanned carrier Oriskany. He joined a squadron nicknamed the Saints that was known for its daring; that year, one-third of its pilots would be killed or captured.
(“John McCain, ‘Maverick’ of the Senate and Former POW, Dies at 81," By Karen Tumulty, Washington Post, August 26, 2018.)

     The name “Oriskany” reminded me of a review I wrote over 30 years ago of a book about that carrier and the experience of those who served on it. The review is presented below and the book will be of interest to those who want to learn more about the pilots, like McCain, who fought in the air war in Vietnam.

Zalin Grant. Over the Beach: The Air War in Vietnam. W.W. Norton & Company, 1986.

   
     The author of Over the Beach served in Vietnam and then reported from there as a journalist for Time and The New Republic. While working on a story in 1966, Mr. Grant met the members of Squadron 162 who flew off the carrier Oriskany. Intrigued by the exploits of the Naval aviators, the author kept in touch and, in 1971, located the surviving members and interviewed a number of them. The time was not right and readers were not ready, however, at least in his judgement, for the type of story that Mr. Grant wanted to tell, so the project was delayed until 1984, when the author again traced down the pilots and further recorded their experiences. So the book that has resulted is based on research, some of which was conducted twenty years ago, on the recorded reminiscences of the participants and on an analysis of some of the scholarship that was produced in the intervening years. It is partly an oral history, partly an exercise in the “New Journalism,” and it is totally satisfying.

     Over the Beach recounts the history of one squadron of Naval pilots who flew F-8 Crusaders off the deck of the Oriskany as she cruised in an area known as “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin during the period 1966 to 1972. Personal experiences are emphasized, and the reader learns a great deal about how the aviators were trained, how they viewed combat, how they lived within the confined space of “officer’s country” and how they behaved while on liberty or when captured by the enemy. Scattered throughout the book are the words of wives and, in particular, the moving recollections of the wife of one pilot who was shot down and killed. Those who approach this book expecting prose overwhelmed by military acronyms and the jargon typically uttered by men who say “Negative” when they mean ”No” will be pleasantly surprised by the eloquence of the testimony.

     Although the author’s primary purpose was to tell the personal stories of pilots and “to write about them in human terms,” he does not ignore the larger political and military issues. The basic goal of the air war was to stop the flow of men and supplies into South Vietnam. However, it was not quite this simple. The strategies that were designed by military officers and politicians to accomplish this goal often differed from each other. Grant does a good job of discussing how the political restrictions that were imposed affected the course of air operations and the lives of the pilots who actually had to fly missions at particular times against particular targets, both of which were chosen by politicians thousands of miles away.

     One is impressed when reading the book by the complexity of air operations and the courage it takes to perform them. It is not easy to coordinate the activities of several floating cities and it takes considerable skill to drive a huge piece of machinery off the deck of an aircraft carrier. It also takes considerable nerve to fly from a carrier and return to it at night through the rain, clouds and mist of a monsoon and land on a very small deck pitching and rolling in a heavy sea. And it takes still more courage and skill when one misses and misses again, to fly back into the night and find a tanker and refuel so one can once more try to land. The number of deaths recorded in this book from accidents alone is staggering and one does not have to be an actuary to realize that Naval aviators were involved in a very risky profession.

     About ten years ago, Tom Wolfe also wrote about Naval carrier pilots in an interesting essay titled,  “The Truest Sport: Jousting With Sam and Charlie,” which was reprinted in Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine and in The Purple Decades. It was his goal, he wrote elsewhere, “to give the full objective description, plus something for which readers had always to go novels and short stories; namely, the subjective or emotional life of characters.” The author of Over the Beach would, I think, agree with this statement. In any case, he has written a book about those who possess “the right stuff” and anyone interested in contemporary American Studies is certain to enjoy it. Jerry Mulcahy
Canadian Review of American Studies, January 1987, 18(4), p.562

Post Script
McCain is not mentioned in Over the Beach, but the author,  Zalin Grant, does offer a good account of McCain's naval experiences here: http://www.pythiapress.com/wartales/McCain-Shootdown.htm

McCain's father and grandfather were admirals and he requested a tour in Vietnam.  I did not and then refused to serve there. It should not seem odd, however, that I can admire the man and do. As far as I am concerned, candidate Trump's remark about McCain should have ended his run for office and I remain surprised that so many Republican patriots were silent (and still are).

