George and Ken are scouring a junkyard for an aluminum pole and plate to make a rudder. It’s a year after their big voyage (which Ken quit in Ketchikan). The book really likes to lay it on thick re these father/son juxtapositions.
Conversation
Now in a chapter on George’s enormous 48-foot 6-person canoe, Mount Fairweather. Built 1974-75. Dude’s a total Quixote. Apparently a legend in boatbuilding circles. I’d like to see it.
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Big canoe about to launch. On a mad poet present for occasion:
“His lines did not scan, but ended wherever he ran out of room. The poem itself ended similarly...Henry produces poetry the way a factory loom produces fabric — by the yard, and it can be cut off almost any place.”
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Chapter 41: Ken goes to La Jolla to meet Freeman as weird sort of emissary from George. They take walks and stuff, discussing space, nukes, etc. Now on to Chapter 42, the reunion! Starship father meets Canoe son. “Luke, I’m your father” moment.
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This collision of worlds is lit. Freeman checks out the treehouse and then goes with teen daughter Emily, and Ken, to rendezvous with George on some island. The journey itself is a gem of a vignette. The movie scene would be great.
GIF
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“The plexiglass domes [on canoe manholes] were in place...Freeman repeated...that the canoe was beautiful. He confessed that he thought he would like it better without the domes — just the classic Aleut lines. The astrophysicist, oddly or not, did not like the spaceship look.”
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This story is full of colorful side characters, like Will Malloff, a weird frontier guy who ran a 1-person lumber mill and bred Rhodesian ridgeback dogs (lion hunting dogs) on Swanson island, where Luke Dyson met Anakin “Darth Orion” Dyson.
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“The Mallloff settlement testified to the energy that two isolated people...can unleash. Here, I could not help thinking, was the kind of small colony [Mayflower mode] that Freeman Dyson advocates.”
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This whole bit reminds me of the “Amazing Crusoes of Lonesome Lake”, also set in the region, which I read as a kid as a Readers Digest condensed book. Looks like British Columbia is the true last human frontier. amazon.com/Crusoe-Lonesom
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Damn. 2 other characters present, Ron and Julie Moe, are ex lighthouse keepers. I guess this breed had not entirely been automated out of existence in 1975
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Replying to
Father-son moment:
George: “What do you think about this idea of a radio? Some people think I’m crazy to want to put one in this canoe.”
Freeman: “I think a radio in the canoe is a good idea. That’s what I like about you—you’re not a purist.”
Next: paddle in a starship? 🤔
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Freeman says he’s working on theory of what holds galaxies together
Daughter Emily: “epoxy” (which George swears by for canoes)
Now that’s a good family joke
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George and Ken save 2 men from drowning on last day on Hanson island. This book is just endlessly eventful.
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Book closes with some wonderfully meditative and poetic short chapters. This whole thing has been an epic read.
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Ok done. That was a totally wonderful book, and I’m glad I read it in sips sitting on my balcony in a pandemic. Thank you for the reco.
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Replying to
With all the times you mentioned Tolstoy on your blog, you hadn't heard of Doukhobors before?!
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