Published bimonthly by
Volume X X I I Number 1 February - March,
2001
T h e Center for Wooden Boats 1010 Valley Street Seattle, WA 98109
ISSN 0734-0680 1992 C W B
Inside Passage: The
by Dick Wagner Founding Director and Explorer
xploration of the earth is done. It's all on the map. There is no place that hasn't been sailed through, walked over, poked, measured, and documented in charts, maps, books,"film, songs, and legends. However, in the dark night, in the fogshrouded bay, where you can't distinguish solids from voids, where there is no horizon, the Inside Passage becomes Terra Incognita. There are sounds that have no relevance to the charts, coast pilot, radar or GPS. The swell-induced swishing of gravel on a beach, the waterfall roar, the rusty-hinge cry of an eagle guarding a nest, the barking of seals on a rock. Navigational lights, bells, horns, and even people in boats, are few and most likely 100 miles away. When the sky is clear and vision once again gives us sense of place and distance, there are still coves yet unnamed and fiords yet uncharted. You enter these places with the adrenaline rush of stepping into African grasslands with lions lurking about. unlight, moonlight, Northern Lights or no lights, the Inside Passage is filled with limitless opportunities to fill you with awe, trepidation, anticipation or scare you witless. What then is it, if not a place for exploration? The Inside Passage, technically, is a convoluted waterway, about 700 miles as the seagull flies, about 1200 miles by vessel, between Puget Sound, latitude 48째 and Skagway Alaska, Latitude 59째 30'. It lies between the West Coast of North America and a random pattern of submerged mountaintops that lie off shore. These
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islands protect, more or less, the passage from the prevalent swells and frequent gales of the North Pacific. The part of the Inside Passage that is the deepest, darkest and most mysterious is north of 50째. The shores are steep and bristling with towering fir, cedar, spruce and hemlock. There are no white sand beaches. The small settlements are few and widely separated. The mazes of waterways are infinite. or 10,000 years, America's first people criss-crossed the Inside Passage in their exquisite cedar dugout canoes. These people knew it like the back of their hands. They traded, socialized and did some hardcore raiding. The Haida people regularly terrorized the Coast Salish people to gain loot and slaves. That involved paddling about 600 miles each way. How did they manage to find their destinations without written language, compass, or charts? Generation after generation passed on a memory bank of information on navigating the most complex composition of land and water imaginable. Compare that exercise in problem solving to high school students today, sweating out the S A T exams. Learning comes in many packages.
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The place names along the Inside Passage are signs of who came before: Hoonah, Klawock, Bella Bella, and Klemtu; Baranoff, Kupreanof, Tolstoi, and Zimovia; Revillagigedo, Sonora, Quadra and Ballenas; Prince of Wales, Prince Rupert, and Queen Charlotte. It is a wild, untamed, off-theedge region, yet it has been the crossroad of many cultures. O n August 7, two guys from the
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traditional wooden boat culture flew to Wrangell Island to pick up the 1941, 40-foot fishing vessel Adeline, donated to CWB by the National Park Service. Wrangell is one of those submerged mountaintops at latitude 50째 30' that is on the small side in southeast Alaska and huge in the lower zone. It is circular, about 65 miles in circumference and See INSIDE PASSAGE, page
The Great Trade at the Big Easy From the outside, it looked like any old building. But once in the door, you were in one of the swankiest speakeasies around. On February 24, over 200 people showed up at the old Navy Reserve Armory and said Rocco'd sent 'em. Gangsters and flappers mingled with fashionable sheiks and shebas for an evening of bidding on goods ranging from Shaker boxes to sailing trips and by the end of the night The Center for Wooden Boats had brought in over $60,000.
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Proceeds from the auction are a key element of our annual operating budget, so auction, guests not only enjoyed a great evening, but could go home knowing that they'd made an .important contribution. If you missed out on the auction but would like to make a taxdeductible gift to support our programs, please contact Development Manager Andrea Kinnaman at (206) 382-2628.
TO provide a community center where maritime history comes alive and our small craft heritage is preserved and passed along to future generations.
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