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The Vanishing Shore - A Historical Novel of Port Townsend (Book Three)Where Two Waters Meet: The Port Townsend Saga
PORT TOWNSEND STANDS AT A TURNING POINT - A THRIVING PORT TOWN WITH GRAND AMBITIONS AND EXPANDING FEDERAL AUTHORITY.
It's 1870, and Port Townsend's transformation accelerates with each passing season. The Customs House flag snaps above the bay, casting its shadow across traditional fishing grounds. Railroad surveyors move through the landscape, their maps reimagining the territory with straight lines that cut through curved shorelines and ancient pathways. The promise of steel rails connecting the harbor to distant markets fuels speculation and development, though the tracks themselves remain years away-perhaps never to arrive.
Beneath the town's rapid growth, fractures spread. The same forces that fueled prosperity-military presence, commerce, and land speculation-now push the S'Klallam people further from their home. Regulations tighten, mission schools reshape young minds, and maps redraw the boundaries of belonging. The Indian Agency and Customs House work in tandem, their documentation creating a new geography of permission and restriction.
As Elizabeth Morrison navigates Port Townsend's commercial expansion through her shipping agency, her daughter Sarah teaches at the mission school, creating protected spaces for traditional knowledge within an institution designed to erase it. Michael Tukw?b works between worlds-at Tibbals' shipyard and on his own fishing boat-adapting ancient practices to survive in increasingly restricted waters. Chief Chetzemoka faces both personal loss and the continuing displacement of his people, maintaining dignity through careful diplomacy.
Those who understand history's cycles know how to resist-through adaptation rather than confrontation, flowing beneath official systems rather than against them. As the shore vanishes beneath their feet, traditional knowledge finds shelter in hidden places: in the margins of ledgers, in the patterns of weaving, in the careful blindness of certain officials who choose not to see what happens in the spaces between their patrols.
The Vanishing Shore continues the sweeping saga of Port Townsend's early days, following characters whose lives reveal the true cost of "progress" and the resilience of those who maintain their essential connections despite the forces arrayed against them.
