Northwest Books

"What disregards man does man good," wrote Stafford in one of his better known and often anthologized poems, one about sightseers on the astonishing Oregon seacoast.
I purchased this special edition of Northwest Review when it was new and required reading for Professor Glen Love's terrific course in Literature of the Pacific Northwest, at the University of Oregon. Now I seem to have misplaced it and am desperate to find a replacement copy. If anyone happens to have one available, I am willing to pay handsomely for it.

OK, I'm biased. I knew Capt Guchee well after his retirement, and shared a bottle with him on his yacht,"Guchee". Super, outgoing gentleman with strong personality.
He was supremely self-confident, which I'm positive was key to the tales and historic WWII stories he wanted to tell. More history told first-hand than you ever hoped to learn.
Kind of an interview format by someone who knew how to get the untold stories rolling.
Fairly thin, 139 page paperback packed with stories that make it impossible to lay down!
Old Chief Lynn

This book covers 16 homes designed by noted and not so noted architects in the Northwest. I personally liked one of these homes so much, I built one just like it as a weekend retreat. The styles vary, as do the materials and locations. Most of what you'll see in here is rather comtemporary and timeless -- it worked then, and it still works today!

Living in Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo in the heart of fresh water lake fishing in Ireland, the author gives us a detailed look at the 50 years in which the World Cup Trout Fly Fishing competition has taken place on the beautiful Lough Mask. A chronological look at the results is complimented with stories, anecdotes and photographs. An essential read for anglers, one that shouldn't get away!!!

A fascinating, credible scenario of how it may eventually all end. Yet, the threat of total destruction holds the promise of a fresh start for mankind in a select group of survivors. Incredible emotional burdens are overshadowed completely by the dedication to science and acceptance of a faith and fait that may not be tampered with in order to make every single prophecy come true or..........?

Joseph A. Doddridge, medical doctor and Episcopal pastor, provides this important primary source of frontier pioneer life near the turn of the eighteenth century. He writes with an eloquence no longer taught. His Notes are compatible with Jefferson's Notes on Virginia and cover the everyday practical details of life on the frontier. The book and supplements added by his daughter, Narcissa Doddridge, describe life in the Tri-state area of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. A man of his times, Doddridge still shows a respect and admiration of American Indians apart from some violence he experienced. The growth of a new civilization is what Doddridge proclaims and seeks to preserve. The growth process is evident in his tracing of early important institutions such as churches, freemasonry, schools, and transportation. This is the account of a humble man who knew he and his people were doing something important and doing it well.

NUNAGA is a poetic account of the Scotsman Duncan Pryde's ten year stay with the Inuit peoples of the Canadian Arctic. He, like John Muir ninety years earlier, grew to understand them and be one with them, having the right to say "Nunaga," my country. Pryde gives us lush descriptions of the Arctic: "Heather, a blanket of fragrant whiteness spread low over the ground and climbing part way up the hills behind the harbour--bright red, brilliant yellow, gay little Arctic poppies nodding in the breeze, a blue blossom of some sort, the masses of white cotton flowers, fine blossoms smaller than a man's little fingernail, but in great profusion. The Arctic in summer bloom is exceedingly colorful." Of nighttime, Pryde writes, "There are a few more beautiful sights in the world than a full moon shining down on a little camp on a small island beset by shimmering ice floes." But the most significant aspect of the book is its concern for contemporary social problems of the Inuit people brought on by contact with the Europeans. He suggests that instead of welfare and alcoholism as inevitables, we must pressure government for enlightened changes. Schools must be brought to Inuit villages and not Inuit children to schools hundreds of miles away. We must encourage the Inuit's re-involvement with the land by herding of caribou as a meat source for the South, by developing fisheries in the North, by utilizing musk oxen fur by shearing in sheep fashion. Inuits must not be forced to exist as technicians, grease monkies, and department store clerks, but as viable hunters, trappers, fishermen and musk oxen shepherds. Their languages and folkways should be emphasized in Arctic schools (Dick Lamm aside) and not just English and Anglo history. Pryde fell in love with the Arctic and so do we when we read this engaging book.

This is a beautiful book of photos relating to the Pacific Northwest. I live in Yakima and was happily surprised to find "Y is for Yakama" - they even spelled the Yakama's name with the newly adopted spelling. It goes through listing animals, geographic features and native people. This is a fantastic book for anyone, but especially those wanting to teach their children about the Pacific Northwest. . and Yakima!!

"Old friends are the best" can apply to historical works as well as personalities for "The Old Northwest" is old -- first published in 1950 -- but still the best account of pioneer life north of the Ohio River ever written.

This two-volume work runs to nearly 1200 pages of text and is an exhaustive account of life in the early years of the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and, to a small extent, Wisconsin. With his lengthy descriptions of quotidian life in these new states and territories the author anticipated by a generation the "annales" approach -- essentially retrospective sociology -- that dominated American historiography decades later. At the same time, he was, as well, a superb commentator on frontier politics and the technology of an emergent industrial civilization.

The sources for this monumental work are about what one would expect: countless newspapers, pioneer memoirs, publications of various antiquarian and First Settler associations and endless digging about in state archives. All of this is woven together in very serviceable prose that is laced with a pleasant humor and never cruel irony. The resultant work is endlessly readable.

There is no aspect of life in the geographical area under consideration for the time period 1815-1840 that is not described -- often in great detail. One learns what the pioneer planted and how he planted it; how he built his house and barn; how he slaughterd his hogs; how the pioneer wife clothed and fed her family and how that family was educated. These chapters, taken by themselves, would empower the veriest modern city-slicker to pioneer himself in the wilderness with at least a fighting chance at survival.

The canal and railroad booms are lovingly retailed. The reader learns exactly what an "ark" was and how it differed from a "flatboat" as well as the details of construction of any other number of riverine craft.

These books are, as well, a primer on Jacksonian banking and finance. The boom and bust mentality of a raucous agricultural economy just sliding over into manufacturing is recounted with a sophistication worthy of such later standbys as Bray Hammond's classic history of period banking.

One could go on and on. To recount all the subjects expertly recounted therein would exhaust the patience of the reader and the time of the reviewer. At the republication price of under $40.00 the set this offering must constitute one of the greatest bargains in American historical writing.