Category Archives: Nature

Between the Tides in California: Q&A with Authors Ryan P. Kelly, Terrie Klinger, Patrick J. Krug, and John J. Meyer

The vast and diverse California coast is an awe-inspiring place of exploration and discovery, full of life forms that are shockingly unfamiliar.

In the newly released guidebook Between the Tides in California—a follow-up to the popular Between the Tides in Washington and Oregon—scientific experts reveal the hidden worlds of the intertidal zone, profiling sites from the remote northern seashores to the popular beaches of Southern California. Richly illustrated and accessibly written, the book transforms readers into nearshore detectives, with each species offering unique clues about the environment around them.

What inspired you to write this book?

Ryan P. Kelly: This book was a long time coming. I was sitting in California—in 2011, before I moved to Seattle and UW—and drafted the original sketch. The idea was to do a roadside guide to ecology, focusing on the intertidal, aimed at a curious, outgoing public. Terrie, John, and I are all originally from California, and we asked Pat to be a part of this book both because of his deep knowledge and because he’s actually in place there in Southern California, while the rest of us live in Seattle.

John J. Meyer: For me, it was an opportunity to pay homage of sorts to the place and coastline I love the most. The West Coast is truly spectacular—all of it—but the beaches and tidepools of California are where I fell in love with the ocean in the first place.

Patrick J. Krug: It’s a lucky few of us who have been able to live immersed, literally and figuratively, in the study of marine biology. Not much beats the fun of sharing everything you’ve seen, read, and been taught over a lifetime with other people who like to explore and learn about the ocean.

When people see me working in the intertidal and ask what I’m doing, it only takes a few minutes to show them how to find animals they’ve never seen before. I wanted the book to be like having four marine biologists in your pocket, pointing out sea creatures you may have overlooked your whole life.

Patrick J. Krug

As research scientists, why write a book for the broader public? Did you perceive a specific need?

RPK: It just seemed like ecology deserved the kind of treatment that geology has gotten in the Roadside Guide to Ecology series. There are lots of guides to shells and seashore creatures, but it seemed like nothing explained why a thing was here and not elsewhere. The why seemed important to explain to a broader audience.

JJM: As a researcher turned policy specialist turned communications professional, I have seen firsthand the importance of making science broadly accessible to all people. If we can help do that for our oceans, I am all for it.

PJK: Right now there’s so much curiosity and appreciation for the ocean paired with concern about how to protect our coast from escalating human impacts. It felt like the right time to talk about the shoreline we love in accessible terms to anyone looking to explore, learn, and be inspired.

In writing this book did you learn new things that differ from your day-to-day research activities? If so, what?

RPK: I loved getting the chance to look up facts and distinguish them from scientific lore and rumor. We all learned a ton. And as my day-to-day work has pulled me away from the intertidal, this was a great opportunity to reimmerse myself in some real-world ecology.

TK: I learned a great deal from my coauthors, whose specializations are somewhat different from mine. For instance, who knew that gumboot chitons have magnetite in their teeth? Or that hermit crabs can be extremely picky in choosing a new shell to inhabit?

PJK: I spent a lot more time thinking about places instead of species. I do a lot of biodiversity discovery work, finding and naming new species, so I’m often thinking: what is special and different about this organism, what sets it apart from every other form of life? But for this book, we wanted to give the character of places—what do you find on this beach, and why is it here? It was a different challenge to capture in photos and words the feel of each rocky point or sandy cove that we profiled along the Golden State’s epic coast.

The intertidal community at Big Sur’s Partington Cove is typical of high-energy environments where wave-tolerant species dominate the shore. Photograph by the authors.

Many Californians are familiar with Ed Ricketts’s Between Pacific Tides published in 1939. Is there any connection between your book and his?

RPK: Those are very, very big shoes to fill, and I wouldn’t say we were aiming to fill them at all. Inevitably our book does have thematic overlap with Ricketts, but he was setting out the language of intertidal ecology for what was probably the first time for a relatively popular audience. That book is pretty dense with detail; we have tried to stick to a more narrative style and to focus on geographic patterns that visitors are likely to notice in a day at the shore.

TK: Between Pacific Tides was formative for all four of us—you might say that as students we were weaned on that book. I’ve been carting around a copy for almost fifty years, and I still use it. But we did not set out to replicate it—that would be impossible.

How did you approach the main themes of the book and bring them to life?

RPK: It’s easy to write about things you love and find fascinating. I’d say we just tried to convey that enthusiasm—I hope it worked.

JJM: This book is filled with photos of ocean and tidepool habitats, which was intentional; you can read and see the magic of the California coast. I hope they help transport the reader to these special places and that readers then become inspired to go see them in person!

PJK: When people see me working in the intertidal and ask what I’m doing, it only takes a few minutes to show them how to find animals they’ve never seen before. I wanted the book to be like having four marine biologists in your pocket, pointing out sea creatures you may have overlooked your whole life, to tell you about their hidden world, their challenges, and the incredible adaptations that let them thrive in the unforgiving world of the intertidal zone.

The Mendocino Headlands, carved from a jumble of metamorphic and sedimentary rock, form rugged boundaries between land and sea. Photograph by the authors.

Is there a location in the book that is your favorite? What about that location makes it special?

TK: Hands down, my favorite is Partington Cove on the Big Sur coast. It’s a truly magical spot.

JJM: Terrie turned me on to Partington Cove too, which was new for me and now ranks among my favorites. But the intertidal on the Stornetta Lands in Mendocino County I think is my favorite; the diversity of micro-habitats is immense, which leads to lots of diversity in the organisms that live there. And the rugged coastline as a backdrop only makes it that much more special!

PJK: I wanted to find the outrageously neon pink sea slug, Hopkins Rose, so I went back to the same rock channel in La Jolla, San Diego where I first found this species thirty years ago. And they were right where I left them in my early twenties, same exact spot. A great puzzle in marine ecology is how rare species persist in one place in a dynamic, turbulent ocean. This was a wonderful illustration of that mystery for me.

Everyone has a favorite species or two. Which species in the book are your favorites, and why?

TK: It’s hard to beat giant kelp (Macrocystic pyrifera) for sheer majesty—but giant kelp is not an intertidal species. In the intertidal, I might vote for the kelp Lessoniopsis littoralis. Its common name—flat pom-pom kelp—does it no justice. This kelp lives in only the gnarliest wave-swept spots and can survive for many years. Its thick stipe is reminiscent of a tree trunk, helping it tolerate the onslaught of waves where few other organisms can persist. To me, it’s the oak tree of the intertidal.

JJM: Almost impossible to pick, but I’ll go with the Spanish shawl. It’s such a crowd-pleaser, fairly common, and simply stunning to see with its bright purple body and orange mane against the greens and browns of a tidepool.

PJK: I always hunt for two elusive species of limpet (small snails) that can usually be found, with some effort, by their special “home turf.” One lives only on the feather-boa kelp, blending in with its glossy brown shell. Its relative glides up and down the narrow blades of surfgrass, like a dime cut in half. Both are marvelously adapted to their different hosts, and the kelp and grass benefit from the pruning and cleaning activities of their little shelled gardeners. There’s something special to me about knowing you can always go back and find your old friends waiting right where you left them if you know their haunts—not too different from people.

A sea slug, the Spanish shawl (Flabellinopsis iodinea), found below Sunken City, near Los Angeles harbor. Photography by the authors.

What are the most important messages conveyed in the book? What do you hope that readers will gain?

RPK: Once you start to notice a thing in the world, once it appears on your mental map, you’re likely to start to care about it. That was a core goal here: help others see what we see when we visit the coast, with the likely outcome that others will start to feel about these places the way that we feel about them.

TK: The California coast is magical for so many reasons. But some of that magic can get lost amid its crushing popularity. We wanted to capture some of the beauty and intrigue that can still be found along this coast. It is an absolutely stunning place.

JJM: There are still wild, thriving places, even in the most populous state in the union. Of course, that’s because all the right natural ingredients are there, but it’s also because of the choices people have made. Californians place a high value on their coast, and as such protect it and care for it in many awesome ways. It’s great to see that investment pay off—many special places remain and are there for all to experience.

