Salmon Totem
Memoir extract by Helen Moore
Strangely, the English nouns ‘salmon’ and ‘fish’ erase any sense of singular or plural, and even any information as to whether they’re alive or have been caught, beheaded, gutted, and pan-fried. Our language and culture reduce these wondrous creatures to an economic commodity, a mass existing entirely for our own satisfaction. I needed to refer to them not only with a capital ‘S’ – a status I extend to other-than-human beings – but also to think of them as plural Salmons, as recognisable ‘fishes.’
It was whilst watching wild Atlantic Salmons leaping in a Scottish river back in 2017 that I first began to see each Salmon as a unique being with distinct features, each fish having weathered a variety of life experiences, just like us. Seeing their individuality, it dawned on me that the way we talk about them reflects the way we think about them, how we perceive them.
It’s the sound of horns and cheering that orientates me to Exmouth’s Beacon Hill and the Esplanade below. Straight ahead lies the estuary, where the River Exe meets the English Channel and Devon’s hills, a palette of dark greens, muted browns and pinks veiled with cloud. Heavy rain has been forecast for 20th September 2025 and as I plunge downhill, I wonder what contingencies the organisers of the Exe Salmon Run have for an event set to coordinate hundreds of humans to run from the river’s mouth to Salmon spawning grounds, upcountry at Dulverton. Pushing their bodies in solidarity with wild Atlantic Salmons, these runners are either choosing to do the entire course as an ultra-marathon or are participating in relay sections as an overall team. Thankfully, the rain is holding off and the excitement suggests I’m on track to witness the day’s first handover.
No runner myself, I’ve turned down Anne-Marie Culhane’s invitation to participate in the event she co-founded with Jo Salter in 2022 and which is fast becoming a local tradition. Still, I’ve done a run of sorts in honour of my totem. Waking at dawn, I caught the 7.35am bus from Crediton into Exeter and then another bus out of the city. Two hours later, I’m just in time to greet the Exmouth Harriers.
Overseeing proceedings, and intermittently blowing the bugle slung across his body, there is a stout man wearing a black sou’wester hat with a pair of eyes stuck on it, a tailcoat covered in sequined fishes, a string vest, shorts, fishnets and wellies. Beside him, runners await the next leg of the relay from Exmouth to Lympstone, a stretch of 3.5 miles – Sea Scouts dressed in red, and three middle-aged men in brown t-shirts emblazoned with the event logo and a Salmon sporting a pair of running legs below the belly.
I ask the men about themselves and why they’re running. Representing Co Adventurers Ltd which provides learning experiences and outdoor programmes for students disengaged with mainstream education, Dave, Neil and Ian, are a friendly trio despite their upcoming run.
“I guess there’s empathy for wild salmon that comes through the experience of physically following the river,” Dave smiles.
Dave is a Forest School leader who founded Co Adventurers during the first Covid lockdown to support children of keyworkers.
“Mostly it’s about raising awareness,” he adds, “That’s why we’re doing it.”
What kind of awareness I want to ask but members of the Exmouth Harriers, a local running club, have arrived. One is wearing a Salmon sculpture on his head which must have made running a strange trip. The ceremonial handover of ‘Samantha’, a colourful Salmon-shaped, hand-stitched baton, is about to start.
“Thanks, guys,” I grin. “Good luck!”
The horn-blowing impresario establishes silence, then declaims from a scroll:
Salmon father, brother, sister, mother Salmon,
welcome silver leapers, lead us through your waters,
your story is our journey from sea to home…
Still catching their breath, the Harriers look pleased and those awaiting departure more solemn. As the invocation concludes, a bugle flourish signals the off. I amble down the Esplanade to the Sideshore, a sustainably built hub of stone, glass and timber boasting a substantial solar array. Upstairs, people have gathered to learn about citizen science projects monitoring the Exe and to listen to Etienne Stott, an Olympic gold medallist in canoeing. Ordering coffee, I’m surprised how quickly he reels me in.
“Like a salmon swimming upstream, you’ve got to negotiate with the water, respect it, work with it if you’re going to get to where you want to go.”
A sharp-nosed man with a lithe, track-suited body, Etienne retired from professional sport in 2016 and now dedicates himself to motivational speaking and environmental activism.
“Sports help us explore emotions, including failure. What I discovered is that opposition is internal and whatever we’re experiencing, we must develop mental toughness, resilience. For that, we need support and working with a coach was essential for me.”
