Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/118161
stages of restoration. Combined with a plethora of art galleries and surfeit of aging counterculture types who look as though they grew up on a steady diet of the Grateful Dead, this stately architecture gives the town the feel of a Nelson, B.C. – on the ocean. Kevin Harris, a successful Seattle area IT entrepreneur, purchased the local clam cannery a decade ago and has slowly renovated it into the luxurious Clam Cannery Hotel – yet another symbol of the town's gentrified rejuvenation. "Port Townsend is like this little place stuck in time," he says. "It's what downtown Seattle would have looked like a hundred years ago." ture that archetypal mariner tearing up fifties in the shower; perhaps there are many more financially prudent ways to spend time than maintaining a wooden boat. Still, there is something sublime about taking a onceliving tree and giving it renewed life afloat on the sea, riding the wind and speeding from island to island. I stop to admire the 110-year-old Carlotta, running one hand along her buttery-smooth wooden gunwale. The cutter's Sunshine Coast owner proclaims she's been "sailed by pilots, princesses, lords, criminals, Winston Churchill's cousin, viscounts, an illegitimate line of the [British] royal family and one-eyed Canadians." Enthusiastic travel writers have referred to Port Townsend as the "Paris of the Olympic Peninsula," and for a town of its size (pop. 9,000) there are an inordinate number of cafés. At one such social hub, Better Living Through Coffee, local activists commiserate over lattes as a pony-tailed folky strums a guitar in the corner. Just before twilight, the boisterous Fountain Café serves up Port Townsend Brewing Company Scotch Ale, Mount Townsend Creamery Camembert, organic grain-fed Whidbey Island beef and Alaska king salmon. Still later, I find the new, used and rare titles at William James Bookseller on Water Street so sumptuous, there is even a special section for "Jewish Observances." Early the next morning I return to Point Hudson to stroll docks that are like shopping aisles stocked with wooden treasures. I pic- Eventually I find Jon Brown and Alex Low lounging on la Rosa's deck, both a little bleary-eyed after a night tilting pints and singing sea shanties in the beer tent. Tomorrow, when the festival ends and all the boat geeks scatter to their homeports, these two young shipwrights will hoist sail and tack across the Strait of Juan de Fuca for Gabriola Island. "This has been an amazing experience," says Brown over a whistling breeze that has the mast stays of nearby sailboats singing like a choir. "It's a dream." Which is, of course, how the festival started more than three decades ago. That the reality is even more magical is what continues to inspire wooden-boat lovers such as Brown and Low to pick up hand planes, hammers and chisels – and keep a centuriesold boat-building tradition alive. (food) Fins Coastal Cuisine, (PT film festival) Frank Ross, (Northwest Maritime Center & posters) City of Port Townsend p32-35_PortTownsend.indd 35 scuttlebutt Shore leave Can't make this fall's 35th annual wooden boat fest (September 9-11; wooden boat.org)? Port Townsend's new Northwest Maritime Centre (right) hosts unique marine events and workshops, plus charters and tours for all ages aboard modern and historic vessels (nwmaritime.org). Also worth bookmarking: the 12th annual Port Townsend Film Fest (pictured), for close to 73 films from around the world and seminars with industry greats such as screenwriter Buck Henry (The Graduate; Catch-22 film adaptation). September 23-25; all-access tickets from $185. ptfilmfest.com; more Port Townsend info at: enjoypt.com Inspiration "In the mid-18th century sailing ships began appearing on the northwest coast of America — after months at sea travelling thousands of leagues of uncharted oceans and rounding at least one of the world's great southern capes. We know the shape of the world today because ships, driven only by wind and human muscle, were navigated into every last bay and estuary on Earth, searching for wealth and glory." —Introduction to Voyages: To the New World & Beyond by Gordon Miller, former chief designer at the Vancouver Maritime and Vancouver museums. (2011, Douglas & McIntyre; $55) Plot a course From Victoria, take the Black Ball Ferry to Port Angeles (cohoferry.com), then drive east on Hwy. 101 and north on Hwy. 20 to the end of the road at Port Townsend • From Vancouver, head south on I-5 from Peace Arch; at Burlington, turn west on Hwy. 20 to Washington's Keystone-Port Townsend ferry (wsdot.wa.gov). Maps, TourBooks and TripTik info at www.bcaa.com; Canada-U.S. border wait times at borderlineups.com WESTWORLD >> FA L L 2 0 1 1 35 8/17/11 12:20:49 PM