PJK: To me, the book is about why each beach and bluff in California has a unique vibe and look. The chapters should help readers find new places to explore, and unpack the backstory of the marine life, rock formations, dune plants, and birds a visitor might see on a given outing. My experience is that the more people learn about the ocean, the more they are inspired to protect it, so I hope that a deeper understanding of California’s coast will bring readers a passion for conservation—and more fun on every trip to the beach.

Fossil shells are exposed in the cliffs behind Moonstone Beach south of Trinidad.
The starburst anemone (Anthopleura sola) occupies rocky habitates at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve.
The sedimentary substrates—mudstones, siltstones, and sandstones—found along much of the California coast can be covered in cavities known as tafoni. Common in granular surfaces, they are likely created through abrasion, wind erosion, salt weathering, and other mechanisms.

How does this book differ from field guides, textbooks, or other books on intertidal communities?

RPK: My bookshelf is full of similar books. Did the world need another one? We thought yes, because we were filling an unfilled niche. The book is about why rather than about what: why some things live here and not there, and how a person can learn to read a beach and glean meaning from the patterns of life on the shore. We think that’s unique among books in print.

PJK: I felt people would like the beach version of a travel guide that tells you what not to miss when you visit a place, explaining the history of that particular fountain, wall, or monument: why it’s special and remarkable, who put it there, the historical context that will enrich your experience standing in front of it. We have that for Berlin and Rome, why not for the California coastline? I also don’t think scientists are always great at speaking plainly to people, at capturing the wonder they themselves feel about nature in their writing or images. That’s probably because we are trained to be dispassionate and technical in our work, but we love what we study, and I wanted that exuberance to come through (along with some good ecology) for the interested reader!

What’s the best way for readers to approach this book?

RPK: There are lots of photos, sidebars, maps, and so on, which some readers might find as useful points of entry. It’s quite readable (we think) straight through, too, but we were aiming to stay away from sounding like a textbook. My hope is that you can throw it in your car and pull it out on a road trip along the coast.

PJK: Like a literal choose-your-own-adventure book. Decide where you want to go: maybe it’s nearby, or you’ve never been there before, or a photo catches your imagination. Take a drive, go for a walk in the sea breeze and sunshine, and make a new discovery. One thing should lead to another, and then another. . . and if you hit the end of a chapter, flip to a random page and start again.

About the Authors

Ryan P. Kelly
Terrie Klinger
Patrick J. Krug
John J. Meyer

Ryan P. Kelly is professor of marine and environmental affairs at the University of Washington. Terrie Klinger is professor of marine and environmental affairs and co-director of the Washington Ocean Acidification Center at the University of Washington. Patrick J. Krug is professor of biological sciences at California State University, Los Angeles. John J. Meyer is senior director of marketing and communications in the College of the Environment at the University of Washington.

Related Books

Celebrate Earth Month: Books on the Natural World

In recognition of Earth Month, we’re sharing books that will inspire you to go out and explore. With information on how to forage edible and medicinal plants, dig razor clams, create a garden of native plants, and more, these books offer a deeper understanding and appreciation of the natural world.

Between the Tides in Washington and Oregon and
Between the Tides in California
These essential guides to exploring beaches and tidepools of the Pacific Coast feature full-color photographs, site profiles, fascinating stories of animal and plant species, and an accessible introduction to how coastal ecosystems work—perfect for beachgoers who want to know why.

Seattle Walks: Discovering History and Nature in the City
Bestselling author and popular science writer David B. Williams will give you a new appreciation for how Seattle has changed over time, how the past has influenced the present, and how nature is all around us—even in our urban landscape. Ranging along trails and sidewalks, these guided walks lead to panoramic views, intimate hideaways, and beautiful greenways.

Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast: The Pacific Northwest and British Columbia
We’re hard-pressed to choose just one of horticulturalist and arboriculturist Collin Varner’s indispensable guides to the natural world of the Pacific Northwest, but this compact, full-color forager’s guide is a great place to start. The region is home to a multitude of edible and medicinal plant species, edible mushrooms, and marine plants, and this book offers clear photography, descriptions, safety tips, and warnings, as well as culinary and medicinal uses from Indigenous Peoples and settlers, for more than 150 wild-growing flora species.

Razor Clams: Buried Treasure of the Pacific Northwest
Challenging to dig, delicious to eat, and providing a heady experience of abundance, razor clams are entwined with Washington state’s commerce, identity, and history. Author David Berger shares his love affair of the Pacific razor clam and gets into the nitty-gritty of how to dig, clean, and cook them in this lively history and celebration of the Siliqua patula.

Flora of the Pacific Northwest: An Illustrated Manual
A classic since it was first published in1973, this tome covering Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia is the most comprehensive reference on Pacific Northwest vascular plants for professional and amateur botanists, ecologists, rare plant biologists, plant taxonomy instructors, land managers, nursery professionals, and gardeners—“a must for your home garden library” (Washington Park Arboretum Bulletin).

Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest abounds with native plants that bring beauty to the home garden while offering food and shelter to birds, bees, butterflies, and other wildlife. Whether you’re a novice or expert gardener, renowned botanist Art Kruckeberg and horticulturist Linda Chalker-Scott show you how to imagine and realize your perfect sustainable landscape.

Ice Bear: The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon
Michael Engelhard‘s thought-provoking and beautifully illustrated iconography of the polar bear brings this elusive and powerful animal into focus. Eight thousand years of artifacts attest to its charisma, and to the fraught relationships between our two species. Drawing on meticulous research, Engelhard traces and illuminates this intertwined history. Doing so, he delves into the stories we tell about Nature—and about ourselves—hoping for a future in which such tales still matter.

Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales: Fossils of Washington State
In this richly illustrated guide to the amazing array of fossils found in Washington state, renowned paleontologist Elizabeth A. Nesbitt teams up with David B. Williams to offer a fascinating, richly illustrated tour through more than a half billion years of natural history. The spectacular paleontology of the state is brought to life through details of the fossils’ discovery and extraction, their place in geological time, and the insights they provide into contemporary issues like climate change and species extinction.

Fishes of the Salish Sea: Puget Sound and the Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca
This comprehensive three-volume set, featuring striking illustrations of the Salish Sea’s 260 fish species by noted illustrator Joseph Tomelleri, details the ecology and life history of each species and recounts the region’s rich heritage of marine research and exploration. Beginning with jawless hagfishes and lampreys and ending with the distinctive Ocean Sunfish, leading scientists Theodore Wells Pietsch and James Orr present the taxa in phylogenetic order, based on classifications that reflect the most current scientific knowledge.

Birds of the Pacific Northwest: A Photographic Guide
Spanning a vast, distinctive region rich in protected wildlands and iconic national parks, this bestselling field guide is a superlative, complete resource for enjoying the many bird species found from British Columbia to southern Oregon. Renowned bird experts Tom Aversa, Richard Cannings, and Hal Opperman illuminate the key identification traits, vocalizations, seasonal statuses, habitat preferences, and feeding behaviors of bird species in the region. The compact, full-page accounts feature maps and more than 900 photographs by top bird photographers.

Read More on the Blog

Celebrate Earth Month: Books in Environmental Studies

Between the Tides in Washington and Oregon: Q&A with Ryan P. Kelly, Terrie Klinger and John J. Meyer

Photo Essay: Razor Clams

Repeat Photography and Global Warming: An Excerpt from ‘Capturing Glaciers’ by Dani Inkpen

Photographs of receding glaciers are one of the most well recognized visualizations of human-caused climate change. These images, captured through repeat photography, have become effective with an unambiguous message: global warming is happening, and it is happening now. But this wasn’t always the case. The meaning and evidentiary value of repeat glacier photography has varied over time, reflecting not only evolving scientific norms but also social, cultural, and political influences.