In the review, Tom Wolfe is quoted and he is now also gone.  Among other things he should be remembered for giving us 'radical chic",  long before 'virtue signalling' became fashionable.

For Book Reviewers

     
     I would imagine that the audience for this post will be minuscule given that book reviews, particularly in newspapers, have largely disappeared from print publications. Should you get the call, however, you will find below some material you may use (I did). It will be especially useful if you need filler for a long review and if you want to entice the reader with some good prose, before you offer some of your own.

    Among the debris I am discarding I found material relating to a book review I produced. I will spare you and not recycle the entire review which was of a festschrift for a retired librarian. It seems to me that the introduction to the review is worth sharing, however, especially the portion by Macauley:

“After reviewing the three-volume life of Lord Burleigh, Macauley wrote the following:

“Compared with the labour of reading through these volumes, all other labour, the labour of thieves on the treadmill, of children in factories, of negroes in sugar plantations, is an agreeable recreation. There was, it is said, a criminal in Italy, who was suffered to make his choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was too much for him. He changed his mind and went to the oar.”

This is how the review begins: 
      "There are those, I am sure, who would expect that it would be wiser to choose the oar straight away than to agree to review a book on reference services and library education. They would be wrong in this instance, however, for the book under consideration contains some interesting and informative essays.”

Sources:
     The review actually exists and can be found here: "Reviewed Work: Reference Services and Library Education: Essays in Honor of Frances Neel Cheney by Edwin S. Gleaves, J. M. Tucker. Review by: Jerry Mulcahy, Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l'éducation
Vol. 9, No. 1 (Winter, 1984), pp. 108-111.
     It should be noted that Ms Cheney was quite a reviewer. She produced almost 6,000 of them for the Wilson Library Bulletin, while also reviewing for the Nashville Banner, and over 2,000 more can be found in Reference Services Review.
    The person in the picture above also actually exists. He is Ron Charles who reviewed books for the Washington Post and you can learn more about him and the decline of book reviewing here:
"For Your Consideration: Ron Charles, Video Book Reviewer," Dan Ozzi, Publishers Weekly, Feb, 14, 2011.

The Mystery of the Missing Books

   
     I read an old review of a book that appeared to be very interesting so I went searching for it and found a copy in the local London Public Library system which, I should mention, is a good one. During the search I learned that the book was out-of-print, but apparently  still much in demand since the price for used copies was in the three figure range. I then found the book in the stacks which is not the same as finding it listed on the online library catalogue. I was somewhat surprised since I noticed a while back that the public library system here does not have either a machine or a person to check to see if you have any library material as you exit. That is, I did not have to sign out the book; I simply could have walked out with it. The book I wanted was there, so there is no mystery involved with it, but still I wondered - What books are not there and are many being stolen?

     Last year the central branch of the public library system in London was undergoing major renovations and I noticed that one could wander from the stacks into the adjacent shopping mall without going through any security. When I asked a staff member about it I was told that I could walk directly out without signing out a book and that that was the case in the branch libraries as well. She trusted the patrons and I felt a little guilty about implying that some of them might not be so trustworthy. Needless to say, her conception of human nature was more positive than mine. That is the reason I did not reveal the title of the book above, since I figured that once you saw how valuable it was and how easy it would be to steal it, you would do so.

     Surely it must be somewhat tempting to forego signing out one of those high-demand books which you happened to see resting very temporarily on the shelf. Or, to perhaps keep a little longer one of those short-loan XXX For Dummies books that you may need for more than seven days. Apart from those hypothetical scenarios I could present some real ones from academic libraries where the security alarms often sounded as forgetful students simply forgot to sign out the books that were hidden in their coats.

     As for the mystery about what is missing I will say that I am sure that the library system here is well-managed. I am also sure the volumes that have gone missing which have been checked out have been tracked, due diligence done and fines levied. I am also certain the costs of machines or people to  prevent theft have been considered. I am not so sure that one can know what is missing until one goes looking for it since it is highly likely that there are not enough staff to do a thorough inventory.

      I have gone on long enough about this and will say only that I do hope that material is not being stolen from our public libraries and that the librarian is a better judge of character than I. As some of the sources below indicate, there may be cause for concern.

