In anticipation of long quiet days at anchor, I start moving books on board in the winter. This compartmentalizes what I don’t have time for in the dark days of January when I read to get a leg up on the new year. Both protected reading times bring together genres and topics that normally don’t mix and offer a delicious loosening of the mind. Summer cruise reading offers few distractions: you can’t unabashedly follow a tangent when you don’t have Internet.

Horse. By Geraldine Brooks.

Horse was reliably recommended by Jack the Skipper, who reads hundreds of books a year. Since it appeared only on June 15th, Jack read it on Kindle while I listened on Audible. This sweeping work of historical fiction is built around the legendary Lexington, who lived before during and after the civil war in the heyday of horseracing. Black slave Jarrett attends the foal’s birth and remains with him through his old age passing after siring hundreds of winners. Other characters include Jarrett’s three owners, an equine painter, a mid-20th century Manhattan art dealer, and a contemporary expert in horse bone articulation at the Smithsonian. The Washington DC setting stretches the historical stage through the murder of George Floyd and Juneteenth as a national holiday. When it comes to race in America, this work offers lots to chew on.

Brooks dedicates Horse to her late husband, Tony Horwitz, whose works (mostly of nonfiction history) also span the gamut – from the exploits of Captain Cook and Civil War re-enactors to those of Frederick Law Olmsted. Geraldine and Tony’s sojourn in Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad happened to coincide with our own. At the time, diplomats and foreign correspondents were protected by the regime but it was deviously difficult to figure out what was going on, as Tony recounted in his Baghdad Without a Map.

Sincerely, Mildred By Ashley Lane.

I finished this book by the time we made it across the border and loved it. It’s a coming-of-age story set in a fictional town located between Kalama and Longview on the Columbia River. It’s the 1930s during the hard times after the Crash when twenty-somethings faced prospects as limiting as kids do today. This is also the decade when my parents met.

Protagonist Mildred is a plain girl who endures her work in a salmon cannery by daydreaming, which inadvertently leads to an exchange of letters with a young pilot rebelling against his timber baron father. By securely rooting the story in the manners, customs, and rigid class structures of the day, Lane manages flights of fancy plus a final chilling escape from mobsters which has me waiting for the movie.

Sincerely, Mildred was an impulse purchase. After coffee at dawn in Port Townsend and on our way to an 11 am meeting in Portland, Viki Sonntag and I found the anticipated rest stop on I-5 closed. Oh, dear. Once over the summit, we turned toward Castle Rock, Washington, where we found The Bank, a book store with a coffee bar in a century-old bank building, replete with period vaults. Oh, yes. When I asked about book readings, our barista competently took me into the shelf to introduce noted Pacific Northwest authors, many known to me. Of Sincerely, Mildred, she simply said,“people keep talking about this one.” The author is a Columbia Valley native who loves “exploring the Pacific Northwest with the love of her life and a pack of wild kids.” It’s no surprise that she cites Geraldine Brooks as a key influence.

Those Vulgar Tubes: External Sanitation Accommodations aboard European Ships of the Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries. by Joe J. Simmons III.

Part of a series on nautical archeology the slim volume is impeccably researched and illustrated with drawings of ship toilets for both officers and ordinary seamen that are based on the paintings of early marine artists, including Dutch Masters such as Brueghel. Archeological clues were greatly enhanced by the 1686 ship Vasa, which sank upon its launch in Stockholm Harbor, from which it was raised in 200? and ready for me to visit in 2018.

External sanitation accommodations were a Fifteenth Century improvement whose iterations persisted through the Nineteenth Century. Rich in the vocabulary of maritime technologies, the book does not contain the word toilet, favoring a diversity of obscure maritime terms. The contemporary term “head” seems a holdover from the seats of ease in the bow or head of the ship that served the bulk of the crew, a placement that proved unwise and was abandoned.

Those Vulgar Tubes was given to me by Scott Walker, my Transportation Lab colleague whom I have yet to persuade that public infrastructure to accommodate private bowel movement is essential to successful public transit systems.

Rainshadow: Archibald Menzies and the Botanical Exploration of the Olympic Peninsula. Edited by Jerry Gorsline.

