ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


October 1983 /  331

One o f  th e stands o fferin g  fr esh  fish , crabs, clam s, squid, an d  o th er se a fo o d  f o r  sale in th e P ike P lace
M arket, Seattle.

Seattle '84
The Pacific Northwest, like all other areas of the 

United States, has its own regional literature. This 
literature is widely varied in content and scope, 
and includes both fiction and non-fiction. The fol­
lowing list is meant to provide an introduction to 
the Northwest through some of the best writing 
available. All of the authors listed either lived or 
are currently living in the Northwest. The list is not 
intended to be comprehensive, but it should pro­
vide instead a sense of the life and the history of the 
P acific Northwest for those of you who will be 
coming here in April 1984.

N o n - F i c t i o n

D eVoto, Bernard, ed. T he Journals o f  L ew is and 
C lark. Boston: Houghton M ifflin, 1953.

One of the earliest accounts of travel to the North­
w est. T h is on e-volu m e ed ition  condenses th e 
multi-volume journals, but retains the spelling and 
language of the original.

Doig, Ivan. W inter B rothers: A Season at the E d g e 
o f  A m e r ic a . New Y o rk : H a rc o u r t B r a c e  
Jovanovich, 1980.

Doig traces James Gilchrist Swan’s travels in the 
Northwest, adding his own com m entary to re­
marks from Swan’s diaries.

H eckm an, Hazel. Islan d  in th e Sound. Seattle: 
University of W ashington, 1967.

Essays about life on Anderson Island in the San 
Juan Islands of Puget Sound.

H olbrook, Stew art. T h e C o lu m b ia . New York: 
Holt, Rinehart, W inston, 1956.

A history of the Colum bia River from the first ex­
ploration to the 1950s.

Holm, Bill, and Bill Reid. Indian Art o f  the N orth­
w est Coast. Houston: Rice University Institute 
for the Arts, 1976.

A general instroduction to Northwest coast art 
through a discussion of specific objects. W ritten in 
dialogue form.

Johansen, Dorothy O ., and Charles M. Gates. E m ­
p ire o f  the C olu m bia: A History o f  the P acific 
N orthw est. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.

A basic history of the Pacific Northwest from the 
first Indian inhabitants to the 20th century.

Morgan, Murray. P u g et's Sound. Seattle: Univer­
sity of W ashington, 1981.

A history of early T acom a and southern Puget 
Sound from early exploration to the beginning of 
the 1900s.



332 /  October 1983

Ramsey, Jarold, ed. C oyote Was Going There. Se­
attle: University of Washington, 1977.

Coyote was one of the wiliest of the characters in 
Northwest Indian legend. This book recounts sev­
eral Oregon Indian legends.

Sale, Roger. Seattle, Past to Present. Seattle: Uni­
versity of Washington, 1976.

Sale chronicles the process of growth in Seattle 
from the founding of the city in 1851 to the 1970s.

Sw an, Jam es G ilch rist. N orth w est C oast: Or, 
T h ree Y ears' R esid en ce in W ashington T erri­
tory. New York: Harper, 1857. Reprint. Seattle: 
University of Washington, 1972.

Notes made by a Bostonian living among the Indi­
ans in Washington Territory and British Colum­
bia. Swan observed the white man’s invasion of the 
Indian lands while participating in the invasion 
himself. Doig’s W inter Brothers is based on Swan’s 
diaries.

F i c t i o n

Berry, Don. Trask. New York: Viking, 1960.
The story of a white settler on the Northwest coast 
in the 1840s. Trask undergoes a mystical Indian ex­
perience which leads him to a better understanding 
of the Indian culture and to question his own peo­
ple’s attitude towards the Indians.

D a v is, H .L . H o n ey  in th e  H o rn . New Y ork: 
Harper, 1935.

About a roving character named Clay Calvert, 
who w anders all over O regon in 1 9 0 6 -1 9 0 8 . 
C alvert experiences saw m ills, riverboats, hop 
fields, field work, and the wilderness of Oregon.

Kesey, Ken. Som etim es a G reat Notion. New York: 
Viking, 1964.

This book tells of life among the loggers of Oregon. 
Through vivid descriptive passages, Kesey relates 
the hardships, struggles, and tragedies of working 
people in a contemporary setting.

Maclean, Norman. A River Runs Through It and 
Other Stories. Chicago: University of Chicago, 
1976.

A novella based on Maclean’s youth in Missoula, 
Montana. Many of the incidents are of Maclean’s 
memories of his father and brother. The Big Black- 
foot River of Montana and trout fishing are impor­
tant elements in this book.

Roethke, Theodore. C ollected  Poem s o f  T h eod ore 
R oethke. Garden City: Doubleday, 1966. 

Roethke lived in Seattle for the last 15 years of his 
life. The influence of the Northwest is clear in these 
poems.

Stevens, James F . Big Jim  Turner. Garden City: 
Doubleday, 1948.

Jim  Turner is a Northwest working man. Based on 
Stevens’s own experience riding the rail looking for 
work, this novel recounts life in the mining camps, 
logging camps, and sawmills of Washington and 
Oregon. ■  ■