Monterey Life

Anyone who has ever stood on the shores of Monterey Bay, watching the rolling ocean waves and frolicking otters, knows it is a unique place. But even residents on this idyllic California coast may not realize its full history. Monterey began as a natural paradise, but became the poster child for industrial devastation in John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row,and is now one of the most celebrated shorelines in the world. It is a remarkable story of life, death, and revival—told here for the first time in all its stunning color and bleak grays. The Death and Life of Monterey Bay begins in the eighteenth century when Spanish and French explorers encountered a rocky shoreline brimming with life—raucous sea birds, abundant sea otters, barking sea lions, halibut the size of wagon wheels,waters thick with whales. A century and a half later, many of the sea creatures had disappeared, replaced by sardine canneries that sickened residents with their stench but kept the money flowing. When the fish ran out and the climate turned,the factories emptied and the community crumbled. But today,both Monterey’s economy and wildlife are resplendent. How did it happen? The answer is deceptively simple: through the extraordinary acts of ordinary people. The Death and Life of Monterey Bay is the biography of a place, but also of the residents who reclaimed it. Monterey is thriving because of an eccentric mayor who wasn’t afraid to use pistols, axes, or the force of law to protect her coasts. It is because of fishermen who love their livelihood, scientists who are fascinated by the sea’s mysteries, and philanthropists and community leaders willing to invest in a world-class aquarium. The shores of Monterey Bay revived because of human passion—passion that enlivens every page of this hopeful book.

A look at what Native American life was like in the Bay Area before the arrival of Europeans. Two hundred years ago, herds of elk and antelope dotted the hills of the San Francisco–Monterey Bay area. Grizzly bears lumbered down to the creeks to fish for silver salmon and steelhead trout. From vast marshlands geese, ducks, and other birds rose in thick clouds “with a sound like that of a hurricane.” This land of “inexpressible fertility,” as one early explorer described it, supported one of the densest Indian populations in all of North America. One of the most ground-breaking and highly-acclaimed titles that Heyday has published, The Ohlone Way describes the culture of the Indian people who inhabited Bay Area prior to the arrival of Europeans. Recently included in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Top 100 Western Non-Fiction list, The Ohlone Way has been described by critic Pat Holt as a “mini-classic.” Praise for The Ohlone Way “[Margolin] has written thoroughly and sensitively of the Pre-Mission Indians in a North American land of plenty. Excellent, well-written.” —American Anthropologist “One of three books that brought me the most joy over the past year.” —Alice Walker “Margolin conveys the texture of daily life, birth, marriage, death, war, the arts, and rituals, and he also discusses the brief history of the Ohlones under the Spanish, Mexican, and American regimes . . . Margolin does not give way to romanticism or political harangues, and the illustrations have a gritty quality that is preferable to the dreamy, pretty pictures that too often accompany texts like this.” —Choice “Remarkable insight in to the lives of the Ohlone Indians.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A beautiful book, written and illustrated with a genuine sympathy . . . A serious and compelling re-creation.” —The Pacific Sun

SHEPHERDS OF PAN ON THE BIG SUR-MONTEREY COAST is a medley of lively, literate essays about the Nature wisdom linking some unlikely bedfellows: Robert Louis Stevenson, Gertrude Atherton, Jack London, Robinson Jeffers, Jaime de Angulo, John Steinbeck, Eric Barker, D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and others, with a pertinent postscript on William James, father of American psychology. All these luminaries came to perceive divinity in the awesome, double-dealing power of Nature, symbolized by the Greek god Pan. Many became pantheists, or nature mystics, under the spell of the alternately soft and violent landscape of Californias central coast. The book is a multicolored meditation on a deeply rooted -- and often overlooked -- human need to reconnect with Nature, wellspring of our inner joy and psychic wholeness.

On Monterey's waterfront the words sardine, salmon, mackerel, pompano, albacore, abalone, flounder, and squid were music to the ears of fishermen. With its deep underwater canyon, Monterey Bay hosted a sealife jamboree long before the native Rumsien set out in small tule boats to harvest its bounty. It has sounded a siren call to fishermen and biologists ever since. Chinese fishermen pioneered modern commercial fishing in the 1850s, clustering in villages along Monterey's rugged coast. The cry "Baleia!" sounded through town, summoning Portuguese whalers to their longboats. Japanese divers in primitive hard-hat gear brought a sea snail called abalone to national attention, while Sicilians earned Monterey the title "sardine capital of the world." The railroad opened the way for visitors to discover this natural coastal paradise, now a tourist mecca.