Rare Book Monthly
Articles - November - 2004 Issue
Book Shopping in the Pacific Northwest
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After several enjoyable days visiting pals in Portland, we were off to Washington State, a somewhat unknown region for us to book shop. We hit every second hand and thrift store along the way until we cut off at Olympia and went north to Port Angeles where we spent the night and part of the next day. We found one okay bookstore, Odyssey Books on West Front, but by and large the books in the thrift and book stores were high priced, the owners were completely disinclined to give us a discount, and the selection was poor. If you are ever in Port Angeles, however, we found a restaurant called Michael's Divine Dining, and they weren't kidding, it was divine.
The next day we went by ferry to Victoria. The ride was spectacular with long vistas of mist-shrouded islands, not too many people on the boat, warm temperatures, and just generally very beautiful. Now I know you probably won't believe me, but we made the whole two week trip without seeing any rain. It was misty and a bit foggy in the San Juan Islands, but no rain, sunny, and 70-80 degrees. We had taken our wooly sweaters and fortunately, some shorts and T-shirts as well or we'd have had to buy a new wardrobe. Astonishing!
We arrived in Victoria in the afternoon, went to our charming little 1918 hotel, checked in, and went walking. Of course, we had to go to the Empress Hotel for drinks in the Kipling Room. It is one of the grandest of the turn-of-century grand hotels in Canada. Besides beds of gorgeous flowers all over the place, there were two amazing and very rare weeping sequoia trees in front of the hotel that must have been at least 100 feet tall. They resembled very furry giraffes in that they were long and thin, leaned a bit in the center so as to appear to be moving in the breeze as would a giraffe, and the crowns of the trees had the shape of a head. The branches were long enough to make the trees appear to have on fur coats.
We wandered around Victoria, found a couple of book stores, but didn't have much luck until we went to Value Village, a very nice, clean (everything is in Canada) thrift store with a great selection of good, high quality books. It is nationwide and called Savers in Nevada. They give seniors 30% off on Tuesdays and we just happened to be there on Tuesday, and we just happen to be seniors, so yippee! We ended up with about four more boxes from there. On the advice of the very pleasant clerk, we decided to go to Sidney, a "Book Town" of about 11,000 people which is 20 km up the road from Victoria. Oh goody, goody, a book town! Most of you probably know that a Book Town is a small rural town or village in which second-hand and antiquarian bookshops are concentrated; for instance Hay-on-Wye in Wales or Wigtown in Scotland. Most Book Towns have been developed in villages of historic interest or scenic beauty. Since Beacon wharf in Sidney is the launching point for the Sidney Island Ferry and we were taking the ferry the next day to Bellingham, Washington, we spent a morning in Sidney and found the town extraordinarily friendly.
