Throwback: The Imperilled Ocean by Laura Trethewey

The perfect blend of entertainment and education.

Laura Trethewey’s The Imperilled Ocean: Human Stories from a Changing Sea is the perfect blend of entertainment and education. Trethewey’s descriptive, colourful language will take you to a Hollywood studio diving tank, a plastic-clean-up on a tropical beach, a refugee raft (clinging to life), and in the kitchens of a luxury cruise ship, to name a few.

Although the tales are worlds apart, they are connected by the oceans we share, not only with other humans, but with creatures that dwell there. There is a chapter about the sturgeon, who have been inhabiting our oceans (and fresh water) since the Carboniferous period (358.9 million years ago). How’s that for resilience? You will find yourself rooting for the dinosaur-like fish, hoping it will adapt to our warming Anthropocene climate.

Trethewey’s description of beach clean-up with Ocean Legacy gives hope for possibilities of reusing plastics in various ways, but instills upon the reader the magnitude of the floating debris problem. At the end of the chapter, you will see that although clean-ups are helpful, this problem won’t be solved until we cut the problem off at the source.

The collection of stories remind us of the power of the ocean (and the many humans who have succumbed to her wrath), in the tales from refugees (Chapter 3); its beauty and lore, experienced by the boat-dwellers in the Dogpatch coastal area of Vancouver Island (Chapter 4); and the tales of Dreamers, who spend years planning for sailing across the ocean (Chapter 2); You get a sense that for some people, there is a magnetic attraction to the ocean. They dedicate their lives to it and cannot tear themselves away.

The first few chapters seemed a bit random, but the further I got into the book, the more I saw how they connected. The ocean is different to different people, and hopefully this book will make landlubbers care more about its condition.

The epilogue gives updates to all the stories told previously. At the end of the book, the reader might have a different view of the luxury cruise business (many of the employees on ships are treated very poorly, as told in Chapter 6), the ethics behind gentrification of coastal communities, and our rampant use of single-use plastics. I found myself contemplating whether the strange-looking sturgeon, that has adapted to changing oceans for millennia, will survive us.

A good book makes you think; a great book makes you feel. This is a great book.

Laura Trethewey is an author and ocean journalist whose writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Atlantic, and the Walrus. Her first book, The Imperilled Ocean, was a Globe and Mail Top 100 Selection. In The Deepest Map, she continues to explore the mysteries of the oceans and their watery depths.

Publisher: Goose Lane Editions (February 4, 2020)
Paperback 9″ x 6″ | 240 pages
ISBN: 9781773101156

Dawn Mockler

Dawn is a multimedia artist best known for her cartoons drawn under the nom de plume, dawnymock. She was awarded the art award from Bathurst High School in 1984. She is a member of the Association of Canadian Cartoonists and CartoonStock.com. Her art has been included in Herné Bay Cartoon Fest, 1001 Visages in Val-David, Quebec, in Aislin’s book of favourite Covid cartoons, Vancouver Science World and in the Globe & Mail. Her art was exhibited at UNB's World Water Day. She has donated many drawings and paintings to local charities and school fundraisers. Her work is available on CartoonStock (dawnymock) and Twitter (@dawnymock). She lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick.