Nina Burokas Reviews "Northwest Know-How: Beaches" by Rena Priest

Northwest Know-How: Beaches

by rena priest

reviewed by Nina Burokas

There is an unusual sensitivity and generosity about a travel guide that starts (after the Introduction) with a Land Acknowledgement; it orients you to people, place, and culture—historically and in the present. It also tunes your heart and heightens your senses. In her Land Acknowledgement, author/poet and member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation Rena Priest extends an invitation “to feel gratitude for the land and water.” In what I interpret as both a blessing and a call to care, Priest closes her Acknowledgement with “I invite you to let your feeling for these places shape you. I invite you to carry love for this beautiful Earth into all the spaces you inhabit and to interact with them accordingly.”

One of Seattle-based publisher Sasquatch Books “educational, entertaining and highly giftable” Northwest Know-How series, Northwest Know-How: Beaches is a “sleeper” (aka “sneaker”) wave. On the surface, it’s a packable, concise reference, with evocative illustrations by Jake Stoumbus. In it, Priest highlights thirty-four of the most notable beach destinations in Oregon and Washington, including the Wreck of the Peter Iredale and Heceta Head Lighthouse. Listings are arranged by region—coastal sites from Semiahmoo in northwest Washington to Sunset Bay State Park on the Oregon Coast, and from the San Juan Islands to Seattle. The Olympic Peninsula and Washington Coast are also covered. A section in the back of the book notes activities by area; for example, the best camping, best kite flying, best lighthouses, best paddling, best sandcastle beaches, and best whale watching. A Safety and Guidelines section provides general planning hints and a reminder of safety and stewardship protocols.

In the How This Book Works section, Priest asks, “Ever wonder about the best places to launch a kayak, harvest clams or gather beach glass? This book has recommendations for all that and more. Read on, and I’ll even tell you where to hear the orcas sing.” Of Semiahmoo Spit, Priest writes: “The slender arm of Semiahmoo Spit runs along the western edge of Drayton Harbor, forming part of what is referred to as the Northwest Necklace.” Related Know-How excerpt: one of the interpretative exhibits at Semiahmoo Spit includes a totem pole by Lummi master carver Morrie Alexander. In the following pages, Priest shares the story of Salmon Woman and Raven represented in Alexander’s carving. Of Eagle Cove Beach, Priest writes, “The light here at midday is stunning, and it feels as though the sun is shining just for you—and maybe it is.” At Pocket Beach in Myrtle Edwards Park, “you can enjoy the glitter of cityscapes and waves all at once.” The introduction to Rialto Beach reads, “When the road through the quiet stillness of the rain forest opens up to a shimmering vista, the first thing you might notice is that the ocean here is a roaring and unrelenting entity.” I started planning road trips and associated activities (a “Foodies, take note” detour, for example) at “orcas sing.”

Priest’s poems are not only a celebration of beaches and marine life, they’re a meditation on living well, with “rigorous gratitude” and a “heart-fire” that could toast marshmallows.

What transforms Beaches from go-to reference guide to deeply resonant is Priest’s poetry. Beaches includes five poems written in the pantoum format, with “lines that repeat and roll through the poem like waves along a shoreline,” as Priest explains. Before I heard of Beaches, I saw a broadside of one of the poems: “Beach Fire.” The essence: “Measure wealth by how well you enjoy the hours.” To excerpt only a line doesn’t do the poem justice. The full impact of the poem—indeed, each of the poems—is in the reading: fluid, mesmerizing. I created a rough version of the broadside, posted it over my desk and gave a copy to my neighbor at a poetry gathering to celebrate the new year. Priest’s poems are not only a celebration of beaches and marine life, they’re a meditation on living well, with “rigorous gratitude” and a “heart-fire” that could toast marshmallows.

The beaches of the Pacific Northwest are one of our shared treasures; the region's many moods intensified and our sensory experience heightened by proximity to the water. That this resource has existed and supported us for millennia is no guarantee of future returns. The beach, the tidepools, the ocean and its creatures form a delicate web of life. And that web includes us. As this book guides you to the beaches and experiences that you most enjoy, it also raises our awareness of the critical value of these places. Let these beaches—the elemental experiences of building sandcastles, paddling the waters, watching for whales, a story shared in the firelight—call you to care, as they call you to joy.

Lagniappe: Pair Priest’s poems with Kim Dower’s “How to Talk to Water, ” from the book Air Kissing on Mars. In the poem, she shares advice on how to speak to water in general (“go with the flow / but be concise”), how to speak to a smaller body of water, from lake to puddle (“the water is there for you”) and, in closing, how to speak to an ocean. To excerpt: “For best results, / whisper into the surf // until the cold foam curls / around your ankles. / Then you will know / you have been heard.”

Beach Fire

Measure wealth by how well you enjoy the hours
fluttering by in praise of sunshine and the ocean breeze,
whispering love songs across waves that kiss the beach.
This wealth takes work, and absolutely no work at all.

Fluttering by in praise of sunshine and that ocean breeze,
don’t mistake leisure for laziness. This gratitude is rigorous.
This wealth takes work, and absolutely no work at all.
This gift of a moment, to be alive, to feel at peace . . .

don’t mistake leisure for laziness. This gratitude is rigorous.
To be filled up and satisfied by a day at that beach,
this gift of a moment, to be alive, to feel at peace,
it means your heart-fire flames a lovely heat,

to be filled up and satisfied by a day at the beach.
You could toast marshmallows by that warmth,
it means your heart-fire flames a lovely heat,
the glowing embers, a boundless source of power,

you could toast marshmallows by that warmth,
whispering love songs across waves that kiss the beach,
the glowing embers, a boundless source of power.
Measure wealth by how well you enjoy the hours.

—Rena Priest

Nina Burokas is a writer and educator working on the production of her first poetry chapbook. She lives on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, where she’s restoring a woodland prairie on the traditional land of the Chemakum, Coast Salish, S'Klallam and Suquamish People. An adjunct business instructor at Mendocino College in California, Nina has been a contributing author/editor for five digital business titles.

book reviewsPhoebe BoscheFebruary 5, 2024Raven Chronicles Pressraven chronicles, book reviews, Nina Burokas, northwest beaches, nw beaches guideComment