Sources:
     It should be remembered that this post is written out of concern and not as a critique. I did not, for example, ask anyone in the LPL system about the security procedures. As well, this is a rather perfunctory search. I went looking for information about public library thefts and, unsurprisingly, found some. I am sure a more thorough search of the library literature would have uncovered many articles  about the steps and methods uses to protect the inventory.
    The items are presented in reverse chronological order. A couple relate to Canada.

I wrote about The Great British Book Burglary last year.

This year there was a big one in Pittsburgh, but perhaps our citizens are more solid:"The Pittsburgh Case  an Inside Job: ‘Greed Came Over Me’: $8 Million in Rarities Stolen From Pittsburgh Library,” Sarah Mervosh, New York Times, July 21, 2018.
“The archivist who oversaw a special collection of rare books at the central library in Pittsburgh walked out of the building with these and other items — sometimes in plain sight — and sold them to a local bookstore owner, the authorities said, in a scheme that lasted nearly 20 years.

“Unsolved Mystery: The Case of 100,000 Missing Library Books,” The Daily Gleaner/Telegraph-Journal, Fredericton NB, Mar 21, 2017
[I was unable to access this complete article.]
“Nearly 100,000 books were marked missing from New Brunswick's public libraries from 2007 to 2016, according to data obtained through a …”

“Thousands of Items Taken from Edmonton Public Library in Past 3 years,” Julie Wong, Global News,
“More than 3,000 items have gone missing from the Edmonton Public Library (EPL) system from 2014 to 2017, according to data obtained by Global News.”

This library even has security: “The library takes some measures to prevent items from being taken, including security tags on items, security gates at entrances and a tracking system that alerts EPL when an item is not returned. The user is contacted and reminded about the missing item; if it is not returned, the user is then charged for the replacement.”

[The next few are about the same British 'issue'. There is a slight sub-text which relates to the loss of library staff and funding, not just the loss of books.]

“25 Million Books are Missing From UK libraries – But Who's Counting? Librarians Call for a National Audit after Inventory Count of Suffolk libraries Reveals 10,000 Books are Missing, Despite Computer Records Saying Otherwise,” Danuta Kean, The Guardian,, Feb 23, 2017,
“The decline in books stocked by public libraries may be far worse than official figures indicate, with industry sources claiming that it may be many millions higher than the 25 million books recorded as missing, meaning that the number of books available to borrowers has plummeted by more than 50% since 1996.
Official figures from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (Cipfa) for library books stood at 52.3 million at the end of 2016, a drop of almost 25 million since 1996. But that number reflects computer records rather than physical stock checks made by librarians. Earlier this week, it emerged that libraries in Suffolk had 10,000 fewer books than listed on its database after an inventory count by librarians. Insiders said similar disparities were likely to be reflected across the 151 library authorities in England and Wales because cutbacks had reduced librarians’ ability to do shelf counts.”

“Thousands of Books Misplaced, Lost or Stolen from Suffolk’s Libraries Between 2014 and 2017,”Emily Townsend, East Anglian Daily Times, Feb, 20, 2017
“Nearly 10,000 books, CDs and DVDs have gone missing from Suffolk libraries in three years, new figures show.”

“Libraries Are Missing 25m Overdue Books,” Caroline Argyropulo-Palmer, The Times,
24 February 2017
"Public libraries are missing 25 million books, official figures show but the true number could be much higher.
At the end of last year libraries held 52.3 million books, a fall of 25 million from 1996. That reflects the number of books logged in library computer records, however, and there are concerns that stock checks would find that many more books are off the shelves.
It emerged this week that an inventory held in Suffolk had found that there were 10,000 fewer books, CDs and DVDs in the county's libraries than listed on its database.
Tim Coates, a library campaigner and former head of Waterstones, told The Guardian that similar disparities were likely to be found in libraries across the country.
"It's not just Suffolk that has this problem," he said. "This is a national issue because librarians are not doing enough stock checks because cuts mean they can't do their job properly."
Since 2010 about 8,000 librarians have been made redundant in England and Wales while funding for public libraries fell by £25 million from 2014-2015 to 2015-2016. The stock has vanished.”

“20,000 Books Missing From Libraries,” Bilal Kuchay, Kashmir Monitor, Jan.28, 2013.
By Bilal Kuchay

“284,000 Library Books Stolen / Pilfered Texts Worth More Than 400 mil. Yen, Local Govts Say in Survey, Daily Yomiuri, Nov. 11, 2008.

