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Ships on Lake Union, Seattle.
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The FHA in cooperation with the Museum of History and Industry is searching for writers whose work is informed by Lake Union. Perhaps you know of a hidden gem like Three's a Crew, the one excerpted below. Maybe you have found a paragraph in an old journal where the writer mentions Lake Union. Do you have letters from a 1950s houseboater? Are you writing poetry, fiction or non-fiction, focused on the lake? If so, let us know. MOHAI historian, Lorraine McConaghy, and the FHA want to collect a variety of Lake Union stories and publish them in the newsletter or on the FHA website.
Submission directions: Email a working title and a brief discussion (< 200 words) of the work you wish to send.
Questions? Email Marilyn Robertson at isobel.rob44@gmail.com
Here is an excerpt from a memoir describing a series of 1920s family cruises up in the Inside Passage. This section documents the first journey's beginning, on Lake Union.
We had been to sea in ships, never in small craft, but that did not affect our planning. Other lubbers had bought cruisers and sailed away, and we saw no reason why we should not. What we never dreamed was that most of the following seven years should be spent afloat.
In those first three days aboard our whole attention was devoted to getting the little Yakima ready for sea. We lay at a mooring in Lake Union, in the center of Seattle; amid city streets and sounds…The boat was thirty-six feet long, with a cockpit and a hunting type cabin. The cockpit was covered by a canopy and could be enclosed with curtains. A wheelhouse amidships was open aft. From this a companionway led below. The cabin contained a large locker forward, transom berths, a combined engine room and galley, and a tiny bathroom…
We slept aboard the boat while fitting out. We were encircled by Seattle. We could see street cars and hear the honking of automobiles, but land and its activities seemed remote. All day long our home rocked gently to passing water traffic. Ships from the Pacific, impressive white yachts, small cruisers equally gleaming in bright varnish, tugboats with tows, Cape Flattery salmon trollers sic., tankers and oil-blackened work boats, all proceeded endlessly up and down the fairway. The shores were lined with services for these boats, wharfs to sell them fuel, marine railways for their haul-out, sprawling shed like structures for repairing and building, and long floats jutting out into the lake for mooring…
From Kathrene Pinkerton, Three's a Crew.