Turning Down the Sound: Travel Escapes in Washington's Small Towns by Foster Church

Abstract

 Reviews the Royal College of Science and Technology in Glasgow, led to the present volume. After recounting that saga, the book dives into a deeply informed,profusely illustrated account of Scouler’s life before, during, and long after his epic Northwest voyage. Author E. Charles Nelson develops the context of Scouler’s work at Glasgow’s Andersonian Museum and includes a bibliography of his many publications . Pacific Northwest readers will revel in a complete transcription of Scouler’s manuscript journal, as well as a list of plants and animals that taxonomists named after him. The illustrations , which are well reproduced and range from period documents and scientific art to color photos of pertinent flora, complement the text all the way through. Although those same readers might not be quite as interested in the arcane pursuits or political misfortunes that occupied Scouler’s later years, this book does provide a larger view of an important early figure in Northwest natural science and ethnography. It does not shy away from the prickly aspects of Scouler’s character, or controversial actions such as his skull robbing from Mount Coffin shortly before the William and Ann departed from the Columbia River in the fall of 1826. Nelson also clarifies a somewhat mysterious voyage Scouler made to India between 1826 and 1829, about which little was previously known beyond a few specimens found in the Glasgow cabinets. In all, the man in question emerges not only as a polymath who could write papers on intestinal worms, fossil mammals, Celtic mythology, and Charles Darwin’s hypothesis concerning the “transmutation of species” but also as a contrarian, who, after a dispute with the captain, spent much of his visit to the Indian subcontinent confined to his cabin aboard ship.From every possible angle,Nelson presents a fuller picture of John Scouler than has ever been available before. Jack Nisbet Spokane, Washington TURNING DOWN THE SOUND: TRAVEL ESCAPES IN WASHINGTON’S SMALL TOWNS by Foster Church Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, 2014. Illustrations, index. 190 pages. $17.95 paper. “The towns I describe in this book haven’t been gussied up to attract tourists, and at first glance, they may seem grim and worn,” says Foster Church in his introduction to Turning Down the Sound. “You may want to leave. But stick around. In the course of the day, the beauty of the town’s surroundings, the romance of its history, and the spirit of the people will become apparent. It will never seem the same again” (p. 10). Church’s earlier collection of travel essays, Discovering Main Street: Travel Adventures in Small Towns of the Northwest, featured places in Oregon, supplemented by a few southern Washington towns. This new compendium rounds out his survey of the Northwest with brief encapsulations of more than forty Washington communities — all outside the pull and the pall of Pugetopolis, the conurbation that dominates our regional perspective. Turning Down the Sound, like Church’s earlier guide, is not a history book: it is about the geography of place,the visible traces of human activity, nature’s handiwork, and humankind’s place in it. Church’s eye, however, is attuned to history and context. I took this book in hand when I planned a short trip that was motivated by the opportunity to see Palouse Falls in full flood and the spring-green garb of thePalouseHills.Church’s bookledmetothetownsof ColfaxandPalouse, born of the railroads that came in the 1880s and made large-scale wheat farming possible. Both are grim and worn,but you cannot escape acknowledging the aspirations that are evident inthebrickhousesof commerceonMainStreet and the shaded QueenAnne hillside residences. The book also led me to Naches, off Highway 12 northwest of Yakima. Naches is a classic  OHQ vol. 115, no. 4 by-passed town whose name (correctly but misleadingly) suggests a Southland connection. Naches is architecturally modest and wholly vernacular. The ubiquitous irrigation ditches reinforce its roots in orchard operations, and the tower of a repurposed Art Deco gas station at the town entrance marks the town’s former on-the-main-highway importance. The Natchez Hotel is makeshift and homey, and it has its own recent backstory; the bar across the street...