In Capturing Glaciers, Dani Inkpen historicizes the use of repeat glacier photographs, examining what they show, what they obscure, and how they influence public understanding of nature and climate change. Though convincing as a form of evidence, these images offer a limited and sometimes misleading representation of glaciers themselves. Furthermore, their use threatens to replicate problematic ideas baked into their history.

Excerpt from Capturing Glaciers

I visited an old friend recently. It had been years since seeing the Bow Glacier. Both of us had changed. I was last in her neighborhood on a winter day so bright and cold it transformed my breath into crystals that shivered and sparkled in the air. She was indisposed, hibernating beneath her billowy robes of winter snow. I had to content myself with a view of her front garden, soft and rounded, blue and white. In summer she presides over one of the most breathtaking scenes on the (for now) aptly named Icefields Parkway in the Canadian Rockies. Perfectly framed by peaks, the glacier perches above the indigo waters of Bow Lake, to which she is connected by thundering Bow Falls and a creek that winds its way through rainbow-pebbled flats. The whole scene can be taken in from the front porch of red-roofed Bow Lake Lodge, set on the lake’s shore by packer and guide Jimmy Simpson. In 1898 he deemed this a good spot to “build a shack.”

I met the Bow Glacier the summer I left home, one of those free-spirited summers that Hollywood films coat thickly with nostalgia. Freshly released from the corridors of teenagedom, I chose a seasonal job that could not possibly advance the career I was preparing for in college but that would give me plenty of time in the mountains: housekeeping at a historic alpine lodge. In my time off I often scrambled up chossy peaks where I met wobbling marmots and grizzlies lounging in full-blooming meadows. I drank from swift, icy streams and camped wherever suited me (because, like many seasonal workers, I believed that national park rules didn’t apply to me). The Bow Glacier looked on with dignified indifference. I stood on her surface, secure in mountaineering harness and crampons (though a couple foolish times not) and marveled at the white westing plains of the Wapta Icefield from which the Bow drains, dreaming of even grander vistas beyond. I knew in those moments I was one of thousands to behold that sight yet felt like the world had just taken form. My happiness was untouchable, not yet complicated by the conundrums of adulthood. I was immortal; death did not exist and time would never run out.

Old friends: The Bow Glacier and the author, 2003.

But time does run. And glaciers, compressions of time in frozen water, are excellent gauges of its passage. Mountain glaciers like the Bow are disappearing at rapid—and accelerating—rates. When Jimmy Simpson pondered building his shack, the Bow cascaded down to a forest abutting the lake in three undulating lobes, with the topmost flaring like outstretched eagle wings. I studied its shape from a black-and-white photograph hanging in the lobby of the lodge. Crevasse-torn icefalls separated the lobes, giving the glacier an intimidating look. It was big. It was beautiful. But the Bow Glacier has since receded. When I arrived one hundred years later, only the topmost lobe remained; dark cliff bands, wetted by Bow Falls, stood where crevasses once churned. The eagle wings were gone, and the glacier’s surface was noticeably lowered. Yet you could still see its toe from the lodge. Today it has retracted even further. Like a wounded spider, it now huddles on the lip of the cliff over which it draped in 2003, barely visible from Bow Lake Lodge.

Photographs of glaciers are about more than just glaciers. They’re also about nature, land, how we can know about such things, and the value we ascribe to them. Grasping this allows us to better appreciate repeat glacier photographs for what they can tell us about global warming, but also how they are conditioned by history and where they fall short.

Dani Inkpen

For many people who are not climate scientists, drastic recession of mountain glaciers like the Bow is clear and persuasive evidence of global warming. Since most folks have never been to a glacier, photographs are often how they learn of disappearing ice. This is achieved through what are called repeat photographs: juxtapositions of old photographs and recent re-creations taken from the same perspective at the same time of year (because glaciers fluctuate with the seasons). Curiosity about the historical photographs in repeat series, like the one hanging in Bow Lake Lodge’s lobby, eventually pulled my carefree summer in the Rockies into the trajectory of a professional life.

My book, Capturing Glaciers, is the result: it is about the people who photographed glaciers repeatedly and systematically to produce knowledge about glaciers and a variety of other subjects such as ice ages, wilderness, the physics of ice, and global warming. Throughout the twentieth century those studying glaciers used photography to capture changes in glacier extent and distribution, but they did so for different reasons and with different consequences. I trace the evolving motivations behind the use of cameras to capture images of ice and concomitantly changing ideas about what is (or is not) being captured.

The book title is thus a double entendre, referring to both the enduring allure of glaciers as repeat photographic subjects that “capture” beholders and the variety of ways people sought to capture glaciers with their cameras. I pay especial attention to the perceived value of repeat photographs as a form of evidence. Doing so illuminates some of the ways repeat photography has encapsulated and conveyed changing ideas about what glaciers are and why they matter. Photographs of glaciers are about more than just glaciers. They’re also about nature, land, how we can know about such things, and the value we ascribe to them. Grasping this allows us to better appreciate repeat glacier photographs for what they can tell us about global warming, but also how they are conditioned by history and where they fall short. It helps us see them not as static representations of the present situation, but as still-evolving elements in a process much bigger and more complex than any photograph could possibly capture.

I take a photograph-centered approach, following the photographs to archival information about the practices behind their creation. The history of how repeat photography was used to study glaciers in North America is checkered and discontinuous. Its value as a form of evidence ebbed and flowed based on ideas about what glaciers were and what knowledge-makers wanted to know. This was more than just a scientific matter. While many of the actors who populate the pages of the book were scientists, producing knowledge of glaciers required an extensive host of characters and institutions. And the meanings of repeat glacier photographs broke the bonds of scientific intention and interpretation, drawing from and circling back to potent cultural associations. We will see, then, that the value of a form of evidence is conditioned by nonscientific elements, including political and practical considerations. Evidence, like objectivity, has a history. And history continues to make itself felt in the present.

Dani Inkpen is assistant professor of history at Mount Allison University.

More from the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Series

Between the Tides in Washington and Oregon: Q&A with Ryan P. Kelly, Terrie Klinger and John J. Meyer

A spectacular variety of life flourishes between the ebb and flow of high and low tide. Between the Tides in Washington and Oregon uncovers the hidden workings of the natural world of the shoreline. Richly illustrated and accessibly written, the guide illuminates the scientific forces that shape the diversity of life at beaches and tidepools.

Ryan P. Kelly is associate professor in the University of Washington’s School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. Terrie Klinger is professor in the UW’s School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. John J. Meyer is Senior Director for Marketing and Communications for the UW’s College of the Environment.

Can you tell us a bit about Between the Tides in Washington and Oregon and what motivated you to write the book? How does it differ from other coastal guides?

Terrie Klinger: This book is about the wonder of the intertidal environment, why it is unlike any other on Earth, and the seaweeds and animals that have evolved to live in such a place. We wanted to share that wonder with others who might not be marine scientists. The title evokes Ed Ricketts’s Between Pacific Tides. Published in 1939, Ricketts’s book is widely held to be the classic in the field. We wanted to honor that book and the lasting influence it has had on each of us.

John J. Meyer: The Pacific Northwest is brimming with so much incredible life and beauty between the tides—the diversity of marine invertebrates and seaweeds is just stunning. We wanted to shine a light on these special places, which many folks don’t discover unless they just happen to be at a good rocky beach on a good low tide. A little planning can unlock a world you never knew was there!

Ryan P. Kelly: This book is an attempt to tell people why the species at the shore are where they are, rather than simply being another guide about what one might find there. It’s about ecology, about process. That’s pretty unusual in a book for non-specialists.

There’s a degree of order to the apparent messiness of life along the shore, and uncovering the hidden rules that result in that order is really exciting.

Ryan P. Kelly

What are the main themes of the book and how are they brought to life?

Kelly: We wanted to show, rather than tell. While the themes are those that you might find in a course on marine ecology, we tried to bring those to life by highlighting examples that the reader might run across during a visit to particular places. That was the power of using individual places along the coast as a way to illustrate processes that happen in many other places as well.

