The Western Flyer: Steinbeck's Boat, the Sea of Cortez, and the Saga of Pacific Fisheries

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Kevin M. Bailey

The Western Flyer

Steinbeck's Boat, the Sea of Cortez, and the Saga of Pacific Fisheries

Kevin M. Bailey

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Hardback

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English

University of Chicago Press
20 March 2015

Social & cultural history; Fisheries & related industries; The environment

In January 2010, the Gemini was moored in the Swinomish Slough on a Native American reservation near Anacortes, Washington. Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the rusted and dilapidated boat was in fact the most famous fishing vessel ever to have sailed: the original Western Flyer, immortalized in John Steinbeck’s nonfiction classic The Log from the Sea of Cortez.

In this book, Kevin M. Bailey resurrects this forgotten witness to the changing tides of Pacific fisheries. He draws on the Steinbeck archives, interviews with family members of crew, and more than three decades of working in Pacific Northwest fisheries to trace the depletion of marine life through the voyages of a single ship. After Steinbeck and his friend Ed Ricketts—a pioneer in the study of the West Coast’s diverse sea life and the inspiration behind “Doc” in Cannery Row—chartered the boat for their now-famous 1940 expedition, the Western Flyer returned to its life as a sardine seiner in California. But when the sardine fishery in Monterey collapsed, the boat moved on: fishing for Pacific ocean perch off Washington, king crab in the Bering Sea off Alaska, and finally wild Pacific salmon—all industries that would also face collapse.

As the Western Flyer herself faces an uncertain future—a businessman has bought her, intending to bring the boat to Salinas, California, and turn it into a restaurant feature just blocks from Steinbeck’s grave—debates about the status of the California sardine, and of West Coast fisheries generally, have resurfaced. A compelling and timely tale of a boat and the people it carried, of fisheries exploited, and of fortunes won and lost, The Western Flyer is environmental history at its best: a journey through time and across the sea, charting the ebb and flow of the cobalt waters of the Pacific coast.

By: Kevin M. Bailey
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 22mm, Width: 14mm, Spine: 2mm
Weight: 340g
ISBN: 9780226116761
ISBN 10: 022611676X
Pages: 184
Publication Date: 20 March 2015
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Kevin M. Bailey is the founding director of Man & Sea Institute and affiliate professor at the University of Washington. He formerly was a senior scientist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center and is the author of Billion-Dollar Fish: The Untold Story of Alaska Pollock, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews for The Western Flyer: Steinbeck's Boat, the Sea of Cortez, and the Saga of Pacific Fisheries

From shrimp in the Sea of Cortez to sardines and Pacific Ocean perch on the West Coast, from salmon to king crab, the story of these fisheries is consistent with the spread of fisheries-and overfishing-in general, from coastal waters near major population centers to areas that are increasingly farther offshore, deeper, and more remote. Along with the effects this approach has had on marine life, The Western Flyer also illuminates the impact it has had on coastal communities. Bailey uses this boat to help people see how we have serially depleted one population of marine life after another, and how we have repeated the rationale justifying it all across time and place without learning from past experiences. (John Hocevar, Oceans campaign director, Greenpeace USA)