Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell

by Eric Enno Tamm

Overview

In the 1930s, while the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression sent most of America into the doldrums, a lively intellectual and artistic community formed in the West, revolving around three legendary friends: Ed Ricketts, John Steinbeck, and Joseph Campbell. Steinbeck immortalized Monterey's bohemian spirit in Cannery Row, but the area's true lifeblood was his best friend and mentor, Ed Ricketts. Today Ed Ricketts is usually remembered as "Doc"—the beer-drinking philosopher-scientist who presided over Monterey's population of "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches" in Cannery Row—but Ricketts was actually a trailblazing ecologist who did seminal work in the emerging field on the Pacific Coast. His ideas were decades before their time, and his two books, Between Pacific Tides and Sea of Cortez (coauthored with Steinbeck), are still considered classics. Now, some sixty years after his untimely death, Ricketts' ecological approach and ethic seem more relevant than ever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560256892
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	07/28/2005
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Eric Enno Tamm was raised in the fishing village of Ucluelet on the outer shores of British Columbia. He has worked as the executive director of the Coastal Community Network in B.C. and as a freelance journalist in Europe. His writing has appeared in Wallpaper*, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Globe and Mail, and Canadian Geographic, among others. He works for Ecotrust Canada, an environmental group based in Vancouver, Canada. Beyond the Outer Shores is his first book.

Table of Contents

	Note on Specimen Drawings	ix
	Prologue	xi
Chapter 1	Of Myths and Men	1
Chapter 2	The Trilogy	25
Chapter 3	Terra Incognita	55
Chapter 4	Clayoquot, Stubbs Island	71
Chapter 5	The Great Tide Pool	83
Chapter 6	Breaking Through	103
Chapter 7	Stories to Tell	123
Chapter 8	The Lab	139
Chapter 9	The Jesus Walk	157
Chapter 10	A Hero's Journey	177
Chapter 11	Galapagos of the North	199
Chapter 12	Farewell Party	223
Chapter 13	In Toto	235
Chapter 14	Death or Departure	261
Chapter 15	Laying the Ghost	277
	Epilogue	307
	Notes	317
	Selected Bibliography	345
	Acknowledgments	351
	Index	357