Klinger: Intertidal habitats and the species that occupy them are our focus. Habitats determine who can live where, and once occupied, the residents in turn shape their habitats—like your neighbors shape your neighborhood. We try to shed some light on these complexities.

Meyer: To support showing not telling, this book is filled with many photos that are more than just pretty pictures; they are meant to visually bring the vignettes we write about to life.

Who is this book for and how would you recommend readers approach it?

Kelly: The book is for everyone! Mostly non-scientists, but the kinds of curious, outdoorsy people that might find themselves at the shore. We ended up with a lot of text at the beginning that bears reading straight through, but the geographically specific chapters are meant to be read in bits, perhaps as the reader is headed out on a road trip.

Klinger: Nearly anyone who likes to stroll along on the beach, stumble across slick rocks, and explore out-of-the way places along the Washington and Oregon coasts might find something of interest in this book. Readers can jump around to find fun facts and satisfy their curiosity or read from cover to cover for a consistent narrative. My friend Jane, who just celebrated her hundredth birthday, read all the place-based chapters before diving into the first two chapters.

Meyer: This book is meant for people who love to discover new things. So much of what’s living in the intertidal looks and behaves like nothing else, it’s almost like discovering organisms from another planet here on Earth.

Surfgrass (Phyllospadix sp.) grows alongside subtidal kelp (Laminaria setchellii) at Ecola State Park in Oregon.

Which location or site in the book is your favorite to visit and why?

Meyer: Second Beach in Olympic National Park is a favorite. I discovered it nearly thirty years ago while on a road trip and have gone camping there every summer since. I always couple my visit with a good low tide for some excellent tidepooling, which is backdropped against a spectacularly beautiful location.

Kelly: I just fell in love with Ecola State Park in Oregon during a research trip, and I’ve been back since. What a beautiful place.

Klinger: The rocky sites are my clear favorites. They’re chock-full of interesting species arranged in ways that beg for investigation and explanation.

What’s your favorite species profiled in the book? Are there any fun facts that you’d like to share?

Kelly: I did my PhD on chitons, and so I suppose I can’t resist a good chiton. Tonicella lineata, the lined chiton, is probably the most beautiful thing you’re likely to see on the outer coast.

Meyer: A friend of mine introduced me to the sea palm, Postelsia palmaeformis, years ago, and it’s been a favorite ever since. Watching hundreds of them getting bowled over by crashing waves and then pop back up is one of my favorite things to see.

Klinger: There are some fun facts for sure—for instance, the story about the horse stuck in a sea of foam—and I have a ton of favorite species. One favorite is the air-breathing sea slug called Onchidella—I’m always excited to find one.

The sea palm (Postelsia palmaeformis) grows among mussels and barnacles on wave-swept shores.

What do you hope readers will take away from the book?

Klinger: I might hope readers deepen their curiosity about life in the intertidal and the puzzling complexity of nature all around us.

Kelly: A sense of wonder, really. But also a sense that there are answers to questions like “why is this snail here, but not over there?” There’s a degree of order to the apparent messiness of life along the shore, and uncovering the hidden rules that result in that order is really exciting.

Meyer: I think once you understand something a bit more, you care about it a bit more. I hope readers walk away indeed with a sense of wonder that also translates to stewardship.

Upcoming Events

April 11, 6:00 pm at the University Book Store: Learn more about the intertidal zone at an author talk with Terrie Klinger and Ryan P. Kelly. Register for this free event here.

May 13, 11:00 am–4:00 pm, at Friday Harbor Laboratories Open House: The San Juan Island marine biology field station of the UW College of the Environment, Friday Harbor Labs, invites the community to their annual Open House. Guests may meander about the campus and experience touch tanks, science demonstrations, seaweed pressing, and a science speaker series that will include a talk with Terrie Klinger. Visit the FHL news and events page and stay tuned for more details!

From The Street Smart Naturalist: Spring is Nigh

I am big fan of spring. I love the unpredictable weather, the reemergence of plants and beasts, the frisson of reproductive potential and have long enjoyed watching for signs of the vernal world. Recently, I have been inspired by an unlikely source: George Orwell. (I plan on writing about him in the future so won’t say much now.) In a splendid little essay titled “Some Thoughts on the Common Toad,” he wrote (in April 1946):

The point is that the pleasures of spring are available to everybody, and cost nothing. Even in the most sordid street the coming of spring will register itself by some sign or other, if it is only a brighter blue between the chimney pots or the vivid green of an elder sprouting on a blitzed site. Indeed it is remarkable how Nature goes on existing unofficially, as it were, in the very heart of London.

Orwell then asks if it’s “wicked to take pleasure in spring,” considering the challenges of the world, which were certainly epic and severe in post–World War II London, and sadly still are now. Shouldn’t people be more focused on more serious issues than whether a toad appears and pursues his or her life? He categorically rejects those who hold such a view and offers a wonderful sentiment: 

I think that by retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and—to return to my first instance—toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.

Here then are a few observations reaffirming the beauty, resiliency, and healing power of spring, in my fair city of Seattle.

Varied thrush – Graham Gerdeman, Macauley Library.

Varied thrush (Ixoreus naevius) – For the past few weeks, I have been thrilling to the trilling of varied thrushes. These orange-necked, black-bibbed cousins of robins typically start calling at dawn in a haunting, monotone whistle suffused with the mysteries of a mountain forest. Summer residents of higher elevation, they migrate down to hang out with we lowland dwellers from late fall to spring. Oddly, this year is the first that I have noticed varied thrushes in spring—they typically visit our yard in autumn—so it has been an exquisite joy to hear them. The trilling notes feel not only like a rejoicing of spring but also a call to turn one’s thoughts to the mountains.

Crocus (Crocus sp.) – Found in hundreds of locations around the city, these lovely irises are one of the first to provide a nourishment of early season color. With a name derived from the Greek term for saffron, crocuses come in scores of species and originally grew from Portugal to western China. Horticulturists have cultivated about thirty varieties of which five are considered to be commercially important. The best known, saffron (Crocus sativus), comes from the three thread-like stigmas, between 5,000 and 12,500 of which produce an ounce of the fragrant spice. Cultivated by Egyptians and Romans, saffron reached China in the seventh century, and by the fourteenth, it had permeated England, France, and Germany. By the way, you can grow C. sativus in Seattle, though you will more likely encounter one of the many cultivars heralding spring in yards across the city.

Camas, Charles Knowles, Wikipedia.

Camas (Camassia quamash) – Many years ago when we bought our house, I planted a few camas bulbs. Since then, they have spread across our yard, emerging in spring like green signposts of the bounty to come. I am not the first to encourage the growth of these edible roots. For generations, Indigenous people of Puget Sound burnt the prairies south of Tacoma around Nisqually and Fort Lewis and on islands in Puget Sound to foster camas growth, which they harvested in spring. One had to be careful though. As botanist David Douglas noted in April 1825 about camas bulbs: “assuredly they produce flatulence: when in the Indian hut I was almost blown out by strength of wind.” In contrast, botanist William Fraser Tolmie of the Hudson’s Bay Company wrote of the “rich and level prairies . . . [their] surface enamelled with a profusion of blue flowered kamass.” Our camas certainly don’t compare, but I still rejoice when the flowers blossom and blue ponds of shimmering light grace our yard. 

Red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) – Noisy, territorial, and garnished by vivid red epaulettes, red-winged blackbirds have been out chattering of late with their distinctive konk-la-ree calls. They are denizen of watery locales, such as Green Lake, the Center for Urban Horticulture, and Echo Lake, where males flaunt their garish shoulder patches as a sign of territoriality. Studies have shown that if the birds intend to fight and protect their turf, they will display their badge of red, but if they are merely “visiting” or “testing” a new territory, they may not display and wait to see what the present owner does. Perhaps we could take a lesson. Be patient and sport red epaulettes but only flare them when necessary. Otherwise, chill out.

David B. Williams is a naturalist, author, and educator. His many books include the award-winning Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle’s Topography, Seattle Walks: Discovering History and Nature in the City, and most recently Homewaters: A Human and Natural History of Puget Sound. Subscribe to Street Smart Naturalist: Explorations of the Urban Kind.

