Visitor's Companion to Olympic

The primary focus of this excellent "visitor's guide" is not on specific places to tour (although its contents do suggest many destinations simply by portraying them), but instead on understanding the natural and human history of the area. After living on and exploring the Olympic Peninsula for several years, I found that I was frequently recommending Weurthner's "Olympic" to visitors and newcomers as an invaluable introductory examination of the region's mountains, rain forests, shorelines and history. Starting with geology, the author explains the attributes that shaped the area's land forms and natural ecosystems and then examines the long history of the competition between those seeking to preserve the heart of the peninsula and those viewing its rich timber resources as a proper target for human exploitation, a clash of interests that has not ended. Throughout, the writing is efficient, clear, and free of jargon. Although the book devotes its final pages to an abbreviated pictorial field guide for some regional flora and fauna (sufficient, perhaps, for a casual visiting naturalist), the meat of this book is its broader look at the region as a whole - its origins, geology, climate, unique ecological features, and the influences of industrial-age mankind. The book is well organized and written, with excellent illustrative photos, and it welcomes an interested reader. It is, as its title forthrightly states, a "visitor's guide" - those who seek a more comprehensive study of the area's natural history likely will follow this book with Arthur Kruckeberg's encyclopedic (and much weightier) "The Natural History of Puget Sound Country".