A Northwest by Norway Connection

A real vacation! And I did not have to plan it. Our friend, Mary, a travel agent extraordinaire, was handling it all during my two and half month tour of duty for Exxon Shipping Company. My Norwegian raised mother-in-law had already contacted her second and third cousins in Bergen, Norway, to alert them to our visitation.

 I was quite excited and expectant, thanks to a job that allowed extended times off. My tours of duty for Exxon Shipping lasted two and a half months, approximately 15 days for each round trip from San Francisco to Valdez, Alaska to San Francisco Bay. After that, happy day! I would enjoy a two month respite with my husband. This day was special. Following the next few hours of transit upriver, discharging cargo and a return to San Francisco Bay, my relief would show up, and I would be on my way home to leave on an exciting family trip to Norway with my husband and his parents. The day looked increasingly brighter. San Fransisco glistened in the sunshine, the sun warmed my back, the ocean breeze refreshed and enlivened my imagination.

En route to Norway, the flight aboard Scandinavian Airways was long, but the leg room on the jumbo craft alleviated any muscle cramps. Following a restless sleep, we neared Bergen, Norway and the flight attendants brought warm, moist face cloths to freshen our sleepy eyes. Descending into Norway we passed from brightness into cloud cover; it was overcast and gray. I could see forests and fiords, and after we disembarked the airplane the dampness and drizzle wet my face. The landscape and climate were similar to home.

It is no wonder the Norwegians migrated to Kitsap Peninsula after passage of the Homestead Act, took up residence, and established the Norwegian community of Poulsbo on Liberty Bay; the Sons of Norway Hall is a major presence in the two blocks of downtown Poulsbo. The names of streets and housing developments bear the Scandinavian touch: Johnson Creek, Viking Way, Thompson Road, the nick name "Little Norway."

The Suquamish People first inhabited the area, but their main longhouses were located along Agate Passage. Most residents chose to live along the beaches of the small inlets of Puget Sound, venturing into the woodland forest to forage for berries. Their staple food was and still is salmon some of which is raised and released from a fish hatchery. The salmon released in Miller Bay return to their place of release from a life in the Pacific Ocean in 3-4 years. The Suquamish people also harvested the bark of the red cedar trees for making clothing, hats, clam baskets, and housing mats. They harvested trees for their hand carved canoes. There appeared to be plenty of room for everyone in the late 1800s, especially since many migrants of that time fished, dug clams and oysters for a living, and the vast ocean was not too far away, and fishing was really good.

David Spurr asserts that in order to develop an informed and broader view of post colonial culture, we must read the signs and evidence of colonial impact closer to the margins and borderlands of culture. Kitsap County teams with examples and signs of the acceptance, accommodation, and effective application of the ideas of establishing a cultural identity, more than an individual, personal one. Although the villages of the indigenous native tribes have taken on the look of modernity with high rise parking garages for casino visitors, the income from tribal run businesses have allowed the Suquamish tribe in particular, to rebuild a longhouse, a new museum, and establish a strong presence in the area. The tribal members meet at the longhouse for many different celebrations, like the Canoe Journey which includes the gathering and support of other Northwest Native Tribes. The counter-narrative voice that Bhahba envisions coming from the margins of Western culture becomes stronger and more voluminous year after year right at home as the people gather and recreate the traditions of native cultures.                                                                                                                                          

                                     Suquamish Tribe's House of Awakened Culture
                          

                           

I am married to a Norwegian, but I am Swedish and Welsh. I have the coloring of the Norwegians, reddish hair and freckles, not the coloring of blond, deep blue-eyed Swedes. We don't live in Poulsbo, the Norwegian community, but we live in Suquamish. I am neither Native American nor Native Norwegian. Now, I call that living on the margins.

