If you were widowed with five young children, of course you'd spend summers exploring the Inside Passage and the BC coast with them in a 25-foot boat. Bears, cougars, orcas, storms, reefs, rock slides, crazy woodsmen, and unreliable food and water—what better environment to raise a child? (And this in the '20s, when radio wasn't available there, let alone cell phones and GPS.)There's not really any continuous story here, but every scene and event is so beautifully and unpretentiously told that you accept the family's reality as normal. There are only a half-dozen black-and-white photos in the book, but from Blanchet's writing I have a better idea of the beauty of the coast than I've had from living near it for 18 years.I'm trying to think of further ways to praise this book, but I can't. Read it.
