Recent News
David Douglas: A Naturalist at Work
My new book, David Douglas: A Naturalist at Work was introduced this past weekend at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association annual meeting in Tacoma. It will be available in bookstores November 6.
See the calendar for readings and presentations around the region this fall.
David Douglas: A Naturalist at Work
The exhibit David Douglas: A Naturalist at Work is now open and is scheduled to run through August 2013, when it will travel to the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma.
For school or group tours, contact Cara Spink at www.northwestmuseum.org/index.cfm/education
To arrange a tour of the exhibit with Jack, contact him separately at jacknisbet@me.com
Museum Exhibit
David Douglas: A Naturalist at Work, an exhibit that explores Douglas’s adventures in the Northwest between 1825 and 1834 will open at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane on September 22, 2012.
Jack’s latest book, a collection of essays with the same title, will be in bookstores in early November, 2012.
See calendar for upcoming events related to both the book and the exhibit.
A Remarkable Garden
“A Remarkable Garden: David Douglas and the Shrub-Steppe of the Columbia Plateau”
The summer 2012 issue of Rock Garden Quarterly has an article about dryland plants collected by David Douglas on the Columbia Plateau and the tribal uses that he observed.
For an online view, visit www.nargs.org
David Douglas and Lewis & Clark
“David Douglas on the Heels of the Corps of Discovery”
The summer 2012 issue of We Proceeded On has an article touching on the connections between the floral collections of Meriwether Lewis west of the Rockies and those of David Douglas two decades later.
The Surveys of David Douglas
The May 2012 issue of American Surveyor includes an essay about David Douglas’s surveying and geomagnetic activities during his second visit to the Northwest in 1830 – 1833.
“Fearful Excitement: The Surveys of David Douglas”
For an online view, visit www.amerisurv.com
Columbia Magazine article
The spring edition of Columbia Magazine contains an article on David Douglas adapted from my 2011 Curtiss Hill lecture at the Washington State Historical Society.
Fire and Ice
This month’s North Columbia Monthly column is about ice, with beautiful photos by Charles Gurche.
Purple Flat Top
Check out the new edition of Purple Flat Top from the University of Washington Press. This story collection, originally published in 1994, comes with a fresh introduction and a cover that features an iconic raven by Seattle artist Tony Angell.
Visit the UW Press website for a short video about the book:
http://www.youtube.com/user/UWashingtonPress#p/u/1/3lwlNisTUyk
Michael M. Powell Fellowship award
Powell’s Books funds competitive research fellowship to CCRH
Powell’s Books has funded a $3,000 annual Michael M. Powell Fellowship, in honor of Michael Powell. Powell’s fellows receive $3000 to support original research projects on a Columbia Basin topic that falls within the Center’s initiative, “The Columbia River and the World.”
The first fellowship has been awarded to Spokane teacher, author, and naturalist, Jack Nisbet, who recently won the 2010 Pacific Northwest Book Award. His most recent book, The Collector, describes the journeys of Northwest explorer and Scots-born botanist David Douglas. Nisbet will use the Powell fellowship to expand the global component of his research on Douglas.
The Michael M. Powell Fellowship is named in honor of Michael M. Powell who began his professional life as a commercial fisherman on the Columbia River before he started a bookstore in Chicago, Illinois in 1970. In 1979, Mr. Powell moved to Portland, Oregon to help run his father’s bookstore, Powell’s Books. A single location grew into a number of Portland-area stores, the heart of which is Powell’s City of Books, the largest new and used independent bookstore in the world. It is fitting that a fellowship through which scholars are connected to the general public should be named after a man who once said, “It’s exciting to be a facilitator in the movement of intellectual property, to help deliver an author’s voice from one community to another.”