On Stories to Which the Ending Is Already Known: Eric Wagner on “After the Blast”

In 2018, I published a book about some penguins in Argentina that are near and dear to my heart, and as a result I did a number of book talks hither and yon. Once people had run out of questions about the penguins during the Q&As, someone would often ask what else I was working on.

“I’m writing a book about Mount St. Helens,” I would say.

“Oh, interesting,” the person would say, and then they would pause. “So what are you going to say about it that’s new?”

“Umm…” I would say. At that point I was two years into my research for the book that ultimately became After the Blast: The Ecological Recovery of Mount St. Helens. I was driving out to Mount St. Helens as often as I could, talking to the hordes of scientists who either worked there or had worked there in the past, reading dozens of their books and papers about the ways life around the mountain had responded to the 1980 eruption. All the information was new, at least to me, and I was struggling to wrap my head around it. As such, it was all I could do not to shoot a dirty look at the questioner and say something tart.

But I also understood where they were coming from. Truth be told, I had asked the same question myself. I grew up in Oregon a few hours from Mount St. Helens, and was familiar with the standard tale of the eruption, which went something like: Mount St. Helens erupted and left a moonscape behind, but then life came back more quickly than anyone expected. All of this had made me a little hesitant at first to pursue the project. I wondered whether I had anything new to say about a space already so well known.

Once I started reading and talking to folks, though, it was soon clear to me just how mistaken I had been to assume everything worth knowing about Mount St. Helens was known. Yes, life had come back more quickly than anyone expected. But just how it came back was fascinating, and full of fun, quirky details—of spiders ballooning into the blast area within hours of the eruption, of toads and fish that survived because they were drifting in icebound lakes, of a deep snowpack that was a savior for plants in one area but a killer in another, of flowers that showed up in the middle of desolate plains, giving them color. I loved learning all those little stories embedded within the one larger tale.

Exploring the relationship between people and Mount St. Helens was eye-opening as well; for notice how people are kind of left out of that standard tale. But our fingerprints are all over the landscape. Within weeks of the eruption, people were clamoring to replant large swaths of the landscape with thousands of fir seedlings. In other places, people scattered tons of flower and grass seed from helicopters in an effort to prevent erosion. (It didn’t really work, for what it’s worth.) Everyone was doing what they thought was best—some trying to reassert the human hand over the land, others arguing to let life find its own way. All those actions would help shape the biological community that thousands of visitors see when they go to the mountain. The blast area today is a reflection of those competing desires: to intervene and sculpt, to step back and watch.

Overall, the main thing I learned while writing this book was the degree to which the landscape at Mount St. Helens is still very much alive. I feel lucky to have been able to spend so much time on the mountain, hiking all over it with scientists who could reveal its beauty to me and explain it. They could not stop talking about how dynamic the environment was. Even now, forty years after the 1980 eruption—as I am writing these words—the landscape is continuing to change in unexpected ways. So what’s new at Mount St. Helens? Read the book and find out just how much!

Eric Wagner earned a PhD in biology from the University of Washington, writes regularly about animals and the environment, and is author of Penguins in the Desert and coauthor of Once and Future River: Reclaiming the Duwamish. He climbs Mount St. Helens annually. After the Blast: The Ecological Recovery of Mount St. Helens is available now. Now through May 15th, all University of Washington Press titles are 40% off on our website.

American Society for Environmental History 2018 Conference Preview

We are delighted to attend the annual American Society for Environmental History conference (#ASEH2018) from March 14-18, 2018 in Riverside, California, and to celebrate this year’s theme, “Environment, Power & Justice.”

Senior acquisitions editor Catherine Cocks and exhibits, advertising, and direct mail manager Katherine Tacke are representing the Press. Join us at our booth to recognize new titles across environmental history and studies, including in the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books and Culture, Place, and Nature series.

Meet our authors at scheduled book signings and learn about other featured titles below!

Book signings with Andrew N. Case and Joanna L. Dyl

Thursday, March 15 at 10:00 a.m.

Seismic City: An Environmental History of San Francisco’s 1906 Earthquake
By Joanna L. Dyl
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

Combining urban environmental history and disaster studies, this close study of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake demonstrates how the crisis and subsequent rebuilding reflect the dynamic interplay of natural and human influences that have shaped San Francisco.

The Organic Profit: Rodale and the Making of Marketplace Environmentalism
By Andrew N. Case
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

Where did the curious idea of buying one’s way to sustainability come from? In no small part, the answer lies in the story of entrepreneur and reformer J. I. Rodale, his son Robert Rodale, and their company, the Rodale Press. For anyone trying to make sense of the complex tensions between business profits and the desire for environmental reform, The Organic Profit is essential reading.

Book signings with Brett L. Walker and Melanie A. Kiechle

Thursday, March 15 at 1:00 p.m.

A Family History of Illness: Memory as Medicine
By Brett L. Walker

In this deeply personal narrative, professional historian Walker constructs a history of his body to understand his diagnosis with a serious immunological disorder, weaving together his dying grandfather’s sneaking a cigarette in a shed on the family’s Montana farm, blood fractionation experiments in Europe during World War II, and nineteenth-century cholera outbreaks that ravaged small American towns as his ancestors were making their way west.

Smell Detectives: An Olfactory History of Nineteenth-Century Urban America
By Melanie A. Kiechle
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

What did nineteenth-century cities smell like? And how did odors matter in the formation of a modern environmental consciousness? Smell Detectives recovers how city residents used their sense of smell and their health concerns about foul odors to understand, adjust to, and fight against urban environmental changes.

Book signings with Sarah R. Hamilton and Jakobina K. Arch

Thursday, March 15 at 3:00 p.m.

Cultivating Nature: The Conservation of a Valencian Working Landscape
By Sarah R. Hamilton
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

Shifting between local struggles and global debates, this fascinating environmental history of the Albufera Natural Park reveals how Franco’s dictatorship, Spain’s integration with Europe, and the crisis in European agriculture have shaped the working landscape, its users, and its inhabitants.

Bringing Whales Ashore: Oceans and the Environment of Early Modern Japan
By Jakobina K. Arch
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

In this vivid and nuanced study of how the Japanese people brought whales ashore during the Tokugawa period, Arch makes important contributions to both environmental and Japanese history by connecting Japanese whaling to marine environmental history in the Pacific, including the devastating impact of American whaling in the nineteenth century.

New and Forthcoming in Environmental Studies

Footprints of War: Militarized Landscapes in Vietnam
By David Biggs
November 2018

Centering on the landscape of Central Vietnam, Footprints of War reveals centuries of military activities embedded in the landscape and explains how events such as the Tet Offensive and the Battle of Hamburger Hill shaped patterns of land use as well as local memories of place.


Environmental Justice in Postwar America: A Documentary Reader
Edited by Christopher W. Wells
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter
Weyerhaueser Environmental Classics

This reader collects a wide range of primary source documents on the rise and evolution of the environmental justice movement. The documents show how activism by people of color and low-income American spurred the environmental justice movement of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Featured in Environmental Studies

Culture, Place, and Nature

Organic Sovereignties: Struggles over Farming in an Age of Free Trade
By Guntra A. Aistara
April 2018

This first sustained ethnographic study of organic agriculture outside the United States traces its meanings, practices, and politics in two nations typically considered worlds apart: Latvia and Costa Rica. Situated on the frontiers of the European Union and the United States, these geopolitically and economically in-between places illustrate ways that international treaties have created contradictory pressures for organic farmers.

November 2017 News, Reviews, and Events

News

University Press Week is November 6-11 (next week!) and we can’t wait to celebrate the value of our books and expertise of our authors with this year’s theme, #LookItUP: Knowledge Matters.

Find a run-down of online and offline events on the UP Week site and join in with the #ReadUP and #LookItUP hashtags on social media.

In huge literary news, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated Seattle as a City of Literature in the Creative Cities Network. Please join us in heartily congratulating all involved in the bid, with a special mention to UW Press staffer and Seattle City of Literature cofounder Rebecca Brinbury! Find more from UNESCO, Seattle City of Literature, and the Seattle Review of Books. Read and write on, Seattle!

