The Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum in Ilwaco invites all current members to its Annual Membership Meeting on Saturday, April 29th at 2pm. Museum Director Madeline Matson will present a brief update on happenings at CPHM and will introduce historian Cameron La Follette. La Follette will present her talk, “Where are the Northwest Coast Sea Otters?”
Oregon, and Washington also, once had a thriving sea otter population, but they were extirpated by the early 20th century. What happened? This presentation will trace what we know of the sea otter story in Oregon and southern Washington: how and when the sea otters were hunted, and by whom. This will include the fur trade era, but also extend beyond it to include later hunting activities.
Cameron La Follette is a historian of the Northwest coast, focusing on land use history, exploration and shipwrecks, and early commercial natural resource extraction. She is also executive di-rector of Oregon Coast Alliance, a coastal conservation and land use protection organization. She was the lead researcher and author of all the history articles in the 2018 Oregon Historical Quarterly special issue investigating the 17th-century Spanish galleon shipwreck on the Oregon coast. She has additionally lead-authored two recent books on sustainability and ecological governance.
This event is free thanks to support from Museum Members. Non-members are welcome to attend and membership information will be provided at the event.