“Stealing Beats Borrowing: Selfishness is Trumping Sharing as Pounds 150m Worth of Books are Filched from Local Libraries Every Year,” Rose George, The Guardian, April 4, 2006.

Libraries Take Aim at Theft, Vandalism,”by Gail Swainson, Toronto Star, Aug. 28, 1996.
“Public libraries in Metro have launched a campaign in the hopes of reducing the more than $1 million a year lost to vandalism and theft.
``Unfortunately, there appears to be a real disrespect out there for public property,'' said Mario Bernardi, manager of communications and development for the Metro Toronto Reference Library.
Reference library losses include valuable reference books, recipe books, atlases, art books and encyclopedias, which routinely have pages torn out or are covered in scribbled graffiti, Bernardi said.
At Metro's lending libraries, videocassettes, CDs and books are signed out but never returned.
It all adds up to an estimated $1 million-a-year loss to the system, so six Metropolitan public library systems - East York, North York, Scarborough, Toronto, York, and the reference library - have decided to fight back by asking users to respect library property - or report those who don't.
``We really can't afford these kinds of losses,'' Bernardi said. ``When we're cutting left and right, the last thing we need is to have this happen.''

“Libraries Suffer From Thefts,” The Windsor Star, July 1994 (article by Rachel Gordon San Francisco Examiner)
SAN FRANCISCO - "Paul John Smith isn't a household name - but he's the San Francisco Public Library's most wanted man.
Smith has more overdue library items - 238 - than any other San Franciscan, and owes $6,331 in overdue book fines and replacement costs, more than anyone else.
While Smith leads the pack of library scofflaws, he is far from alone. Thirteen people owe the library more than $1,000, accounting for 1,175 lost or stolen items - books, videos, records, tapes, periodicals and sheet music worth nearly $30,000, according to a records search conducted for The San Francisco Examiner.
In addition, 225 patrons each owe $300 or more for 4,503 lost and stolen library items worth $123,886 - money and materials the city is not counting on collecting.”


Theft and Loss From UK Libraries: A National Survey, John Burrows, Diane Cooper. 1992 Study
From the Foreward:
“While the problems of theft and of the mutilation of books and other materials in our libraries seldom attract national headlines, they represent a growing concern to those responsible for the provision of library services. This report details the findings of the first comprehensive survey of the financial loss borne by the main sectors of the library service, and the actions they are taking to combat these problems (previous, smaller, surveys have been more broadly focused on crimes committed in libraries). It concludes that libraries are indeed suffering substantially and estimates that losses of books alone exceed £150 million each year. Book mutilation, too, is widespread.These losses to the public purse are occurring despite a sizeable, and burgeoning, investment by libraries in measures to prevent theft and retrieve material not returned from loan. The report documents librarians’ views of these various countermeasures. But, above all, it makes the point that count and inventory practices in libraries are often sadly deficient, and that this severely hinders many institutions from directing their efforts at targetting the type of material, particular borrowers, or circumstances that give rise to the greatest loss.”

Lumiere Press

Michael Torosian

       

     A while back, I mentioned Gerhard Steidl of Gottingen who is regarded as one of the top printers of photography books. Recently I discovered that he has a competitor, Michael Torosian, the founder in 1986 of Lumiere Press which is located in Toronto. 

     Mr. Torosian is the subject of an article in a series produced by the Globe and Mail. The series is called “Applause Please” and it profiles those who have made artistic and cultural contributions, but remain generally unacknowledged. The article is: “Michael Torosian: When it Comes to Lumiere Press’s Books, ‘Everything is Bespoke. Nothing is off the Rack,’ “ by Brad Wheeler, G&M, April 5, 2018. If you read on, I think you will agree that he and Lumiere Press deserve to be better-known.

(from The Ballad of Soames Bantry...)

    

     The son of a welder from Fort Erie, Torosian taught himself all of the skills required to produce finely-crafted books. Enormous effort is expended on research as well, even though only a small number of books are printed. They won’t be found at your local Indigo stores - even the ones in Toronto. One of his first books  -  Edward Weston: Dedicated to Simplicity - is about a photographer, as is his newest one - The Ballad of Soames Bantry: And Other Stories From the Fabled Life and New York Years of Photographer, Painter and Poet Saul Leiter.

