Born in rivers, salmon head out to sea, where they grow strong, turn silver, and live large. They travel hundreds, even thousands of miles before returning to their waters of origin, where they swim upstream to their native pool and spawn. Anglers try to connect with the salmon on this path, and we spend a considerable amount of time, attention, and money in order to do so. This summer I stood on the banks of the Flowers River in Labrador, Canada, having braved a six-hour layover in Halifax, an overnight in Goose Bay, and a float-plane ride into the Flowers—wearing an inflatable life vest that did not inspire confidence—just to get there. It was a pack-in effort (the lodge has its own solar-powered generator), and the liquor we ordered for the week wouldn’t arrive until the next plane.

A bomb cyclone brought dangerous weather conditions across the Pacific Northwest earlier this week, causing power outages for more than a half-million people and killing at least two. It also ushered in an atmospheric river, which brought heavy rainfall across the northern half of California. Multiple weather warnings remained in place Friday morning, according to the National Weather Service (NWS), many of them flood related.