Monthly Giveaways

Reviews and Interviews


The Atlantic interviews Pumpkin author Cindy Ott in an article about what counts as a pumpkin. WDEL also interviews the author about the connection between pumpkins and fall.


Tell Me Something I Don’t Know with Stephen J. Dubner features Smell Detectives author Melanie Kiechle in a recent podcast episode all about the senses.
High Country News reviews The Tao of Raven by Ernestine Hayes: “As with Blonde Indian, Hayes blurs the boundaries of genre in The Tao of Raven, which braids sharp grandmotherly meditations and gripping personal history into the fictional storyline of another troubled, typical family. . . . Her prose is as insistent as it is lyrical.”—Rob Rich


Inquirer.net USA reviews A Time to Rise edited by Rene Ciria Cruz, Cindy Domingo, and Bruce Occena: “A Time to Rise comes out at an opportune time as another fascist regime emerges in the Philippines. As in the past, former KDP activists have responded to the call to fight back.”—Boying Pimentel


International Examiner also reviews: “This nearly 20-year project is a remarkable documentation of one of the leading revolutionary Asian American Movement organizations. . . . A Time to Rise provides much greater complexity to teaching and learning about both Filipino American and Asian American movement history. . . . More than lessons of the past, A Time to Rise illuminates the way forward to complete unfinished revolutions.”—Tracy Lai


KING 5 Evening features Razor Clams author David Berger in a new series on Wild Food. Langdon Cook (James Beard Award-winning writer and author of books including Upstream and The Mushroom Hunters) reviews the book on his blog: “For the uninitiated, David Berger’s Razor Clams is just the ticket to understanding what all the fuss is about. Berger is a lively guide to Siliqua patula‘s ecology, culinary lore, and historical importance in the region. . . . Readers looking for such nourishment will find much to savor in this account of a beloved bivalve.”


CASSIUS publishes an article by author David J. Leonard about the Las Vegas shooting, white male terrorism, and how race shapes our reaction to gun violence. Playing While White gets a byline mention. The Undefeated also publishes an adaption from the book. The Seattle Times publishes an opinion piece by the author on WSU football coach Mike Leach using his platform to thwart conversation on racial equity rather than advance it, where the book gets a byline mention.


The Seattle Times reviews “Witness to Wartime” and prominently mentions The Hope of Another Spring: “The book and exhibition, together, shed a powerful new light on a troubling chapter in U.S. history. . . . Compelling as both artwork and history.”—Michael Upchurch


The Everett Herald reviews Territorial Hues by David F. Martin (dist. Cascadia Art Museum): “If you love the Northwest and Northwest regional art, be sure to check out Territorial Hues.”—Gale Fiege


Asia Pacific Forum interviews Queering Contemporary Asian American Art editors Laura Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe.


Publishers Weekly interviews author Ingrid Walker in an article about the recent Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association fall tradeshow. High gets a mention.


The Eureka Times-Standard features Defending Giants by Darren F. Speece in an article about the 40th anniversary of the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC). Truthout reviews the book: “Eloquent, inspiring, eminently readable nonfiction with precious lessons for those fighting the ever-greater environmental destruction wrought by corporate greed. . . . A tale fully relevant to here and now.”—Robert James Parsons

New Books

Seismic City: An Environmental History of San Francisco’s 1906 Earthquake
By Joanna L. Dyl
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

Combining urban environmental history and disaster studies, this close study of San Francisco’s calamitous earthquake and aftermath demonstrates how the crisis and subsequent rebuilding reflect the dynamic interplay of natural and human influences that have shaped San Francisco.


Chinook Resilience: Heritage and Cultural Revitalization on the Lower Columbia River
By Jon D. Daehnke
Foreword by Tony A. Johnson

A collaborative ethnography of how the Chinook Indian Nation, whose land and heritage are under assault, continues to move forward and remain culturally strong and resilient. Chinook Resilience offers a tribally relevant, forward-looking, and decolonized approach for the cultural resilience and survival of the Chinook Indian Nation, even in the face of federal nonrecognition.

Queer Feminist Science Studies: A Reader
Edited by Cyd Cipolla, Kristina Gupta, David A. Rubin, and Angela Willey

The foundational essays and new writings collected here take a transnational, trans-species, and intersectional approach to this cutting-edge area of inquiry between women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and science and technology studies (STS), and demonstrate the ingenuity and dynamism of queer feminist scholarship.


Living Sharia: Law and Practice in Malaysia
By Timothy P. Daniels

What role does sharia play today in Malaysia? Drawing on ethnographic research, this book traces the contested implementation of Islamic family and criminal laws and sharia economics to provide cultural frameworks for understanding sharia among Muslims and non-Muslims in Southeast Asia and beyond.


Mobilizing Krishna’s World: The Writings of Prince Savant Singh of Kishangarh
By Heidi R. M. Pauwels

Through an examination of the life and works of Savant Singh (1697-1764), this remarkable study explores the circulation of ideas and culture in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries in north India, revealing how the Rajput prince mobilized soldiers but also used myths, songs, and stories about saints in order to cope with his personal and political crisis.


The Rebirth of Bodh Gaya: Buddhism and the Making of a World Heritage Site
By David Geary

This multilayered historical ethnography of Bodh Gaya—the place of Buddha’s enlightenment in the north Indian state of Bihar—explores the spatial politics surrounding the transformation of the Mahabodhi Temple Complex into a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2002.


The Jewish Bible: A Material History
By David Stern

Drawing on the most recent scholarship on the history of the book, this beautifully illustrated material history shows how the Bible has been not only a medium for transmitting its text—the word of God—but a physical object with a meaning of its own.

Events

NOVEMBER

November 1 at 6:30 p.m., Linda Carlson, Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest, Dungeness Valley Lutheran Church, Sequim, WA

November 2 at 6 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, Washington Athletic Club, Seattle, WA

November 2 at 7 p.m., David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott, and staff of HistoryLink, Waterway, King County Library System – Mercer Island, Mercer Island, WA

November 4 at 1 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, Seward Park Audubon Center, Seattle, WA

November 8 at 6:30 p.m., Linda Carlson, Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest, Dungeness Valley Lutheran Church, Sequim, WA

November 9 at 6 p.m., Zoltán Grossman, Unlikely Alliances, Orca Books, Olympia, WA

November 9 at 12:30 p.m., David Biggs, Quagmire / War in the Land (forthcoming 2018), University of Washington, Southeast Asia Center, Thomson Room 317, Seattle, WA

November 9 at 7 p.m., Ingrid Walker, High, King’s Books, Tacoma, WA

November 10 at 7 p.m., James Longhurst, Bike Battles, BikePGH and Healthy Ride, Pittsburgh, PA

November 10 – 13, Emily T. Yeh, Mapping Shangrila, 2017 Machik Weekend, New York, NY

November 11 at 10 a.m., David Biggs, Quagmire / War in the Land (forthcoming 2018), Seattle Asian Art Museum, Saturday University, History Flows from the Mekong Mud, Seattle Art Museum, Plestcheeff Auditorium (SAM), Seattle, WA (Get tickets)

November 12 at 4 p.m., David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott, and staff of HistoryLink, Waterway, Eastside Heritage Center, Bellevue, WA

November 14, Geeta Patel, Risky Bodies and Techno-Intimacy, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA

November 16 at 7 p.m., Melanie A. Kiechle, Smell Detectives, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA

November 16 at 6 p.m., Zhi LIN (dist. for Tacoma Art Museum), Tacoma Art Museum, Artist Talk: Conversation with Zhi LIN and Chief Curator Rock Hushka, Tacoma, WA

November 17 at 10 a.m., David E. Wilkins and Shelly Hulse Wilkins, Dismembered, Symposium on Tribal Citizenship, San Diego State University, Scripps Cottage, San Diego, CA

