Connections to Cannary Row RICKETTS & HOOD CANAL Stella Wenstob Historians thrill at tracking the movements of pioneering marine biologist Ed Ricketts. Most notably following him on his journey to the Sea of Cortez with close friend, writer John Steinbeck. Although it is wel-documented that Ricketts visited Washington and made multiple trips to the British Columbia coast, it has recently come to light that he spent six weeks near Hoodsport on Hood Canal and the hunt is on to find the location of his lab. Ed Ricketts, pioneering marine biologist and ecologist, is famous as the inspiration for Steinbeck’s literary immortalization as the hard-drinking philosophizing “Doc” in his novel Cannery Row. Ricketts’s stimulating intellect and philosophies made his laboratory in Monterey Bay a sort of intellectual haven attracting Henry Miller, James Fitzgerald, Joseph Campbell, along with John Steinbeck.
Above, Edward F. Ricketts, (1937) In his laboratory; Top, at Point Wilson Lighthouse In Port Townsend WA (1930) Jack Calvin photos, Pat Hathaway Archives
Steinbeck’s depiction of his friend has led to an overshadowing of the very real scientific contributions Ricketts made to marine biology of the West Coast, but Ricketts’ 1939 Between Pacific Tides (written with Jack Calvin) is a seminal work on the intertidal ecology of the Pacific coast from Mexico to Alaska, inspiring generations of marine biologists. It is now in its fifth printing.
Although Ricketts’ research is primarily associated with outer coast marine landscapes, new research is coming to light that demonstrates the Olympic Peninsula was also studied by Ricketts. Prompted by the 1930 photograph of Ricketts examining seaweed under the gaze of the Port Townsend lighthouse, historian Michael Kenneth Hemp traced Ricketts time spent on the Olympic Peninsula in a revised edition of Cannery Row: The History of John Steinbeck’s Old Ocean View Avenue published in July of this year. In 1942, while the Second World War denuded the area of able-bodied men, Ricketts and his companion Toni Jackson spent six weeks in Hoodsport collecting sea creatures for Pacific Biological Laboratories – a lab Ricketts ran out of Monterey Bay providing marine specimens to museums and universities around the world.
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