Robert "Roy" van de Hoek,
Director-Naturalist

In my ongoing eclectic research into Catalina Island geography and nature I recently discovered an article written about Catalina over 100 years ago. And, as it turns out, this article was in a book edited by the legendary naturalist named John Muir. Muir's book was entitled West of the Rocky Mountains published in 1888. The author of this article, J. Ivey, wrote 10 pages on the natural areas of southern California. One page of this article was dedicated to Catalina Island and included a painting by J. Ivey. It is the quote accompanying the painting that grabbed my attention because of its poetic description of the landscape and seascape of Catalina Island. I hope you enjoy the quote as much as I do. Here it is:

"On no portion of the Pacific Coast is color and beauty in rock and in water so rampant as at Catalina. Caves, fissures and precipices offer endless sources of interest and admiration to those who leisurely pull around its coast, while the sea is a thing of enchantment. In corners under the cliffs it trembles like emeralds liquefied. Its moving wave masses reflect a color seen nowhere else, except on the shores of the Western Atlantic, while to look over your boat as it floats in some almost motionless recess of a cliff is to receive a revelation of beauty; for through more than ten fathoms of water your vision of rock or of fish is as clear as though it were the surface."

In the future I hope to find more interesting historical landscape passages to share with you. Does anybody out there know more about J. Ivey and where his original painting of Catalina is located or if it still exists? Also, does anybody know if John Muir ever visited Catalina or any of the other Channel Islands? Please email me if you have any information. Thanks.- Robert "Roy" van de Hoek.

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