The Sound of Sea Otters: Nootka Sound and the Maritime Fur Trade
By Margaret E. Calloway
Length3h 41m
About this audiobook
Six canoes leave Yuquot at a dawn the color of cold iron. In the bow of the first kneels a harpooner who has fasted, bathed in cold water and scrubbed his skin raw with hemlock, because the right to that place in the canoe came with his family's name and a whale is never taken lightly. His weapon is a yew shaft as long as two tall men, tipped with ground mussel shell. Behind him ride the sealskin floats that will drag at a gray whale until it tires.
This was the Nuu-chah-nulth coast, the west side of what is now Vancouver Island, where the Mowachaht, Ahousaht, Hesquiaht, Tla-o-qui-aht and their neighbors each held their own chiefs, territories and rights to fishing and whaling grounds. In 1778 Captain James Cook's ships anchored in Nootka Sound, and the sea otter pelts his crews traded for later sold in Canton for sums that sent other captains racing back.
They came to bargain with Maquinna, the Mowachaht chief at Yuquot, and a decade after Cook his harbor brought Spain and Britain to the edge of war in the Nootka Crisis of 1789-1790. The narrative runs from that crisis through the conventions and the Spanish withdrawal to 1803, when Maquinna's people seized the American trading ship Boston, killed all but two of her crew, and held her armorer, John Jewitt, captive for more than two years. It ends with the long struggle for land, and with Yuquot today.
Cook's men had come for furs. They found a coast where every beach, channel and whaling ground already belonged to someone.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory
Length3 hrs 41 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 19, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1: The Whale Road
2Chapter 2: A World Made of Cedar
3Chapter 3: The Ships That Came for the Sky
4Chapter 4: The Sea Otter Road to Canton
5Chapter 5: Maquinna of Yuquot
Mostrar todos os capítulosVer menos
6Chapter 6: The Nootka Crisis, 1789-1790
7Chapter 7: The Convention and the Withdrawal
8Chapter 8: The Boston and the Breaking of the Peace
9Chapter 9: Jewitt's Years
10Chapter 10: Fort and Famine
11Chapter 11: The Long Struggle for Land
12Chapter 12: Yuquot, Present Day
13About the Author
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 (Annotated)Alexis de Tocqueville17h 25m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
All the Gallant MenDonald Stratton, Ken Gire5h 55m4.6 (11.8K)$24 · $0.00
Saint Joan (Annotated)George Bernard Shaw6h 20m4.6 (1.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
Medgar and MyrlieJoy-Ann Reid10h 52m4.5 (27.8K)$29 · $0.00
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Annotated)Thucydides24h 3m4.6 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
Where the Birds Never SingJack Sacco10h 31m4.6 (3.8K)$29 · $0.00
Serviceman J: The Untold Story of an NZSAS SoldierJamie Pennell5h 51m4.6 (452)$24 · $0.00
You may also like
Our Southern HighlandersHorace Kephart9h 42m4.2 (1.1K)$1.50 · $0.00
The Aran IslandsJohn Millington Synge5h 21m4.0 (1.7K)$0.60 · $0.00
The Aran IslandsJ. M. Synge4h 53m4.0 (1.6K)$1 · $0.00
The Last Fish TaleMark Kurlansky6h 20m4.0 (1.2K)$14
The Burgess Animal Book for ChildrenThornton W. Burgess7h 57m4.4 (2.9K)$2.30
In a French KitchenSusan Herrmann Loomis8h 57m4.0 (1.1K)$20
The Lakota WayJoseph M. Marshall III8h 46m4.5 (4.9K)$20
FrostlinesNeil Shea6h 8m4.2 (544)$24 · $0.00
The Just So Stories for Little Children (Illustrated Edition) (Annotated)Rudyard Kipling4h 54m4.2 (65.2K)$1.99 · $0.00
The Ice Whale People: Inupiat Whalers of Arctic AlaskaMargaret Ashland Kearney4h 42m$6
Change in the VillageGeorge Sturt8h 30m3.8 (17)$1 · $0.00
The IowaThomas of Washington D.C. Foster2h 33m$2 · $0.00
Kiwi Country: Rural New Zealand in 100 objectsTe Radar, Ruth Spencer8h 58m$29 · $0.00
Mediterranean Food Delicious Village Style RecipesJideon F Marques4h 1m$13 · $0.00
Ice Fishing in St. LaurentGisèle Reynolds3m$6.50 · $0.00
Between the Mountains and the Plains: The Jicarilla Apache StoryDaniel R. Whitlock4h 13m$6
The Hopi Indians (Annotated)Walter Hough7h 3m4.3 (16)$2 · $0.00
The life of the Aborigines in AustraliaKidsChoice55m$12 · $0.00
The Seminole Indians of FloridaClay MacCauley2h 45m4.1 (35)$1 · $0.00
The Native Races of British North AmericaWilfrid D. Hambly1h 22m$2.30