The Gaze of Empowerment

                                                               Anchored in San Francisco Bay my shipping port, we waited patiently for the tide to turn, which would allow the huge tanker to transit up the Sacramento River. The wharf launch was headed toward the ship, bouncing over the harbor swells being lifted by the incoming breezes from the Pacific Ocean. It carried the Pilot who would take over the navigation of the ship while sailing up the river to Benicia where the ship would be discharged of crude oil. When the launch bumped up against the hull, I dropped the heaving line to its deck to be attached to the Pilot's sea bag so we could haul it to the deck. Leaning over the rail of the MV San Francisco, I watched the Pilot ascend the Jacob's ladder that dangled down the side of the ship. About half way up the ladder, the Pilot looked up at us and stopped climbing for a moment to stare at me. Ah, he noticed. A woman on the crew. I intuitively knew the question running through his mind: Will she be at the helm when we navigate the river? Can she do this job? Welcoming him aboard, the bosun chatted with him about his time off and the traveling he had done, my ship mate and I hauled the sea bag up the side of the hull, flopped it onto the deck and released it from the heaving line. Then we pulled the Jacob's ladder back onto the deck. The Pilot turned to acknowledge me and stopped for a second, critical look at my face, eye to eye, and I returned his gaze, but he made no comments other than a short greeting, a hand shake, and a nod of his head. I thought, how refreshing this is; before me stands a man of intelligence, self-assured confidence and respectful countenance all existing simultaneously in a single personage. Here is someone who offers respect and thus was worthy of respect. It was a rare commodity and highly noticeable.

The trip up the Sacramento was smooth and efficient. On the down river trip, I was on watch as the helmsman. The Pilot's navigational skill, timing, and focus gave me great confidence at the helm. We functioned like a well-oiled machine, he giving the commands for degree changes, me executing them with confidence and finesse. My focus was completely upon him and my duty to steer the tanker through the narrow Sacramento River channel. After the final buoy had been passed and the watch changed, I was relieved from the helm, but not before the Pilot turned and looked me squarely in the eye to say, "Well done, sailor." I answered with a nod and said, "Thank you."

Remembering this encounter from my days of traveling by ship, for Exxon Shipping Company, before the 1989 Valdez spill mind you, I am reminded of Spurr's comments about the journalist's dependence upon visual observation, and that the gaze "marks an exclusion as well as a privilege: the privilege of inspecting, of examining, of looking at..." Two human beings who are able to look one another in the eye, to form an unspoken understanding that they each have a common goal is reassuring. To offer trust to another human being and receive a sense of that person's offer of mutual confidence, gives a tremendous sense of empowerment for both parties. That is the exciting thing. There were few people I met in the industry who actually had the kind of confidence that comes from experience and capability, but meeting someone with a self-identity that places confidence in others, even when the stakes are high, is a great comfort.  Maneuvering a loaded oil tanker through very narrow channels is high risk and creates high stakes because many people are responsible to work together, but the final responsibility always rests in the Pilot of the vessel.

Mapping the Artists' Community

Leigh Knowles Meteer-Visual Artist

Yesterday was a lucky day! I began mapping my travels to visit  Kitsap Peninsula's unofficial, resident artists' community. I plan to visit the studios closest to my home, talk to my friends about their artist's lifestyle, the satisfactions and frustrations of being an artist, the dreams that beckon them to this way of living, and any other philosophical musings they are inclined to share with me. Knowles Studio and Gallery is close to the road, and often  visitors can meet other interesting people who also have dropped by to see what is going on, so I decided to begin my travels at Knowles Studio and Gallery.  

Following the s-curves on the back road out of Suquamish on route to the residential town of Poulsbo on Liberty Bay, Knowles Studio is just five minutes away from my home and always a great place to sit for a cup of tea or coffee with Leigh, the owner, and visit.

This morning is overcast. The sun plays peek-a-boo with the layered clouds, teasing us with a "maybe"promise of showing up this afternoon; a touch of chill necessitates wearing a jacket out-of-doors. After the 85 degree day we all enjoyed last week, this overcast sky invites a downcast attitude. However, not all living things droop under Puget Sound weather, the vegetable gardens of brassica, rhubarb, and early lettuce thrive in it, and hybridized rhododendrons are marvelous, majestic shrubs that tower above us. Incidentally, the Pacific rhododendron is Washington's state flower: "Pacific Rhododendrons are found most abundantly on trails in the eastern Olympic Peninsula and along Hood Canal" which borders Kitsap County on the west.

 Photo by Dave Schiefelbein.


