The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest
by Jack Nisbet

Summary

In his acclaimed Sources of the River, Jack Nisbet set the standard for Northwestern narrative biography, taking the reader on the journey of David Thompson, the explorer who mapped the Columbia River. Now Nisbet turns his attention to David Douglas, the premier botanical explorer in the Pacific Northwest and throughout other areas of western North America. Douglas's discoveries include hundreds of western plants-most notably the Douglas Fir. The Collector tracks Douglas's fascinating history, from his humble birth in Scotland in 1799 to his botanical training under the famed William Jackson Hooker, and details his adventures in North America discovering "exotic" new plants for the English and European market. The book takes readers along on Douglas's journeys into a literal "brave new world" of then—obscure realms from Puget Sound to the Sandwich Islands. In telling Douglas's story, Nisbet evokes a lost world of early exploration, pristine nature, ambition, and cultural and class conflict with surprisingly modern resonances.

Praise

"Jack Nisbet's brisk, thrilling account allows us to walk, ride and paddle along with David Douglas, the tireless 19th-century Scotsman whose name is attached to Cascadia's iconic fir. Nisbet takes us on the ultimate naturalist's tour of a largely untamed, unnamed, and unknown Northwest, land of giant salmon, circling condors, and 14-inch pine cones. What nature-lover doesn't wish they could see the region as it was when explorers first arrived? Well, here you go." — Knute Berger, author of Pugetopolis

"We've long needed a modern biographer of naturalist David Douglas and who better to write it than Jack Nisbet, one of the Northwest's great storytellers. Douglas followed in the wake of explores like Captain James Cook, with whom he shared a tragic end of life in Hawaii, and Meriwether Lewis, whose botanizing was dwarfed in its breadth and depth by the Scotsman's efforts. In crossing Douglas's path with DeWitt Clinton, John McLouglin, George Simpson, Sir John Franklin, and Spokan Garry, Nisbet has authored a narrative tapestry." — David Nicandri, Director of the Washington State Historical Society

"We need all the help we can get imagining this country when it stretched out, untouched by industry. With every passing year, the species mentioned by explorers and naturalists, the smells and sounds and the sheer profusion of wildlife become more dreamlike. David Douglas grew up in Scotland, the son of a stonemason, and studied botany in Glasgow with the great naturalist and fern expert William Jackson Hooker. In 1823, at the age of 24, he sailed with Hooker to the Pacific Northwest, where he spent 10 years collecting and keeping a journal and naming countless species (most notably the Douglas fir). He explored areas skirted by Lewis and Clark and was one of the first naturalists to collect species. What's left at book's end is the sense of plenty, of endless variety and beauty that accompanied these vistas." — Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Jack Nisbet is a teacher, naturalist, and writer who lives in Spokane, Washington with his wife and two children. He grew up in North Carolina, graduated from Stanford University, and moved to Stevens County, Washington, in 1971 where he wrote a column for The Chewelah Independent.

Jack Nisbet Web Site

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