There’s a graceful rhythm to his speech, his whole body involved in the act of self-expression, as if he were paddling a canoe.
“After I retired, I realised what I’d learnt as an athlete could help others. Young people in schools. People in business. At the same time, I was waking up to the state of the planet and it shocked me. This bubble we live on is the only one we know of supporting life in the whole universe and look what we’re doing to our home!”
He frowns, “and it’s not just salmon that are endangered. One in six species in the UK is threatened with extinction and there’s been an average decline in species by 19% since 1970, just a bit before I was born.”
The athlete’s gravitas is effortlessly reaching all corners of the room.
“Science tells us we’re heading towards great danger,” he declares matter-of-factly, “so I’m doing everything to help protect our planet. I’ve adopted a plant-based diet, because this makes a huge difference. And I haven’t flown since 2017. Flying around is a big decision and I did it a lot as an athlete.”
He spreads his hands, acknowledging responsibility. “Still, it’s fair to say there are limits to what we can do as individuals. We’re stuck within systems, and we need political pressure to change those systems. People who hold the power are letting us down.”
Etienne scrutinises his audience. “So, these times are asking us all to become leaders. And being a leader doesn’t mean being a boss. Everyone can be a leader. We can be bold.”
He smiles, “I invite you to consider what you can contribute. Talk about what’s happening to salmon. The vast majority of people want to protect our planet and we can all lead in our small way, not telling people what to do but showing what can be done.”
Taking a slug of water, he continues, “sport teaches us about leadership. In sports, sometimes you’re winning, sometimes you’re losing but losing isn’t a permanent state of affairs. Sport also tells us about victories, coming back against the odds but that requires learning to live with difficult emotions and counting our blessings. Plus, cultivating commitment to a higher purpose. Everyday an athlete makes a choice. And over time, those choices lead somewhere, make a life rich with meaning.”
The Olympian glances at his watch. “I want to end by saying this. I believe in the goodness of people. With introspection, everyone can change. And by working together, our planet and our communities can be returned to health.”
I join the applause and zip up my coat. It’s time to resume my sprint to witness more acts of embodied empathy for Salmons upriver. With gestures of thanks, I race off along the Esplanade to catch the 11.24 to Exeter Central. Panting up to Exmouth station, I’m thankful to see the train at the platform. A seat on the left-hand side of a carriage will, I trust, afford me glimpses of Salmon-runners en route to Exeter.
Initially skirting the estuary, this stretch of railway is called the Avocet Line after the Pied Avocet (Recurvirostra avoceta), a large black and white wader with a long, upturned bill. Their distinctive whickering calls are a feature of the biophony of many European wetlands where they forage on mudflats and in shallows, scything with their bills as they search for crustaceans and insects. Having been made locally extinct during the mid-nineteenth century, the Pied Avocet was reintroduced in 1947 and has now reinhabited many parts of these wild isles. Clocking this come-back kid’s svelte silhouette on station signage, I contemplate the valiant Victorian women who protested the fashion for embellishing hats with exotic feathers – an aesthetic furnished by a global ‘plume trade’. It was their activism that led to the founding of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds which then adopted the Avocet for its logo.
Looking out over green-tinged mudflats, I spot neither runners nor Avocets. The train is moving too fast for definitive sightings but startled flock flies up as we pass. Small waders, probably Ringed Plovers, Grey Plovers, Turnstones. How is avian flu affecting their populations? And what of other human pressures – climate change and disturbances to nest sites by walkers roaming off footpaths? In October 2024, these shorebirds were designated with higher threat categories on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species.
The train follows the Exe as far as Lympstone Commando, the Royal Marines’ training centre. Here, a group dressed in lovat green berets enters the carriage. Sitting across from me, they talk about football. Intrigued by their reflections, I drift, seeing and hearing otherwise: marines supporting Redshanks, Pintails, Teals and Wigeons wear beret badges decorated with their totem. Out on recces, they use binos for keeping score, get to know their birds as die-hard fans know their team. Courtship, display, mating. Food types, feeding methods. Feather care, preening. By sea and by land, the marines’ training steadily orients to defending habitats. Guarding nest sites during breeding seasons. Operating solar-powered machines that filter toxic debris from waterbodies. Building natural flood defences.
At Topsham, a woman boards with a small child in a pram, the latter emblazoned with the image of a Salmon.