   If you wish to purchase The Ballad… you should visit the Lumiere Press site which you should look at in any case. You will get an appreciation for how much work goes into such a production and learn that Lumiere’s purpose is as stated here: “Over the years it has been our mission and pleasure to present original interviews, primary source documentation, thoughtful essays and astutely selected images, with elegance and craftsmanship, as our contribution to the dialogue on the art of photography and the art of the book.”

    The first fifty copies of the book have been purchased by the Howard Greenberg Gallery and if you are interested in photography books, you should go to their site as well. In addition, you will find a good essay about Saul Leiter. 

    If you wish to actually hold and look at one of his books, here in London you will find these two up at Western University: Toronto Suite: An Exhibition of Portraits of the the Artists: Photographs and Interviews, 1989, 79 pp. (The London Public Library also has a copy).

Harlem: Gordon Parks: The Artist’s Annotations on a City Revisited in Two Classic Photographic Essays, 1997

    The Toronto Public Library has a copy of Torosian’s book about the photographer Frederick Sommer and ultimately the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto will be the place to visit since they have acquired the Lumiere archives.

Sources: 

For another article about Torosian see: "Slow Books: The Art of Bookmaking at Toronto’s Lumiere," By Shawn Micallef, The Toronto Star, Oct. 17, 2015.

In March 2018 the Alcuin Society awarded Torosian first prize for "The Best Designed Canadian Book" in the Limited Editions category (for the year 2017). See here.

The information about Steidl books is found (oddly enough) in my post about Gas Stations. 

University of the Unusual (3)

The Guinea Worm (and assorted others)

  When the editor of the journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases went looking for a suitable image for the August 2018 issue, he found the one provided above. It is from a painting done by an Englishman, Ben Taylor, and apparently the inspiration came from within. His story is told in a recent Washington Post article, the title of which reveals the contents. A portion is provided below, followed by another account I remembered from years ago.

“His Health Had Been Failing for Years: Then He Saw Something Crawling in His Eye,” Kristine Phillips, Washington Post, August 9, 2018.

     “He had been experiencing a litany of symptoms his doctors couldn’t explain: lumps that kept appearing and disappearing, blinding pain in his eyes that lasted for a day and came back another, a small muscle in his forehead that he felt “snap.” His white blood cells soared, and itchy rashes covered parts of his body. His joints ached. He was constantly hungry and he had been eating a lot, but he couldn’t gain weight. There was a sinking feeling that his body had become host to unwelcome visitors, but tests showed nothing.

     One morning, he noticed a faint yellowish lump protruding from underneath his left cornea. And then he felt his eye vibrate, as if something was slithering from within. He rushed to a mirror to find that the lump had disappeared, replaced by a thin line that was also protruding. He touched it, and it moved.

     “Oh, I’ve got a worm in my eye!” Taylor recalled thinking.

      At a hospital not far from his home in Dartmoor in southwestern England, a doctor scalped a tiny part of his eye’s outer layer and pulled out the wriggling parasite while Taylor kept his head still. And there it was, an inch-long roundworm called Loa loa. The doctor placed it in a container and Taylor watched it die.

     That year, 2015, Taylor was diagnosed with Loiasis, commonly known as African eye worm, a condition caused by the parasite Loa loa. He contracted it after spending several days in the jungles of Gabon, a Central African country where infections caused by Loa loa had persisted for years.”

Mary Kingsley

     Years ago I discovered Mary Kingsley who was not-at-all a typical Victorian lady. She travelled alone in parts of Africa accompanied only by a few native recruits. She had some amazing encounters which seemed not to have bothered or frightened her at all. I recall her describing 'eye worms' in Travels in West Africa and found this in Chapter XXII, "Disease in West Africa". The tone is typical of most of her writing which I am sure you will enjoy. Note her advice at the end when she says you should get an early start if you are going to have to be extracting some Guinea Worms from the legs of your porters.

     "Filaria.  This is not, what its euphonious name may lead you to suppose, a fern, but it is a worm which gets into the white of the eye and leads there a lively existence, causing distressing itching, throbbing and pricking sensations, not affecting the sight until it happens to set up inflammation.  I have seen the eyes of natives simply swarming with these Filariæ.  A curious thing about the disease is that it usually commences in one eye, and when that becomes over-populated an emigration society sets out for the other eye, travelling thither under the skin of the bridge of the nose, looking while in transit like the bridge of a pair of spectacles.  A similar, but not identical, worm is fairly common on the Ogowé, and is liable to get under the epidermis of any part of the body.  Like the one affecting the eye it is very active in its movements, passing rapidly about under the skin and producing terrible pricking and itching, but very trifling inflammation in those cases which I have seen.  The treatment consists of getting the thing out, and the thing to be careful of is to get it out whole, for if any part of it is left in, suppuration sets in, so even if you are personally convinced you have got it out successfully it is just as well to wash out the wound with carbolic or Condy’s fluid.  The most frequent sufferers from these Filariæ are the natives, but white people do get them.

