Bijaboji: North to Alaska by Oar
by Carey Lowman, Betty

#6826

VIEW DETAILS
Front Cover
Back Cover

Bijaboji: North to Alaska by Oar: Rowing from Puget Sound to Alaska in a dugout canoe is the sort of feat that today would qualify as extreme adventure and guarantee headline treatment in national media. Add the fact the adventurer is a lone 22-year-old woman and you may have the makings of a legend. For Betty Carey to have done all this in the year 1937 when it was controversial for women even to appear in public wearing slacks almost defies belief. Yet the general tone of this charming book is disarmingly unpretentious, as if paddling to Alaska singlehanded were a normal way for a depression-era girl to spend her summer holidays. In many ways her fearlessness about conquering some of the most challenging marine obstacles in the world reminds one of Muriel Blanchet's adventures as recounted in the coastal classic Curve of Time. In fact Betty explored the Inside Passage during the same period as Blachet and offers new insights on coastal personalities made famous by the older writer. But she goes farther, much farther.

Betty slips through quiet water by starlight, her oars igniting luminous explosions of phosphorescence. She goes deer hunting with a young aboriginal man near Sechelt. She travels with a boat full of exuberant Boy Scouts for a few days and she visits lightkeepers, loggers, fishermen, doctors, missionaries and other coast dwellers who live in beautiful, isolated places and who speak openly about their lives, loves and politics. She braves storms, tidal rapids and blistering heat. In Douglas Channel her trusty dugout Bijaboji capsizes and Betty loses everything she owns – including her oars – and is trapped on a precarious rock ledge with no means of calling for help.

Bijaboji is an amazing account written by a smart, strong, funny, independent woman with a glad heart and a passionate love of the landscape. It also serves as an invaluable trove of information about the people and places of the Inside Passage during the 1930s.

Details

Quantity:	No item(s) available
Weight:	0.60 kg
Price:	CDN$ 34.95 (US$ 34.01)

ISBN-10:	1550173405
ISBN-13/EAN:	9781550173406
Author:	Carey Lowman, Betty
Publisher:	Harbour Publishing Madeira Park, B.C.
Publication Date:	9/2004
Pages:	287 pp
Size/Dimensions:	9.25 x 6.25 x 9.25 inches
Binding:	Hardcover