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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.