White Clam: A Pacific Northwest Adventure
   Gary K. Cowart
  1992 Cascade House Publishing. Seattle WA USA
   ISBN: 0963516906


In 1851 young Chet Palmer joins the Schooner Exact from a frontier town in Oregon Territory for a routine trading voyage to the west coast of Vancouver Island. During a stop in Puget Sound to offload pioneers, he is left behind & captured by Nootka Indians.

I loved this saga in the style of the great Robert Louis Stevenson, especially when I first arrived in the Pacific Northwest & thought everyday was an adventure.

Gary Cowart's writing reminds me of cedar wood, rich in texture, color & inspiration, particularly when you bear in mind, this author's first profession is dentistry.

The copies of White Clam in the library are constantly being borrowed because of what Gary Cowart captured & re-created.

A grand coming of age adventure complete with shipboard romance, coastal sailings, homesteaders, pristine shorelines, native settlements & separation from traveling companions.

Chet Palmer's escapades take us to tribal life among the Nootka Indians before the white man's intrusion. Here Chet watches their relationships with other tribes; with the sea, the land & the spirits.

Surviving as a slave on the edges of a tribal society whose language he must learn, whose way of life he must understand so that he can live to escape, we watch Chet's world stretch eve as his heart becomes engaged.

Gary Cowart's White Clam is his only effort, a superb one too! Filled with his love & admiration for the people & creatures of this glorious part of the world & has now, sadly, become out of print.
(04/02/00)

Rebecca