A Voyage of Discovery in the Sea of Cortez

When biologist Aaron Hirsh leads twelve college students to a remote fishing village on the Sea of Cortez, they come upon a bay of dazzling beauty and richness. As the group pursues various threads of investigation-ecological and evolutionary studies of the sea, the desert, and their various species of animals and plants; the stories of local villagers; the journals of conquistadors and explorers-they recognize that the bay has changed significantly through the years. Life in the Sea of Cortez has been reshaped by complex human ideas and decisions-the laws and economics of fishing, property, and water; the fantasies of tourists seeking the wild; even efforts to retrieve species from the brink of extinction.  After weathering a hurricane and encountering a rare whale in its wake, they come to see that the bay's best chance of recovery may in fact reside in our own human stories, which can weave a compelling memory of the place. Glimpsing the intricate and ever-shifting web of human connections with the Sea of Cortez, the students comprehend anew their own place in the natural world-suspended between past and future. They come to recognize their roles in the path ahead, and ultimately come to see one another, and themselves, in a new light. In Telling Our Way to the Sea, Hirsh's voice resounds with compassionate humanity, capturing the complex beauty of both the marine world he explores and the people he explores it with. His story is a profound meditation on our changing relationships with nature and with one another.
Book signing to follow.

Speaker: Professor Aaron E. Hirsh, Vermilion Sea Institute 
Dept of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, U. of Colorado, Boulder

Reservations required