     Do not confuse this Filaria with the Guinea worm, Filaria medinensis, which runs up to ten and twelve feet in length, and whose habits are different.  It is more sedentary, but it is in the drinking water inside small crustacea (cyclops).  It appears commonly in its human host’s leg, and rapidly grows, curled round and round like a watch-spring, showing raised under the skin.  The native treatment of this pest is very cautiously to open the skin over the head of the worm and secure it between a little cleft bit of bamboo and then gradually wind the rest of the affair out.  Only a small portion can be wound out at a time, as the wound is very liable to inflame, and should the worm break, it is certain to inflame badly, and a terrible wound will result.  You cannot wind it out by the tail because you are then, so to speak, turning its fur the wrong way, and it catches in the wound.

     I should, I may remark, strongly advise any one who likes to start early on a canoe journey to see that no native member of the party has a Filaria medinensis on hand; for winding it up is always reserved for a morning job and as many other jobs are similarly reserved it makes for delay."

Sources: Travels in West Africa (Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons) is available for free over the internet and you are encouraged to have a look. If you prefer more modern adventurous women writers, I recommend Dervla Murphy who also travelled in the same area - Cameroon With Egbert (that's her horse). Her Transylvania and Beyond is even better.

For more in this series - The University of the Unusual - see this one on the Ingestion of Foreign Objects and another on Arrow Storks.

Nathaniel P. Reed -Environmentalist

    

     Mr. Reed died recently in Quebec and since I didn’t see much about his passing in the Canadian English-language press I thought I would mention it here for two reasons.

Life Well Lived

     He was active in the environmental movement and worked hard to ensure that the Endangered Species and Clean Water Acts were passed. Those Canadians who enjoy a trip to Florida should pause and think of him when they visit the Everglades and the Big Cypress Preserve. More details about his good works are provided below.

The Way To Go

      

     The second reason is that he died the way he wanted to and for that, as well, he should be envied. His son reports: “He had many times told my brother, sister and me, ‘If I could choose to leave this earth, I would catch one last beautiful salmon and it would be lights off,’ ” Adrian Reed said in a telephone interview. On July 3, Mr. Reed caught his final salmon — a 16-pounder — and soon after that, he slipped and his head hit a rock, causing traumatic injury.”

Sources:

Salmon Fishing on the Cascapédia River, by Albert Bierstadt


Mr. Reed was fishing on the Grand Cascapédia River in Quebec.

There is a blog dedicated to him: http://nathanielpreed.blogspot.com/
   
     There are many obituaries. The quotation by Mr. Reed’s son is from this one:
“Nathaniel Reed, 84, Champion of Florida’s Environment, Is Dead,”By Richard Sandomir
New York Times, July 13, 2018.
See also:
“Nathaniel P. Reed, Leader in Efforts to Protect Endangered Wildlife and Wetlands, Dies at 84," Matt Schudel, The Washington Post,  July 13, 2018.
"Nathaniel P. Reed, an environmentalist and onetime Interior Department official who was a key architect of the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act and who spearheaded efforts to preserve wildlife and open spaces from Alaska to his longtime home state of Florida, died July 11 at a hospital in Quebec City. He was 84....
     Mr. Reed was a courtly developer and investment banker born into wealth. His deep-seated appreciation for the environment had its roots in his mother’s efforts to block the development of an early Florida theme park.He went on to fight the state’s environmentally damaging sugar industry and led efforts to block the building of a barge canal across Florida and an airport that would have paved over much of the Everglades.“He was a transformational figure in Florida,” former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.) said in an interview. “Florida’s a different place today than it would have been without him.”
     As one of the few Republicans prominent in the environmental movement, Mr. Reed served as an assistant Interior secretary from 1971 to 1977 under presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. In that role, he helped preserve millions of acres of wilderness in Alaska, banned dangerous pesticides and endured death threats from Western ranchers after he sent federal agents to stop the widespread killing of federally protected eagles.”