Archibald Menzies was the young Scottish surgeon and botanist who was appointed Naturalist to accompany Captain George Vancouver to the Pacific Northwest in 1792. Like others on the crew, his journals are alive to reactions to places and people never before observed by Europeans. This 64-page pamphlet excerpts Menzie’s coverage of landfall at places around Jefferson County. Of our Point Hudson neighborhood and the bluffs above, Menzies says this:

The shores here are sandy & pebbly-the point we came to was low & flat with some Marshy ground behind it & a pond of water surrounded with willows & tall bullrushes, behind this a green bank stretched to the Southward a little distance from the shore which was markd with the beaten paths of Deer & other Animals. While dinner was getting ready on the point I ascended this Bank with one of the Gentlemen & strolled over an extensive lawn, where solitude rich pasture & rural prospects prevaild-It presented an uneven surface with slight hollows and gentle risings interspersed with a few straddling pine trees & edged behind with a thick forest of them that coverd over a flat country of very modest height & rendered the Western side of this arm a pleasant & desirable tract of both pasture & arable land where the Plough might enter at once without the least obstruction & where the Soil though light & gravelly appeared capable of yielding in this temperate climate luxuriant Crops of the European Grains or of rearing herds of Cattle who might here wander at their ease overt extensive field of fine pasture, though the only possessors of it we saw at this time were a few gigantic Cranes of between three & four feet high who strided over the Lawn with a lordly step.

In the Jefferson County Historical Society Museum shop, I found this 1992 JCHS publication commemorating the International Maritime Bicentennial of Vancouver’s legacy. His mapping of the Pacific Northwest was done with such accuracy that we can recognize our tiniest anchorages along the Inside Passage. Writing in the Port Townsend Leader, marine historian Gregory Foster calls the expedition of the Discovery and the Chatham “perhaps the greatest small craft saga in the annals of seafaring.” He notes that the eight yawls, lunches, cutters, and jolly boats covered five times the distance of the mother ships. Today local school students relive the experience by rowing and sailing replicas of these boats. in the programs of the Northwest Maritime Center.

Sailing with Vancouver: A Modern Sea Dog, Antique Charts, and A Voyage Through Time. By Sam McKinney.

Many have sailed in the “footsteps” of George Vancouver, including us. But adventurer Sam McKinney was captivated by small boats and would use them to sail across the continent from the headwaters of the Mississippi south to New Orleans and east to New York. To replicate the Voyage of Discovery, he chose a 25-foot boat, anchored where Vancouver did, and nosed about the shores in similar weather and conditions.

Sailing with Vancouver will live aboard Morning Light. I found it while sitting in the comfortable chair next to the used book shelf in the Northwest Maritime Center Chandlery.

Dancing in Gumboots: Women of the Comox Valley. Edited by Lou Allison with Jane Wilde.

This delightfully engaging social history of the late 1960s and 1970s should be read by anyone whose mother came of age in this period. Thirty-two current and former residents of the Comox Valley tell their stories of homesteading on Hornby and Denman Islands, building Valley communities along the rivers as farmers, fishermen, teachers, and artists, many after long years surviving as tree planters in the forestry industry. Photos of contributors older and younger accompany the text. I applaud this format and regret we don’t see it more often, particularly as this generation passes on. Any small community that invites elder citizens to contribute life stories should be blessed with a rich multi-faceted overview of those important decades.

Writes Roberta DeDoming, who arrived on Denman Island in 1970: “I get defensive when people disparage the sixties “hippies” as merely frivolous and flaky, failing to acknowledge the tremendous contributions to society made by alternative culture individuals and groups: environmentalism and ecology, connection to the natural world, self-sufficiency, sustainable development, the anti-nuclear and peace movements, peaceful protest and civil rights activism, shifts in attitudes and practices around birth and death, animal rights, food awareness, feminism, gender expression and gay rights issues, race equality issues, openness to elemental and Eastern religions, mindfulness, meditation, the idea of being spiritual but not conventionally religious, learning about and honoring Indigenous history and cultures, and many back-to-basics ideas of simplicity and healthy living.”

Upon arriving in Comox, I headed straight for Blue Heron Books, where I found this 2018 follow-up to Jane Wilde’s 2012 initiative Gumboot Girls: Adventure, Love, and Survival on British Columbia’s North Coast. What distinguishes Dancing in Gumboots is the larger number of Canadians who migrated from across the U.S. in protest of the Vietnam War. This cohort of new Canadians continues to be civically engaged in their local communities. Our loss was British Columbia’s gain. If a team of Canadian and U.S. historians is at work on relevant documents from hundreds of BC communities on this important era, I’m not aware of it.

Update: Back online, I’m surprised to learn from an earlier post that it was editor Jane Wilde herself who put the original Gumboot Girls in my hands. Ah, the sweet benefits of forgetting!

