AN AUTHOR’S adventures on the Yukon River have inspired his new book.

Adam Weymouth, who grew up in Whiteparish, will be at the Chalke Valley Festival next week talking about his experiences and his book Kings of the Yukon.

The book was inspired after he travelled to Alaska in 2013 while working as a journalist.

In the town of Bethel he came across the story of Yup’ik fishermen accused of fishing Chinook salmon whilst a ban was in place. He followed the case when it went to trial.

Adam said: “Back in England I kept an eye on events: in 2014, and again in 2015, a ban was placed on Chinook along the entire Yukon river, in both Alaska and Canada, an unprecedented move. I felt that there was a larger story to be told.”

Speaking of his travels down the Yukon, he said: “Often it would come as a surprise to remember just how alone I was. There was endless daylight and endless sunshine. More than anything, the landscape felt benign. I spent the evenings fishing and swimming and writing and thoroughly enjoying myself.

"Just living took a huge amount of time. It could take a couple of hours each evening to unload the boat, to raise and stake the tent, to gather wood, to make a fire, to cook dinner, to haul the canoe up the beach and flip it and tie it down to something solid in case the wind picked up in the night, and then two hours more in the morning to reverse the entire process.

“Despite spending weeks at a time seeing no one, it was the people I met along the way that were the most memorable. I was looked after with such hospitality, often given a bed for the night and as much salmon as I could eat.

“In the end that is what the book has come to be about, the lives of the people along the Yukon River, and how the salmon threads through all of them.”

Adam has worked as a freelance journalist for several years but this is his first book. He has plans to write more.

He added: "I feel like I've done what I wanted to do in Alaska for the time being and I think my next book will be in a different part of the world. In the West, environmental issues can often seem very abstract, because we're so insulated from them. I'm interested to go to somewhere much more dependent on its land and on its resources, where the fight to protect the environment is a much more present struggle, and to see how people are dealing with that."

Adam says he is excited to be a part of the Chalke Valley History Festival and will be giving a talk on June 28, 6.30pm. For more information go to cvhf.org.uk

Adam will also be giving a talk at Waterstones in Salisbury on July 26, 7pm. For tickets go to waterstones.com/events/an-evening-with-adam-weymouth/salisbury