Posts filed under "Talking Story"
Humes Ranch
“We had long since learned that there were no snakes in these mountains, nor along the streams, hence we used the last of our antidote at this point and looked upon the dead soldier with sorrow and regret.” Harry FisherO’Neil Olympic expedition, 1890 I think it’s kind of funny, the euphemisms we use for booze. […]
Read More
Port Angeles Sea Kayak Symposium
I’m writing this from my room at the Red Lion Inn here in Port Angeles, ice clinking in my glass, as the evening falls. I love that it’s almost 8pm and the sky is still light, the glow on the water so warm. This is, without doubt, a singularly beautiful time of the season. I […]
Read More
Muddy banks of the Wishkah
Underneath the bridge The tarp has sprung a leak And the animals I’ve trapped Have all become my pets And I’m living off of grass And the drippings from the ceiling It’s ok to eat fish ‘Cause they don’t have any feelings Something in the Way – Nirvana The ghost of Kurt Cobain still prowls […]
Read More
James Island
James Island stands like a sentinel at the mouth of the Quillayute River near the Olympic coastal town of La Push. The complicated currents that surround the island make for an exciting place to take a sea kayak, when the weather is good, anyway. When winter storms beat down on the coast, however, the beaches […]
Read More
A bad Monday
As the color was rising in the eastern sky on the morning of September 21, 1868, a group of Tsimshian Indians lay sleeping on the shore at New Dungeness Spit. There were 18 in the company, travelers on their way to Fort Simpson, British Columbia, from the Puyallup lands in south Puget Sound where they […]
Read More
The cape, the captain, and me
In March of 1778, Captain James Cook went looking for the Northwest Passage. The northern route to Europe was the Holy Grail for mariners of the time, the search for which had consumed the careers of many a ship’s captain. Ultimately, it would turn out that the polar regions were too frozen to be of […]
Read More
A day on the Black
When I was a kid, 11 or 12, maybe, I wanted nothing more than to be floating on a river. I’d read Tom Sawyer; I wanted to be Tom Sawyer, or maybe Huck Finn. I wanted a raft on a river, like the mighty Mississip’, no chores, no adults, just a fishing pole and a […]
Read More
The feast day is in July…
Have you ever heard of Santa Rosalia? Don’t feel bad if you haven’t; it might actually be surprising if you had. La Santuzza, the little saint. It would be even more surprising if you knew of her connection to the Olympic Peninsula. Rosalia was the daughter of Duke Sinibaldo, Lord of the Quisquina and the […]
Read More
An island unmasked
The Olympic Peninsula is an island. No joke. An island, according to my dog-eared and stained paperback dictionary, is a “tract of land completely surrounded by water, and not large enough to be called a continent.” Down near Olympia there’s a small pond known as Black Lake. Black Lake has two outlets. One, a trickling […]
Read More
Breaking Trail
Over the past 20 years or so, I have been fortunate to spend many hours and days on the Olympic Peninsula, one of the most beautiful and engaging spots on Earth. I have thought to myself on more than one occasion that, if I could only go to one place, if all my future explorations […]
Read MoreNew Release
A story of sea kayaking and science on the rugged coast of Alaska. Coming – Spring 2014.
Follow Us On Instagram