The Comox Valley: Courtenay, Comox, Cumberland and Area. By Paula Wild with Rick James.. Photography by Boomer Jerritt.

Photographic essays provide an overview of the entire Comox Valley, from foundational to contemporary. There are good historical notes on logging, mining, fishing, and farming in the valley that lies parallel to the coast under the still-majestic Comox Glacier. Included is the saga of the 1988 elasmosaur find and the preservation of the bones of this footed fish in the Courtenay Museum.

On our way into Comox Harbor via Baynes Sound, I caught a glimpse of the “Wrecks” at Royston, the log dump that operated into the 1970s. Just as the World War I hulls protected the townsite and industry of Powell River, 15 historic wooden ships were scuttled here. Among the warships, whalers, tugs, a barquentine, a schooner and windjammers lies Melanope, “a three-masted vessel that was launched in Liverpool in 1876 and may still hold the record for the fastest passage under sail from Port Townsend to Cape Town, South Africa.”

Since I don’t enjoy video and rarely go to the movies, I love photography all the more. “Coffee table books” are the first thing I seek out at a used book sale. This likely came from one brilliantly organized by the Friends of the Port Townsend Library. An annual membership permits access to the sale an hour before doors open to the public. Sure, I have too many books, but thanks to the Friends, “new” ones cycle in and old ones out.

How Dare We? Courageous Practices to Reclaim Our Power as Citizens. By Paul Cienfuegos.

Aging out of time stretching ahead, I’m trying to be bolder, as Washington Nonprofits and Bolder Advocacy keep urging. Cruise reading helps me reflect, fill knowledge gaps, and set a path. I remember feeling empowered when I realized – in the past year – that the Constitution says nothing about local governments. This book now bridges an embarrassing gap in my understanding and motivation. The Declaration of Independence was radical. Then James Madison and American oligarchy got nervous about the authority of the thirteen colonies and wrote a Constitution to increase federal authority. While the unwashed protested, insisting on adding a Bill of Rights, the damage was done. Now the Community Rights Movement is calling us to action. Since moving to Port Townsend, I’ve been grumbling about the limits of local – certainly an impediment for a researcher. With How Dare We? I recognize where some of our most effective local advocates are coming from.

I’m not going to paraphrase Cienfuegos’ argument; the context, examples, and repetition in How Dare We? make things clear. My favorite essay is the critique of Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything. Folks I know fought successfully to have this book chosen for the annual Port Townsend Community Read and to bring the author to a well-attended Zoom Q & A sponsored by the Library. While educational, This Changes Everything did not launch a movement. Klein, a productive, articulate Canadian with American roots and a global vision, fails to chart the pathway to change. In Cienfuego’s words, “Naomi’s vision begs for a community rights solution.”

I owe my purchase of How Dare We? to Jocelyn Moore and my careful reading of it to the author himself. Jocelyn is an environmental educator in Jefferson County with an interest in water and sanitation who suggested viewing housing justice issues through a community rights lens. She is among the helpful friends Paul Cienfuegos acknowledges in his book. As for Paul, he surprised me with an out-of-the-blue call to thank me for ordering the book. (It turns out I’d dropped a digit in my address.) I was delighted at Paul’s warmth and encouragement and look forward to finding his more recent essays, interviews, and podcasts online.

Weaving: Contemporary Makers on the Loom. By Katie Treggiden.

The twenty-one weavers introduced here come from all over the world and embrace a gamut of experimental techniques as artists, industrial designers, or innovators. One commonality is use of reclaimed materials. Many experts now agree that existing supplies of industrial remnants, used clothing, and discarded textiles of all kinds are enough to supply the raw materials for the production of future textiles. Moreover, the production of cotton, linen, and wool, are no longer sustainable given the amount of land, water, and labor required. By showing how fossil-fuel based synthetics can be kept out our soils and waters, this artful volume offers a deep environmental subtext.

A weaver of note is 33-year-old materials scientist Jen Keane, who points out that recycling cannot be indefinite as polymers eventually break down. Her “microbial weaving” is a hybrid of multidirectional warp and a dense web of microorganisms such as bacteria and yeast. The resulting new fabrics show promise for the sportswear industry, where shaping for performance is key.

