Author, teacher and naturalist, Jack Nisbet to Speak in Vancouver, WA

Aug. 27, 2008 - PRLog -- VANCOUVER, WA – On Wednesday September 24, from 7:30 - 9:00 p.m. the Center for Columbia River History will host writer Jack Nisbet as he presents an illustrated talk about the historic Columbia River Country.  The presentation, titled “‘A Well-Dressed Man Leaped Ashore’: Tracking culture and place through David Thompson’s Eyes,” will be held at the Red Cross Building, E.B. Hamilton Hall, on the Vancouver National Historic Reserve.  Refreshments will be served and the talk will be followed by a book signing. Books will be available for purchase.

In July of 1811 explorer, fur trader and mapmaker David Thompson, with a crew of French-Canadians, Iroquois, and local tribal translators, paddled from Kettle Falls, Washington to Astoria, Oregon where they met members of John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company. Thompson stayed only briefly, choosing to point his odd canoe and mixed-blood crew back upriver before the week was out. By 1814, the explorer had incorporated his own surveys with those of Lewis and Clark, George Vancouver, and Simon Fraser into the first accurate picture of the northwest quadrant of North America.    

To find out more about the explorer’s adventures in Columbia Country, come to the Vancouver National Historic Reserve on September 24, 2008 and track David Thompson’s river journey with author Jack Nisbet.  

Jack Nisbet is a teacher, naturalist, and writer, who lives in Spokane with his wife and two children.  Nisbet published Sources of the River: Tracking David Thompson across Western North America, in 1994.  Since then, he has published Purple Flat Top (1997), Singing Grass, Burning Sage (1999), and Visible Bones (2003), all of which explore the human relationship to place in the greater Northwest.  

Nisbet’s current project is an illustrated book titled The Mapmakers Eye: David Thompson on the Columbia Plateau. The book examines the period of contact in the region through written and oral history, early artwork, and David Thompson’s voluminous maps.  In this illustrated presentation, peppered by stories of the past, Nisbet complements Thompson’s beautiful maps and watercolors with the images of Henry James Warre, Paul Kane and other early artists, as well as his own special knowledge of the Basin and its culture, past and present.

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The Center for Columbia River History (CCRH) examines the hidden histories of the Columbia River Basin and helps people think about the historical record from different perspectives. CCRH programs are free to the public. www.ccrh.org.