Knowles Studio is open today, but Leigh is looking after other things this morning. I see her across the meadow in her greenhouse, and stroll over to the vegetable garden area for a greeting. The pots are full of plants which have grown another two inches since I stopped by a few weeks ago. She has been hunting for cabbage moth caterpillars which have recently invaded the vegetable garden, but I am a welcomed distraction. We sit down for a cup of Earl Gray tea and a little conversation about traveling and artists.

Leigh has a particular view on reasons that people travel.

"I place traveling in three categories," she says. "There are those who travel for education and learning, others who travel for the romance, by romance I mean there are the history, legends, art and people of a country that travelers want to explore. Then there is entertainment. Some go traveling to enjoy the shopping, the music, the food and drink of a different culture, and they take lots of pictures to share with folks at home." I think to myself that I tend to straddle the first two categories. They are similar in purpose, integrating the intellectual connection and the sensuous one as well.

 "There is a trend, a movement among artists today to travel other places to paint and draw," she notes. It is not the same thing as travel writing, but neither is it simply traveling for the purpose of education, romance, or entertainment. "It is sort of a gypsy life-style," Leigh observes, "because there is a growing segment of artists who move and travel together, taking their art with them, and they essentially live the life of a gypsy, constantly on the move."

In my Rhetorics of Travel Writing class, we read a chapter from a book by James Clifford entitled Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. In "Traveling Cultures" Clifford used the term "traveling indigenous culture-makers" to describe the work of Bob Brozman in concert with the Moes, a family group who entertained in the states during the early twentieth century with Hawaiian slide guitar and vocals. The group traveled around the United States for over five decades, traveling and sharing Hawaiian music, almost never returning to Hawaii.

This idea of cultural mobility seems to be applicable, or at least a familiar lifestyle among contemporary artists as well. Today we witness a very transient, traveling culture here in the Northwest; the place is on the "go." A travel writer can stay home today and let visitors bring their own cultures when they come to visit. Leigh and Jim, her boat building husband, have people stop by every day at their place. I doubt that constant flow of people would be such a strong current if they did not live off a main road, right at the round-about.

Because Leigh teaches art at her studio as well as producing it, she is often preparing for an event, an art walk, or an exhibit. Such is the schedule today because she must prepare for a local artists' open studio gathering at the middle school. Some of her own students will be working on various projects for the three hour "happening." Her phone rings, and she must get to work loading canvases and various artists' tools in the back of her Subaru.

Robin Weiss-Plein Air Painter

I am not alone for long, however. Robin Weiss, a plein air artist who rents space at Knowles Studio  meanders out onto the wide cement patio to visit with me for a short time. He sits against the rusty iron guard rail around the patio, which has purposely been allowed to rust into reddish-brown, tea cup in hand, painting apron reaching to his knees.

"So, Rob, why do you make art?"

Rob needs not think long about the question. "We are God's image bearers and as such, it is in our nature to create art," he says, "I do what is natural for me to do. I did not always have the opportunity to paint; I worked twenty years installing heat furnaces and raising a son; it was a lot of hard work."

Rob talked about his recent trip to Mexico to give a painting workshop. Bouncing along the pothole roads was exhausting. The ex-pat who rode his horse back and forth to town and around the community had the right idea. Rob and his wife stayed with another plein air artist who is part of an ex-patriot community in Cerritos, Mexico. They enjoyed the "guest room," the living room couch. It was primitive in comparison with their home in the Northwest. His website hosts some of the recent photographs of the paintings and scenes of the area.

"You really enjoy the plein air painting, don't you?"

"I do. It is my favorite way of painting; you get the color of light and feel of the place when you're on location. It is the best discipline to paint from life. Have you heard the term 'extreme sports'?"

"Sure I have."

"There is a growing group of artists who call themselves, 'extreme plein air painters.' Check online and you can see what some of them are doing."

Plein air painting has a rich and vibrant past. Most of us are familiar with the French impressionists, who were by and large plein air artists, but there is a resurgence of this approach to painting now, and the artists involved are creating a microcosm culture of their own, one in which travel is paramount and integral; there is a journey with a departure, adventure, and return as observed by Bantan from Travel Writing: The Self and the World. The journey's record is "written" on canvas, as artists map the geography of remote places, rural places, and urban places, in all seasons and weather, attempting to capture a particular moment in time, a place of significant memory, in the company of other liked-minded people.