November 18 at 3 p.m., Seattle7Writers Holiday Bookfest with Kathleen Alcalá (The Deepest Roots) and David B. Williams (Seattle Walks), Seattle, WA

November 19 at 2 p.m., Linda Carlson, Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest, Snoqualmie Valley History Society, King County Library System – North Bend, North Bend, WA

November 22 at 7 p.m., Cindy Domingo, A Time to Rise, with Vincente Rafael (Motherless Tongues), Duterte’s War: The Current Crisis in the Philippines and Beyond, Third Place Books – Seward Park, Seattle, WA

DECEMBER

December 2 at 11 a.m., Zoltán Grossman, Unlikely Alliances, Hoquiam Timberland Library, Hoquiam, WA

December 10 at noon, Shelley Drake Hawks, The Art of Resistance, Full Circle Bookstore, Oklahoma City, OK

December 14 at 7 p.m., Shelley Drake Hawks, The Art of Resistance, Concord Free Public Library, Concord, MA

Save

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August 2017 News, Reviews, and Events

News

UW Press publishes two (out of three) titles on the shortlist for the European Association for Southeast Asian Studies (EuroSEAS) Social Science Book Prize 2017 (Humanizing the Sacred by Azza Basarudin and Forests Are Gold by Pamela D. McElwee). Winners will be announced at the organization’s annual meeting in England from August 16-18, 2017. Congratulations to and fingers crossed for the finalists, editors, and all involved!

Monthly Giveaways

Reviews and Interviews

The Seattle Times features Waterway by David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott, and staff of HistoryLink (dist. for HistoryLink) and mentions Native Seattle by Coll Thrush in an article about the 100th anniversary celebrations for the Locks on July 4. The Wedgewood in Seattle History blog also features Waterway.


The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette features an op-ed by Bike Battles author James Longhurst.


The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reviews The Tao of Raven by Ernestine Hayes: “Artistic and honest and moving in a way few memoirs ever dare to match. . . . A seminal work in the making, and one that all Alaskans should make a point not to miss.”—Addley Fannin


General Aviation News reviews The Propeller under the Bed by Eileen A. Bjorkman: “Any aviation enthusiast will appreciate all 200 pages of this work, but those of us who find our fathers and mothers staring up at a cloudless sky when the sound of a propeller breaks the silence will recognize both its timeless appeal and historic significance.”—Mark Jones Jr.


The Seattle Times features The Hope of Another Spring by Barbara Johns in the Lit Life column: “A powerful new book. . . . The book is a beautiful display of Fujii’s work, and it’s proof of the power of art and artists to witness events many would rather leave in the dark.”—Mary Ann Gwinn

8Asians also reviews: “The gem of the book is the reproduction of Fujii’s diary. . . . The Hope of Another Spring offers an Issei artist’s perspective to our understanding of Japanese American’s wartime incarceration, while also bringing a valuable study of Fujii and his artistic journey and long career.”—Lily Wong


The Pacific Northwest Inlander features A Year Right Here by Jess Thomson: “The book is filled with evocative food descriptions and enviable trips, but also encompasses the uncontrollable stuff of everyday life and explores the limits of physical ability. . . . Thomson’s book encourages readers to be curious about their natural habitats in a new way. . . . An invitation to adventure anyone can embrace.”—Cara Strickland


Greg in San Diego blog reviews Birds of the Pacific Northwest by Tom Aversa, Richard Cannings, and Hal Opperman: “I believe this is the most useful regional field guide to the birds in the northwest corner of the contiguous United States.”—Greg Gillson


Western Birds, the journal of Western Field Ornithologists, also reviews the birding guide: “For the majority of serious birders in the West who tend to limit their explorations to one or another state or province, this guide should expand their horizons and encourage more cross-border birding. . . . This guide is an essential reference for birders west of the continental divide, particularly for intermediate and advanced observers.”—Eugene Hunn


TrailBlazerGirl.com reviews Seattle Walks by David B. Williams: “Not your typical tourist guide book. . . . Seattle Walks is an excellent guide to help you experience Seattle in a new way.”


KCTS 9 Borders & Heritage mentions Signs of Home by Barbara Johns in a segment and article about the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066.


UW Today features news from the College of Arts & Sciences that the family of video art pioneer Doris Chase have donated 59 of her works to the Henry. We published a book about the artist, Doris Chase, Artist in Motion by Patricia Failing, in 1992.


TrailblazerGirl.com reviews Hiking Washington’s History and Walking Washington’s History by Judy Bentley: “Enhance your exploration of the Evergreen State with Judy Bentley’s books.”


Plant Science Bulletin reviews Timber Trees of Suriname by Chequita R. Bhikhi (dist. for LM Publishers): “Timber Trees of Suriname will be very useful for foresters and, as a first introduction to the rich tree flora of Suriname, for all botanists, ecologists, and amateurs interested in flora of the Guiana Shield.”—Marcel Rejmánek


The HOME — So Different, So Appealing exhibit is on view at LACMA through October 15, 2017. We will distribute the accompanying catalogue—edited by curators Chon A. Noriega, Mari Carmen Ramirez, and Pilar Tompkins Rivas—for UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press. The exhibit gets mentions at ARTnews and Cuban Art News, and a review in the New Yorker: “’Home – So Different, So Appealing’ is a big, keen show. . . . It tells many stories and is a story in itself.”—Peter Schjeldahl

The exhibit also gets a review in the Los Angeles Times: “If ‘Home’ is a harbinger of what to expect for the rest of the series, it has set the bar high.”—Carolina A. Miranda


KEXP’s KEXPlorer posts an audio recording of an April 2017 panel discussion at the Wing Luke Museum on “Feminism and war in the Asia Pacific” program with Cindy Domingo (coeditor of A Time to Rise; October 2017).


KEXP’s Mind Over Matters Sustainability Segment interviews Unlikely Alliances author Zoltán Grossman. WORT’s A Public Affair (Madison, WI) will also interview the author live on August 11, 2017.


Greg Robinson of Nichi Bei mentions No-No Boy by John Okada in his latest weekly column.


The Now & Then column of Pacific NW Magazine features Frederick L. Brown and The City Is More Than Human. Paul Dorpat’s blog features an expanded version of the column.


TrailblazerGirl.com reviews Haida Gwaii by Dennis Horwood:”For a comprehensive guide to one of National Geographic’s 20 Best Trips, check out Haida Gwaii.”


DCist features Carlos Bulosan and America Is in the Heart in an article about this weekend’s Smithsonian Asian American Literature Festival, as well as their weekend events round-up. The Festival features a two-day reading of Bulosan’s book and Troubling Borders editor Isabelle Thuy Pelaud will also be participating.


The Science magazine podcast features an interview with Smell Detectives author Melanie Kiechle. The American Scholar’s Smarty Pants podcast also interviews the author.


Not Another Sports Show podcast (#NASSRadio) interviews Playing While White author David J. Leonard.

New Books

Razor Clams: Buried Treasure of the Pacific Northwest
By David Berger

In this lively history and celebration of the Pacific razor clam, David Berger shares with us his love affair with the glossy, gold-colored Siliqua patula and gets into the nitty-gritty of how to dig, clean, and cook them using his favorite recipes. In the course of his investigation, Berger brings to light the long history of razor clamming as a subsistence, commercial, and recreational activity, and shows the ways it has helped shape both the identity and the psyche of the Pacific Northwest.

Waterway: The Story of Seattle’s Locks and Ship Canal
By David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott, and Staff of HistoryLink
Distributed for HistoryLink

Why does a city surrounded by water need another waterway? Find out what drove Seattle’s civic leaders to pursue the dream of a Lake Washington Ship Canal for more than sixty years and what role it has played in the region’s development over the past century. Historians Jennifer Ott and David B. Williams, author of Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle’s Topography, explore how industry, transportation, and the very character of the city and surrounding region developed in response to the economic and environmental changes brought by Seattle’s canal and locks.