Brief weaver autobiographies and luscious photos of their works are interspersed with five insightful essays, of which my favorite is “Weaving Futures.” Just as the Nineteenth Century Jacquard loom would point the way to punch cards used in computing, weaving in three dimensions and textiles made of metals recovered from electronics are likely to apply to new solutions. Here’s only of the eye-opening examples:

Ancient Bolivian weaving techniques are being used to create three-dimensional cardiac implants for children with congenital heart issues – those born with a ‘hole’ in their hearts. Inspired by this grandmother’s weaving skills, cardiologist Franz Freudenthal invented the top-hat shaped ‘stopper”, which is woven from a single strand of nitinol – a highly elastic nickel-titanium alloy with shape memory – and travels through blood vessels to the heart via a catheter inserted in the groin, opening out only when it arrives in the right place, filling the hole and staying put for life. The implant cannot be mass-produced – only Bolivian Aymara women with their unique weaving techniques have the skill and dexterity required, and even they undergo four months’ training in the lab to perfect Freudenthal’s device. The implant is particularly important to Bolivian children who not only live at an altitude that exacerbates such heart conditions, but also with a culture where some indigenous communities believe that open-heart surgery damages the soul – so a uniquely Bolivian technique has been able to solve a uniquely Bolivian problem. Today 40 women weave 250 to 300 devices a month, saving thousands of children each year.

Weaving: Contemporary Makers on the Loom was a Mothers’ Day surprise from Selena. Rather than tear off the protective wrap, After a quick look at the contents online, I moved the full-format white volume onto Morning Light. This is the ideal follow-up to a birthday book Selena recommended to Jack: the extraordinary new volume on the lives of Josef and Annie Albers, which I nursed until our date of departure. As a former weaver, I’ve always been fascinated by the design process, though I was hopeless at it. Instead, I hijacked images from pottery and wove them into knotted rugs and produced reproductions of Eighteenth Century coverlets. My real love was building looms, from multi-harness affairs to simple upright, ground, backstrap, card, and inkle looms. A similar pleasure returned in early 2021 when I built a standup paddle board and a small rowboat cum sailing dinghy – both from kits using lightweight Okoume marine plywood. Learning to paddle, row and single-hand year round is ongoing and a lovely way to stay mentally healthy and physically active in a pandemic.

The Blossoms are Ghosts at the Wedding. Selected poems and essays by Tom Jay.

Our towering Jefferson County citizen, Tom Jay, passed this past year. in his early seventies. His mind puts him way ahead of our times. I was in his presence only once: at a reading by poet Holly Hughes, one of my teachers. One of Tom Jay’s contemporaries summarizes his legacy-confirming life roles: “Essayist, poet, sculptor, and ecological & wild salmon visionary.” There’s a lot in this beautifully-designed 2004 volume from Port Townsend’s Empty Bowl Press. The six sections: Home, Hag, Wife, Clue, Focus, and Surprise feature both essays and poetry. I find essays more poetic than poems. While neither genre can be read hurriedly, essays invite attention in ways that limit distraction and tangents.

Tom Jay’s essays baffled me in the early days of our cruise. Now they transport me. “Larva” and “Red Boat/Pink Buoy” brought joy to my fatigue following a cruise in our inflatable and its return to the salon deck. managed single-handedly using traditional mast, boom, blocks, and winches, in a bit of wind at that.

My unused, new of The Blossoms are Ghosts at the Wedding cost a buck at a Friends of the Library sale. I look forward to spending time with the poems. Let’s support our poets. We need them.

How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art. By Kathleen Meyer.

With over three million copies sold since 1989 and now in its fourth edition, this book speaks for itself. Brilliantly updated over the decades, rooted in science, penned with sophisticated humor, and published with boldness and passion, How to Shit in the Woods is perhaps the most engaging book to fall into the hands of Nature-loving North Americans who otherwise pay scant attention to sanitation issues, public infrastructure, and ensuing issues of environmental justice. The epigraphs that precede each chapter are scintillating and sweeping. Bill McKibben contributed the foreword. Just read it.

The Whaling People of the West Coast of Vancouver Island and Cape Flattery. By Eugene Arima and Alan Hoover.

Having run out of cruise and reading time, I perused the wonderful historic photos in this book and hope to devote a short cruise later this summer to it. The Whaling people range from the Nuu-chal-nuth First Nations people, who we visited at Friendly Cove at the head of Nootka Sound on the West Coast of North Vancouver Island, all the way south to the neighboring Makah Tribe here on the Olympic Peninsula.

In 1999 the Makah harvested their first grey whale in 70 years under the accords of the 1855 Point No Point Treaty. This year they re-opened their village at Neah Bay to outsiders for the first time during the pandemic.