Join Elsie Hulsizer for a slideshow and book signing featuring her new book, Glaciers, Bears and Totems: Sailing in Search of the Real Southeast Alaska, on May 19 in Comox.
Marine writer Hulsizer, whose Voyages to Windward unlocked the mysteries of cruising Vancouver Island’s west coast, now does the same for that other great unknown of West Coast cruising, southeastern Alaska.
Hulsizer and her husband Steve set out on the trusty Osprey on May 14, 2006, and spent the next three summers sailing, writing and photographing the towering fjords, immaculate glaciers, throwback fishing villages and overexposed tourist traps of America’s largest state.
Now, five years later, still enthralled by the lure of Alaska, Hulsizer is embarking on yet another sailing trek to the state, and she and her husband will be pulling in at Comox Marina on their way through the Strait of Georgia.
In Glaciers, Bears and Totems, Hulsizer writes of drifting past calving glaciers, watching bears feeding in green marshes, smelling the fresh cedar of newly carved totem poles, and following the path of gold prospectors on the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad.
Sometimes it was difficult to discern the real Alaska beneath the façade, but she finds it in many places, from the wild beauty of the ocean to the small coastal villages she visits, and sometimes, even where the tourists go.
Glaciers, Bears and Totems is a rich book of adventure travel that is as valuable for its reading fun as for its travel information.
Hulsizer will be at the Comox Library on May 19 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Books are on sale at Blue Heron Books in Comox.
For more information regarding Hulsizer’s event in Comox, call the Comox Library at 250-339-2971.
An environmental professional with a degree in oceanography, Hulsizer lives in Seattle with her husband. She has a certificate in fine art photography from the Photographic Center Northwest and has exhibited her art in various galleries including Seattle’s Odyssey Maritime Discovery Center.
In addition to their three trips to Southeast Alaska, the Hulsizers have sailed the West Coast of Vancouver Island 19 times since 1980 and to Haida Gwaii twice. Between sailing adventures on Osprey, the author serves on the Washington State Board of Pilotage Commissioners which licenses the pilots who guide ships on Puget Sound, and on the board of trustees for Seattle’s Center for Wooden Boats.
— Harbour Publishing
