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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 12, 2017)
2 // COASTWEEKEND.COM Get better acquainted with gray whales Listening to the Land hosts Florence Sullivan SUBMITTED PHOTO SUBMITTED PHOTO Author Pete Fromm will read from his work Jan. 15. Newport author Lori Tobias’ first novel is “Wander.” Meet authors at Beach Books SEASIDE — Beach Books will host two author events this weekend. First, there’s Lunch in the Loft with former Oregonian journalist and author Lori Tobias, whose first novel, “Wander,” was published in summer 2016. The event will be held at noon Friday, Jan. 13. Cost is $25 and includes a catered lunch and signed copy of “Wander.” RSVP for reservations by calling Beach Books at 503- 738-3500. The bookstore is located at 616 Broadway. “Wander” is set against the backdrop of an unforgiv- ing Alaskan winter and deals with love and heart-wrench- ing loss. It begins with a tantalizing hint of what’s to come: “In our little village of Wrassell, in the middle of nowhere, Alaska, we saw all kinds of prizes beckoning on the horizon, and we couldn’t wait to get there… By the time that winter was over, three of us would be dead, another forever lost, and all of us changed.” Then, at 1 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15, the independent bookstore will host a reading with author Pete Fromm about wilderness, writing and life. The event is free and open to the public. Fromm is a record-setting five-time Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Lit- erary Award winner. His lat- est book, “The Names of the Stars: A Life in The Wild,” came out in September. At 20 years old, Fromm heard of a job babysitting salmon eggs for seven winter months alone in a tent in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Leaping at this chance to be a mountain man, with no experience in the wilds, he left the world. Thirteen years later, he published his memoir of that winter, “Indian Creek Chronicles” ― “Into the Wild” with a twist. Twenty-five years later, he was asked to return to the wilderness to babysit more fish eggs. But no longer a footloose 20-year- old, at 45 he was the father of two young sons. He left again, alone, straight into the heart of Montana’s Bob Marshall wilderness, walking a daily 10-mile loop to his fish eggs through deer and elk and the highest density of grizzly bears in the lower 48 states. In “The Names of the Stars,” Fromm seeks out the source of this passion for wildness as well as explores father- hood and mortality and all the costs and risks and rewards of life lived on its own terms. SEASIDE — We most often recognize them as an exha- lation of mist spouting from the surface of the sea or, if we’re lucky, the flip of a tail. Gray whales are our close neighbors, but their habitat — the Pacific Ocean — is inhospitable to humans, leaving us with little first- hand knowledge about their day-to-day lives. In the course of her research, marine ecologist Florence Sullivan routinely gets up close and personal with these and other ocean creatures. Join her at the Seaside Public Library on Wednesday, Jan. 18, as she kicks off the 2017 season of Listening to the Land pre- sentations, this year focused on wildlife. Her talk “Inside Gray Whales” begins at 6 p.m. Admission is free. Scientists such as Sulli- van are using new research techniques to expand what we know about gray whales and other marine mammals: what they eat and how they forage, as well as how ocean noise — natural and hu- SUBMITTED PHOTO Florence Sullivan stands with a research kayak at Port Orford, with Red Rocks Marine Reserve pictured in the distance. man-caused — affects their behavior and overall health. Research teams are using underwater Go-Pro cameras and aerial drones to closely observe individual whales, and they’re deploying drift- ing hydrophones to record the variety of noises whales are exposed to. They’re also using ad- vanced biotechnology meth- ods to closely analyze whale feces, revealing information about what the whales eat and their stress and repro- ductive hormone levels. And they’re working closely with Oregon’s whale-watching outfitters — whose industry generates some $30 million in annual revenue for coastal communities — helping them minimize disturbance to feeding gray whales during the critical summer foraging period. Sullivan is a graduate student in Oregon State University’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, where she is a research assistant in the Geospatial Ecology of Marine Mega- fauna lab. The GEMM lab seeks to understand how marine megafauna encoun- ter the resources they need within the world’s oceans — a habitat the lab charac- terizes as “huge, patchy, and dynamic.” Last year, Sullivan’s work took her from New- foundland, Canada, for the International Marine Conser- vation Congress, to southern Oregon’s Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve, where she collected mysid shrimp from a research kayak among foraging gray whales. One focus of her work has been development of vessel operation guidelines around gray whale ecotour- ism on the Oregon Coast. Her illustrative guide can be seen at watchoutforwhales. org Sullivan works under the supervision of GEMM lab lead scientist Leigh Torres, Ph.D., who was originally scheduled to speak on this date but canceled when the opportunity arose to do field work on blue whales off the coast of New Zealand. Listening to the Land is a monthly winter speaker se- ries offered January through May and presented by North Coast Land Conservancy and the Necanicum Water- shed Council in partnership with Seaside Public Library. Hear the jazz stylings of Greta Matassa RAYMOND, Wash. — Con- summate Pacific Northwest jazz artist Greta Matassa returns for the Sunday Af- ternoon Live audience at the historic Raymond Theatre on Sunday, Jan. 15. As a down-to-earth jazz diva, Matassa entertains with a variety of vocal stylings, improvisation and melodic rhythms. The latest of her eight CD recordings, “I Wanna Be Loved” has garnered critical acclaim, while Matassa has been voted Vocalist of the Year seven times in 15 years, then honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Earshot Jazz Hall of Fame in 2014. The musical performance begins at 2 p.m. at the Raymond Theatre, located at 323 Third St. Tickets are $15 at the door or $12 in advance at the theater, Raymond Pharmacy and South Bend Pharmacy. For further ticket information, call 360-875-5207. The show is sponsored by Diane and Michael O’Meagher, Virginia and Andy Carlson, and Sherry Aust. Matassa has played throughout the world, in- cluding the Lincoln Cen- ter in New York City; the International Jazz Festival in Moscow, Russia; and Kyoto, Japan. Locally, she has per- formed at the Seattle Opera House, Bumpershoot, Port Townsend Jazz Festival and other performing arts centers and night clubs. Matassa is also a jazz educator, leading master classes and jazz clinic work with aspiring singers. Matassa will be accom- panied by pianist Darin Clendenin, bassist Clipper Anderson and Mark Ivester on drums. SUBMITTED PHOTO Greta Matassa will perform Jan. 15 at the Raymond The- atre.
