Ancient places : people and landscape in the emerging Northwest

Book

Ancient places : people and landscape in the emerging Northwest / Jack Nisbet ; illustrations by Hannah Small..

Nisbet, Jack, 1949- (Author).

Summary:

"The story of the land in the Northwest flows from the cataclysmic ice-age floods. So it only follows that the stories of the people in this terrain are inextricably linked to the aftereffects of that great deluge. These are the genesis stories of a region. Included are the controversy over the provenance and ownership of a meteor that fell to earth in rural Oregon; the mystery of the aurora borealis as observed by 18th-century explorer David Thompson; the town in the northeastern Washington that drew immigrant artisans from Italy because of its deposits of terra cotta clay; and a recounting of the great floods of 15,000 years ago that shaped the land of what is now Washington, Oregon, and Idaho"-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9781570619809 (hardback)
ISBN: 1570619808 (hardback)
Physical Description: 247 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm
Publisher: Seattle, WA : Sasquatch Books, [2015]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-237) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Map of Greater Northwest -- Geologic time table -- 1. Chasing the Electric Fluid : Light and sound at our planet's geomagnetic frontier -- 2. Meltdown : Reliving the Northwest's Genesis story -- 3. The Longest Journey : the Willamette Meteorite sails across the universe -- 4. Biscuits : Tracking cultural identity through a diverse group of edible roots -- 5. A Possible Friend : what a casual collector learned from three traditional Plateau families -- 6. Riding the High Wire : How rocks created a valley, and the valley recreated the rocks -- 7. From Clay to Clay : Digging into the lore of a craftsman who worked in clay -- 8. Sisters : the beautiful disorder of ants -- 9. The Whole Bag of Crayons : a mother lode of Eocene leaf fossils teaches an artist how to share -- 10. Visited by an Earthquake : Changes in the perception of an 1872 trembler -- Coda: Skate Away : Skating the geology of the Intermountain West.