Welcome to Northwest Muse.

Being a native Washingtonian and never having had a desire to move elsewhere, except perhaps during the dark, dreary, damp days of late fall, winter, and early spring, I tend to muse and murmur like the gentle breezes that lift the big maple tree leaves, or the quiet lapping of the water of the Puget Sound along any of the beaches. I am part of the ecosystem. The Pacific Northwest's Puget Sound region enjoys a marine climate and environment that is given to quiet reflection in forest wandering, beach combing, and garden relaxing.  Travelers come here to rest, to visit, to imagine living in a place frequently shrouded in gray mist and myriad shades of green. Some stay all year long. Some return to visit every summer.

However, many people in my circle of friends travel away from the Northwest, especially in the winter season, to places where the sun shines. Whether the trek is to visit family, friends, or acquaintances overseas, whether transported by train, by plane, or by car, the mobility of society in the 21st century is stunningly normal.

Lately, I have noticed a striking distinction between travelers and travel writers. I never considered the defining characteristics of a travel writer before reading Clifford's Traveling Cultures and Watson's Where the Roads Diverged, but there are some interesting differences both writers point out. Clifford's own investigation of travel writing brought him to a new place of research inquiry and a desire to understand culture as a transitory idea. The travel writer frequently lives on the margins of cultural hubs and enclaves, keenly aware of the cultural nuances and identities of self, places, and spaces. Clifford left his own academic settlement of anthropological methods to travel to the outskirts and margins of academia in search of travel writers. Watson on the other hand, in her short story about the time she spent on Easter Island, illustrates how travelers move freely within a cultural identity, but sometimes the interaction and interference of a traveler in a more stationary culture is acknowledged and other times not. For example, it saddened me to think of the young man holding onto the farewell letter of his American military father, whom he will never meet or know, a traveler passing through Easter Island who kept no ties, and wrote no more to his son.  Watson identifies herself as both a traveler and a travel writer and understands the cultural position where she lives on the margins.

Every place I have traveled shares common themes of acceptable and understood cultural nuances that govern the relationships between individual people and social groups. One interesting cultural response that I encountered multiple times during my travel in Europe was the disdain of the American persona exhibited, with emotional inhibition, by "hosts." Probably, these experiences cooled a desire to travel outside of the U.S.; it is difficult enough to get along with other Americans at home. Maybe a sense of protection and acceptance is why many group traveling opportunities have arisen in the states; Americans can travel in their comfort zone with familiar cultural objects, such as other "Americans" for example, even as they visit other places as tourists. The travel group is noticeable in the traveling culture of Asian residents as well. Frequently, groups of Asian travelers saunter along Seattle's downtown waterfront during the summer months, taking photographs of the group in front of Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, or the entrance to the Seattle Aquarium.

The traveler has tremendous freedom to choose the focus of a travel experience, while the travel writer's goal is broader and includes observation, a narrative, or story about the people and the places. An important task for me as a nascent blogger and travel writer is to distinguish the differences between a traveler and a travel writer. There are many people who travel and visit this region regularly, as travelers, but who do not write about it. I have lived here all of my life, and I have not looked at this area as a visitor for a long time. There is great potential for making some short day trips on the Peninsula and approaching them like a travel writer, providing some historical background about the development of the area, which would include the strong Native American presence and the Norwegian immigration to Kitsap Peninsula with the promise of land with the Homestead Act.  Each community has a particular historical significance. Port Blakey loaded and unloaded timber and the row houses were built on wooden sleds; Port Gamble was the mill town; Poulsbo was known for its oysters and ludifisk. There are particular communities that grew economically based upon the timber industry. Each small community or township has its own historical significance. Describing the uniqueness of the small communities and townships would be a worthy act. There are a few specific communities and townships that are unique and carry interesting histories.

Another area of interest I have is the artists' community on the Kitsap Peninsula; these people live to make art and have found a variety of ways to make a living without being dependent on producing. Their goals for living are to live an artist's life, to remain rooted in the community and not travel to display and show their work.

The Northwest resident welcomes tourists and visitors in the summer, but after Labor Day weekend it is time to return to the slower moving life pace.

Northwest Muse,
Teresa