A primer for those who want to learn more about our weird heritage. This comprehensive and entertaining collection of bizarre tales was gathered from newspaper accounts, participant observations, and personal interviews. Readers will learn about a Seattle man's contact with a group of aliens that landed in Ballard; ponder the claims of two Washington men that Elvis was an extraterrestrial breeding experiment; hear about an Oregonian's extended discussion with Bigfoot; explore Northwest cattle mutilations; attend a support group for UFO abductees in Federal Way; visit two haunted restaurants; and meet a woman who saw a giant shrimp in her basement.

Is it possible that unusual creatures share the Pacific Northwest with its 10.3 million human occupants? It's true! Oregon and Washington have misplaced alien invaders, such as a half-inch flea, a giant spider with a leg span of three inches, and a snakehead fish (made famous of late in four horror movies) that can breathe in water and on land, and grows to be about four feet long. There are sea monsters, from prehistoric times to the present, as well as freshwater phantoms said to infest lakes and rivers. The sky has winged wonders that resemble species long believed to be extinct. These are the stuff of nightmares: thunderbirds described as raptors, resembling eagles or vultures, with a wingspan of eight feet, as well as Bigfoot and other large bipeds. A comprehensive guide to a crypto zoo of the Northwest, this book details the Black Tamanous, a man-eating monster; a kangaroo man; the usual brownies, elves, fairies, gnomes, leprechauns, pixies, wee folk; and many more. You may find this research unsettling, even frightening. One thing is certain...a world of mystery awaits.

The Northwest Coast documents Britain's rise topre-eminence in this far-flung corner of the empire. It shows how therelentless activities of its commercial interests, the adroit use ofits naval power, and the steely resolve of its diplomats securedBritish claims to dominion and rights to trade along the NorthwestCoast. Written by a leading maritime scholar and based on freshresearch into known manuscripts and printed works on Pacific trade andexploration, this book incorporates new interpretations on explorationand commercial activity in this area.

Each fun and intriguing volume offers more than 250 illustrated pages of places where tourists usually don't venture. These unique travel guides are chock-full of information about oddball curiosities, ghostly places, local legends, and peculiar roadside attractions.

After the War of 1812, Americans belatedly realized that they lacked national identity. The subsequent campaign to articulate nationality transformed every facet of culture from architecture to painting, and in the realm of letters, literary jingoism embroiled American authors in the heated politics of nationalism. The age demanded stirring images of U.S. virtue, often achieved by contriving myths and obscuring brutalities. Between these sanitized narratives of the nation and U.S. social reality lay a grotesque discontinuity: vehement conflicts over slavery, Indian removal, immigration, and territorial expansion divided the country. Authors such as Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Catharine M. Sedgwick, William Gilmore Simms, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Lydia Maria Child wrestled uneasily with the imperative to revise history to produce national fable. Counter-narratives by fugitive slaves, Native Americans, and defiant women subverted literary nationalism by exposing the plight of the unfree and dispossessed. And with them all, Edgar Allan Poe openly mocked literary nationalism and deplored the celebration of "stupid" books appealing to provincial self-congratulation. More than any other author, he personifies the contrary, alien perspective that discerns the weird operations at work behind the facade of American nation-building.

A Country Strange and Far considers how and why the Methodist Church failed in the Pacific Northwest and how place can affect religious transplantation and growth.