On the day you head west, you will see the sun rise on the Atlantic Coast and see it set on the Pacific Coast that evening. This is where the seminar starts, and that's only the beginning.

You'll discover the striking contrasts and important similarities between America's East and West Coasts during a 10 day seminar along the Pacific Coast. This seminar provides a marked contrast to the Atlantic coastal studies that we conduct in New England and the Gulf coastal studies in Louisiana, and establishes a critical link in the understanding of America as a nation between two oceans.

In the fall semester Williams-Mystic travels to the central California coast. We fly to San Francisco and first travel down to Monterey Bay, the site of the nation's largest marine sanctuary, where we observe giant kelp forests and sea otters, and visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We study the important historical events that shaped the history of California, from the 16th-century visit by sea captain Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo to Commodore John Drake Sloat's 19th-century taking of the capital of Monterey. We read from Richard Henry Dana Jr.'s Two Years Before the Mast and hear of his experiences in Monterey. We learn of the era of the great sardine industry which created Cannery Row, made famous in John Steinbeck's novels. We explore the incredible diversity of intertidal marine life in tidepools of the Monterey Peninsula, and experience the spectacular vistas of Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. We then head north to visit San Francisco Bay, where we examine the maritime history of the bay from first Spanish sightings to the importance of the clipper ship and Gold Rush era, and the development of the modern harbor. We visit a container ship terminal, and look at the marine life of the bay, consisting of a mixture of native and introduced species. We read Jack London to learn about San Francisco Bay at the turn of the century. After a visit to the San Francisco Maritime Museum and a night in San Francisco, we head for the University of California's Bodega Marine Laboratory (BML), 60 miles north of the city. From BML we expand west to explore the Point Reyes National Seashore and oyster farms of Tomales Bay, and go as far north as Fort Ross, a Russian fur and hide settlement of the early 19th century.

In the spring semester we travel to the Pacific Northwest, focusing on the Oregon and Washington coasts. We fly to Seattle and spend the first two nights along Elliott Bay, with a clear view of the mountain ranges meeting the waterfront. To examine the complexity of West Coast fisheries management issues, we visit Fishermen's Terminal, home of America's largest fishing fleet. We travel to the Port of Tacoma to see one of the most efficient container ship ports in the country, and head up the Columbia River to the Bonneville Dam, near Portland. Traveling out to Astoria, Oregon, we bunk aboard the Lightship Columbia, at the Columbia River Maritime Museum. We stand where Lewis and Clark first saw the Pacific in 1805. We discuss science, policy and environmental issues relative to the pivotal Columbia River Basin. We then proceed down the coast, stopping at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. We examine coastal sites along the vast Oregon Island Refuge system. Our host facility, the University of Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, is located in the Dungeness crab and salmon fishing village of Charleston, on the shores of Southern Oregon's Coos Bay. From this base we continue to explore the history, science and policy of the Pacific Northwest, as we visit the striking South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, the Oregon Dunes National Seashore and the magnificent intertidal rocky reefs of purple sea urchins and green sea anemones at Cape Arago, where thousands of California sea lions are wintering at the time of our visit. Aboard the vessel Betty Kay, we experience Coos Bay and the mighty Pacific, providing direct comparisons to our explorations of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.