Ross Anderson is a founding member of the Rainshadow Journal collective. He retired to Port Townsend after 30 years of journalism at the Seattle Times.
The Fort Worden PDA raised millions from private and public sources, borrowed millions more, hired scores of people and set out to transform the park into a regional venue for “life-long learning.”
It didn’t work
I had no such deferments, so I refused induction. Twice. My objection was not to the military, nor to the draft. I wanted nothing to do with the Vietnam war. In retrospect, I regret that decision.
Few, if any, of those musicians could make a living at it, but they were lured by the local arts vibe and the variety of venues ranging from bars to the more formal auditoriums managed by the nonprofit Centrum at Fort Worden State Park.
Port Gamble is an authentic regional gem -- Some three dozen 19th century homes, a steepled church, general store, specialty shops and a community theater – surrounded by verdant lawns and whitewashed picket fences.
At age 50, Centrum has become a $4 million-a-year operation with 14 fulltime staff. In a typical year, it brings in 300 temporary faculty, professional musicians and other artists from around the world who in turn lure more than 2,000 participants and thousands more visitors for the weekly summertime concerts and readings.
According to the Press Herald, the National Trust for Local News, a two-year-old nonprofit with a tiny staff and budget, has agreed to the deal with Masthead Maine, the Maine company which has owned the newspapers for several years.
Famously, participants will not have engines – none whatsoever. Their 750 mile voyage to Ketchikan, Alaska, will be powered by some combination of wind, muscle and no small amount of human endurance and ingenuity.
Occasionally I’ll check his recorded longitude-latitude coordinates against my GPS, and they’re astonishingly close. Some of his South Pacific charts were used by the Navy as recently as WWII – 150 years after they were drawn.
From Seattle’s Fishermens Terminal to Port Townsend and Bellingham Bay, the boatyards and marinas are abuzz with power sanders and arc welders, the smell of varnish fumes and sawdust and diesel oil – fishermen and boaters gearing up for another voyage up the Inside Passage to Alaska.