Was ‘Sa-man’ one of their first words? I imagine asking.
As the train rattles inland, the story of Salmon child unfolds. Growing to hold crayons, they colour in pictures, hear tales of a fish battling extinction. From a young age, they meet Salmon families in the area. People from all walks of life, ethnic backgrounds. Together, they count the homing Salmons in, learn to identify teardrop-shaped tracks along riverbanks and dark, oily spraints reeking of fish. Their collected data supports local monitoring services. Through school, Salmon child joins other adventurers around the estuary, reading geography, science and mathematics from elements, weather and ecology. The Web of Life is a favourite activity with pupils representing their plant, creature, or insect. Stretching across the circle are threads of wool hooked around small fingers to link Bee, Primrose, Oak, Robin, Worm, Salmon and Otter – all these beings and others tethered together with vibrant tension. But when Wasp, Fly or Spider let go (some misperception of lesser status or appeal), the web sags, breaks down.
Mend the Web! Mend the Web! I hear the children chanting.
Learning soon seeks new horizons, with bike convoys and solar-powered buses sleeking out beyond Exeter’s moat, passing market gardens where fruit and veg are grown for local markets. In biodiverse communities with affordable homes and viable habitats, the word ‘home’ applies to all beings. Sometimes, these travellers stop at forest gardens where young and old forage for pick-your-owns – fresh goji berries, raspberries, blackcurrants – their mouths are small, river caves stained with juice. Or they roll past renovated water mills where locally-grown grain is ground to flour for breads of many flavours. They survey restored water meadows that brim with flood tides then subside to leave rich fluvial deposits for agro-ecological farming. At a solar-recharge stop everyone shoals towards the Exe. There they spend time river-gardening – removing introduced monocultures and replanting locally evolved species.
Lunch is a shared picnic below a giant Willow with Hedge School shaping afternoon pursuits. Commoning together, people share skills – dam or raft-building, making cordage. Or they study principles of physics in eddies and currents. Others paint with natural pigments, make poems found in the languages of birds. All this prepares the Salmon teen to attend community assemblies, Councils of All Beings, where they advocate for interconnected rights.
Protect Salmons! Support Otters!
And such advocacy is life-long. Whatever their path, this young human makes choices in the light of their totem.
Bang on time, the train reaches Exeter Central. I hurry to the Quayside’s Transit Shed, an open-sided structure on cast iron uprights once used for storing cargo. Now, the space is buzzing with runners, stewards and spectators. Tess and the D’Urbervilles, a local a cappella group, is harmonising sweetly about revitalised rivers. Another Salmon, presenter of ceremonies, head at a local primary, thrills the air with bugle notes and rallies us to: “Stand by, stand by!” At his elbow, a reporter from the BBC’s Spotlight News is poised to catch vox pops from runners arriving from Topsham.
Notes:
I wish to acknowledge that our English word ‘totem’ originally derives from the Native American Ojibwe word ‘ototeman’ or ‘odoodem,’ which means, amongst various definitions, ‘a relative of mine’ (Sources: Wikipedia and Oxford English Dictionary). Nevertheless, the practice of totemism, a relationship of reciprocal interaction and protection with more-than-human beings, is an intrinsic feature of many indigenous cultures around the world and there is evidence to suggest that it also existed amongst the indigenous traditions of the British Isles (see Stuart McHardy, Pagan Symbols of the Picts, Luath Press, 2018). The relevance of totemism to contemporary Western societies is evident through the work of Stephen Hopper, a professor of conservation biology, who has collaborated with elders of the Noongar tribe in Southwestern Australia and now regards it as a significant cultural approach to support conservation. See: https://theburr.com/3693/stories/features/can-totemism-save-the-world/
Permission has been given to quote Etienne Stott.
Dr Helen Moore is a pioneering British ecopoet, writer and scholar. She has published three internationally acclaimed ecopoetry collections, and her fourth, The Last Lighthouse in Rising Seas, is forthcoming from Palewell Press in May 2026. Helen curates ECOPOETIKON, an online showcase of global ecopoetries, and teaches at two British universities. She is currently working on a climate memoir about wild Atlantic Salmons.
“My explorations of thrutopia stem from my long-term ecopoetic practice, previously exploring climate adaptation, ecotopias and the perspectives of future ancestors, and currently the role of totemism in leading us towards a liveable future.” ~ Helen Moore