Picturing India: People, Places, and the World of the East India Company
By John McAleer
Published with British Library

Few historians have considered the visual sources that survive from the British engagement with India and what they tell us about the link between images and empire, pictures and power. This book draws on the unrivaled riches of the British Library — both visual and textual — to tell that history. It weaves together the story of individual images, their creators, and the people and events they depict. And, in doing so, it presents a detailed picture of the Company and its complex relationship with India, its people and cultures.

Events

AUGUST

August 4 at 7 p.m., Ernestine Hayes, The Tao of Raven, Alaska State Library, Summer Lecture Series at the APK, Juneau, AK

August 5 at 11 a.m., Jess Thomson, A Year Right Here, Bear Pond Books, Stowe, VT

August 7 at 7 p.m., David B. Williams, Seattle Walks, King County Library Services – Renton Highlands, Renton, WA

August 11 at 7 p.m., Zoltán Grossman, Unlikely Alliances, A Room of One’s Own, Madison, WI

August 15 at 7 p.m., Judy Bentley, Walking Washington’s History, King County Library System – Lake Forest Park, Lake Forest Park, WA

August 15 at 7 p.m., David B. Williams, Seattle Walks, Co-presented with Capitol Hill Historical Society and Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA

August 30 at 7 p.m., Kathleen Alcalá, The Deepest Roots, Third Place Book Club hosted by Seattle7Writers (Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff), Seattle, WA

August 31 at 7 p.m., David B. Williams, Seattle Walks, with Kevin O’Brien, Third Place Books, Seward Park, Seattle, WA

SEPTEMBER

September 7 at 7 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, University Book Store, Seattle, WA

September 7 at 7:30 p.m., David Leonard, Playing While White, BookPeople, Moscow, ID

September 9 from 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Multi-author signing from 1 – 2 p.m.), Readerfest with Kathleen Alcalá, The Deepest Roots, The Brig & Ampitheater at Magnuson Park, Seattle, WA

September 12 at 6 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, Sno-Isle Libraries, Mountlake Terrace Library, Mountlake Terrace, WA

September 13 at 7 p.m., Barbara Johns, The Hope of Another Spring, in conversation with Tom Ikeda, Seattle Public Library – Central Library with Elliott Bay Book Company and Denshō, Seattle, WA

September 13 at 7:30 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, Olympia Timberland Library, Olympia, WA

September 16 at 2 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, Humanities Washington, Sno-Isle Libraries, Stanwood Library, Stanwood, WA

September 16 at 2 p.m., William Wei, Asians in Colorado, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, Colorado Springs, CO

September 19 at 7 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, Wheelock Library, Tacoma, WA

September 20 at 6:30 p.m., David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott, and staff of HistoryLink, Waterway, MOHAI, History Café, Seattle, WA

September 20 at 7 p.m., Barbara Johns, The Hope of Another Spring, Friends of Mukai at the Vashon Land Trust building, Vashon Island, WA

September 21 at 7 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Eagle Harbor Books, Bainbridge Island, WA

September 23 at 11 a.m., David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott, and staff of HistoryLink, Waterway, King County Library System – Newcastle, Newcastle, WA

September 23 at 11 a.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, Aberdeen Timberland Library, Aberdeen, WA

September 23 at 2 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, Westport Timberland Library, Westport, WA

September 23 at 7 p.m., David Leonard, Playing While White, Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA

September 29 at 7 p.m., David Leonard, Playing While White, Elliott Bay Books, Seattle, WA

September 30 at 2 p.m., Judy Bentley, Walking Washington’s History, Timberland Regional Library – Olympia, Olympia, WA

September 30 at 2 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum, Ilwaco, WA

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Our city, our pets: Guest post from ‘The City Is More Than Human’ author Frederick L. Brown

Today we are featuring an illustrated guest post on the history of our favorite furry and feathered friends by The City Is More Than Human: An Animal History of Seattle author Frederick L. Brown. Brown was recently awarded the 2017 Virginia Marie Folkins Award from AKCHO (Association of King County Historical Organizations) for his book, published last fall, and also delivered the 2017 Denny Lecture at MOHAI.

Read on to learn more about the role pets have played in Seattle’s urban history!

Credit: Christy Avery

Dogs are rarely seen reading urban history – the bright-eyed fellow pictured above notwithstanding – but dogs have played a vital role in urban history. Over the last century, their numbers have increased dramatically. One rough estimate is that their population has increased from five thousand in 1905 to 150,000 today. The working dog is not absent from the city today: from guide dogs, to guard dogs, to dogs in police K9 units. Yet, the role of pure companion, with no expectation of work, predominates. Many of us couldn’t imagine urban life without our furry friends.

Credit: MOHAI, SHS12890

A century ago, dogs were friends to be sure, but also as guard-dogs, hunting dogs, ratters, and workers at other tasks. Often, the role of work and play blended. For instance, the dogs in the front row of this 1898 image of McVay Mill, in Ballard, may have blended roles as mascots, pets, and watchdogs. One newspaper ad from 1921 captured the mixing of roles: “Police Dog puppies. The most intelligent and faithful companion, excellent as watchdog and ideal as pet for children.”

Credit: MOHAI, 1974.5923.46; photo by McBride Anderson

Other dogs had a role as pure companions a century ago. Here for example, Priscilla Grace Treat cuddles her dog, around 1920. Seattleites had deep connections of love and friendship with their dogs. For instance, one family wrote of their German shepherd in 1935, “He is treated as a member of the family and with a laugh takes the rocking chair, when he feels like sitting in it.”

Credit: Frederick L. Brown

Cats generally have better things to do than read urban history, making this curious girl from the Central District hard to explain. But they too have been woven into the city’s history, since its founding. Cats’ urban role has perhaps undergone an even greater transformation than that of dogs. Before the widespread use of cat litter in the 1940s, it was considered unsanitary for them to spend much time indoors.

Credit: University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Hester 10587; photograph by Wilhelm Hester

A century ago, most cats had a working role killing mice and rats, in private homes and in businesses. They had an important role in any business storing, selling, or transporting food that might attract mice and rats. They hunted rodents on docks and ships and, many believed, afforded sailors good luck, making them honored members of ships’ crews, as their presence in numerous crew portraits attests. Here, the crew of the British vessel Penthesilea sits on the deck in a Puget Sound port in 1904. A crew member in the back row holds a cat.

Credit: University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Warner 3107 (detail)

Although cats typically had working roles in the early twentieth century, people also enjoyed them for other reasons. At the Warner residence in Seattle around 1900, a man and woman smile and watch a kitten.

Credit: Frederick L. Brown

Backyard chickens have become popular in recent years. Some refer to the pleasures of seeing chicken curiosity and their lively exploration of backyards (and even the occasional historical monograph) as “Chicken Television.” In the late 1990s, the Tilth Alliance found soaring interest in its backyard chicken classes. For some city-dwellers, these increasingly popular creatures are “pets with benefits” – the benefits being eggs.

Credit: University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, KHL195; photo by Ambrose Kiehl

A century ago, backyard chickens were not primarily pets. They were a vital source of eggs, and also meat, to urban dwellers. Yet the daily act of feeding chickens allowed human connection, and children  especially, often saw them as pets. Here Miriam Kiehl holds a chicken for a portrait at Fort Lawton in 1899.

Credit: MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Photograph Collection, 1986.5.4202.3

Yet, as The City Is More Than Human explores, chickens illustrate the paradoxes of urban pet-keeping. Backyard chickens have remained in the city, and yet increasing numbers of chickens live in large-scale operations far from the city. This battery for laying hens in Woodinville in 1935 was one step along that journey to greater and greater industrialization.

For every one backyard urban chicken today, there are thousands of chickens in faraway industrial-scale farms that provide meat and eggs to Seattleites. Some of the chickens, indeed, provide the meat that feeds urban cats and dogs. That moment of great connection and caring, when we feed our cats and dogs, is also a moment where we generally are ignorant of the lives of those faraway creatures. So, as we think about the wonderful place of urban pets in our lives, let’s also remember those faraway animals that are integral to urban life and urban pet-keeping.

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Frederick L. Brown holds a PhD in history from the University of Washington and works on a contract basis as a historian for the National Park Service.