Ghost Canoe (16 page)
While
Ghost Canoe
is a work of fiction, it is grounded in the geography, natural history, and human history of the Northwest. The Cape Flattery Lighthouse on Tatoosh Island had indeed seen a succession of bachelor lighthouse keepers since its light first shone on December 28, 1857. In 1874, the year of my story, plans were in the offing to improve the living quarters in order to attract a keeper with a family. Although the light itself was automated in 1977, the original lighthouse still stands on Tatoosh today.
Mail was delivered from Neah Bay to Tatoosh Island during the 1870s by dugout canoe. Lighthouse Jack was the mailman's name, and Young Doctor was the name of a prominent canoe carver of the era. I have named my fictional characters Lighthouse
George and Young Carver as a tribute to these actual historical figures.
The Chinook trading jargon, drawn from a number of native languages, as well as French and English, was at the height of its usefulness and popularity in the 1870s, spoken by at least a hundred thousand people in the Northwest. Vestiges of the Chinook jargon can still be found in place-names and regionalisms today. A few Chinook words found their way into broader modern English, as in the expression “high-muck-a-muck,” thought to have originally described chiefs with much food to give away at potlatches.
Ghost Canoe
was inspired by the canoes themselves. The great canoes are once again being carved from Western red cedar trees by native people, including the contemporary Makah, from Washington State up through British Columbia to southeast Alaska, and paddled on the waters of the Pacific. They are a sight to see.
WILL HOBBS is the award-winning author of many previous novels for young readers, including
BEARSTONE, KOKOPELLI'S FLUTE
, and
FAR NORTH
. A graduate of Stanford University, Will lives in the mountains near Durango, Colorado, with his wife, Jean. In addition to their river and high country adventures in the Southwest, Will and Jean have been answering the call of the coast in recent years. The more they see of the Northwest, from Washington State to the island-studded Inside Passage of British Columbia and southeast Alaska, the more they find themselves returning.
GHOST CANOE
, Will's first mystery novel, is set on the very tip of Washington's Olympic Peninsula.
To find out more about Will Hobbs, visit his website at
www.WillHobbsAuthor.com
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GHOST CANOE
. Copyright © 1997 by Will Hobbs. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition July 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-196365-0
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