Friday Funny 07-26/19 (Read 'em and Weep)

I don't normally buy paper books anymore, I love my Kindle, and I don't need to turn paper pages to be able to read. My Kindle has over a thousand books on it, all kinds, and quite a few came from Bookbub, so the cost was small, or free.  I also have the Kindle app on my phone, Ipad, and Mac, so I can view colorful pages in detail. It all works for me.

Recently though, while in Sitka, I think I spent most of my tourist dollars at the brick and mortar bookstore, "Old Harbor Books". None of the books I got were eligible for the Kindle, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Alaska Wild Plants

Since we found the sea asparagus, and the goose tongue so delicious, I thought I would expand our knowledge of what else we could eat in the wild. This book breaks the contents down by:

Sea and Sandy Shores, Gardens Lawns and Disturbed (?) Soils, Forest and Open Woods, Moist Places, Tundra and Dry Places, Grassy Meadows and Forest Openings, Marshes Ponds, and Wetlands, and the all important chapter, Poisonous Plants. I think we'll have a good time looking for more plants to try. 

Our Grandparents' Names on the Land
Names on the Chart, and how they got there.

These two books were recommended by a fellow cruiser we met over "sundowners" last week. Yes, even though we have very limited dark at night this time of year, we can still call the cocktail hour, sundowners.

Captain Vancouver, Captain Cook, and the Russians explored the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska, and they named all sorts of places after people, landmarks, and for other assorted reasons. It kind of drives me crazy, most of these places already had names, and I want to know what, and why. Both of these books have great information about what the original name was, and why it was changed. The one book I really need now, is a Tlingit pronunciation guide, I don't have much experience with the language. 

Exploring Alaska, British Columbia

This is the book I'm most excited about. (Thank you Walter for the recommendation!) It was printed in 1997, and was out of print until just recently. It was not updated, just reprinted, and the bookstore says that it just flies off the shelf, they can't keep it in stock. YAY,  two copies, and we got one of them.

Super fine print, and a lot of it!

See all that fine print, it's stories about what might have been there, what is there, why it was named, what activity happened, who landed, who was killed, what they found, what's the legend, all kinds of great information.

Here's an example, continuing on with our travels in all places with a scary name, we went through Deadman Reach, and anchored in Poison Cove.

We're anchored right on the capital P.

Looking in our Exploring book, here is the explanation.

No gathering mussels here!

Our buddy boater, Walter made a joke about how he was going to gather mussels for dinner, and we didn't get it until he showed us this entry in his Explorer book. I wondered how he knew so many stories about places where ever we went, and after he showed us the book, I had my answer.

Caves at Cornwallis Point

Get closer to see what's on the wall.

Pictograph in blood.

This is another example Walter showed us.

Cornwallis Pt. is reported to be the site of an abandoned Indian fort, and pictographs which were painted with the blood of slaves. 

And you thought I was done with the history lessons, I think I'm just getting started! 😁

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