Waterway: The Story of Seattle’s Locks and Ship Canal

2018 Finalist for Washington State Book Award in the non-fiction category.

Copies of Waterway are available through the UW Press and Indiebound.

Co-written with HistoryLink historian Jennifer Ott, our book highlights how Seattle’s civic leaders doggedly pursued construction of the ship canal over several decades despite numerous setbacks and competition from other canal schemes. The book explores how the waterway was rearranged, the canal’s wide-ranging environmental impacts, who has worked and played on the canal, and how it has shaped the local economy and communities. Filled with maps and historic photographs, Waterway offers a new way to see and understand one of the more importance changes to Seattle economic, ecologic, and social landscape.

Keep an eye on HistoryLink.org for new essays about the ship canal.