TouchWood Editions
Biography/Travel
978-1-894898-68-3 / 1-894898-68-0
5.5" x 7.5" 192 pages
black and white photos throughout
$19.95 paperback available April 2008

Following the Curve of Time
The Legendary M. Wylie Blanchet
Cathy Converse

Who was this skipper, this mother, this writer? These are the questions that motivated Cathy Converse to re-trace the route of famous pacific seafarer M. Wylie "Capi" Blanchet, and write this biography in the process. Widowed in 1926, Blanchet cruised the coast with her five children and their dog in a 25-foot boat that had been rescued from the seafloor. The Curve of Time, her resulting book, remains a bestseller and a classic in the annals of nautical literature, but little is known about the rest of Blanchet's life. Converse offers insiders' recollections of this enigmatic woman, along with updated information about the villages, inlets and islands described in Curve, making Following the Curve of Time essential reading for anyone who has ever been captivated by the West Coast or Capi herself. 

Cathy Converse is the author of Mainstays: Women Who Shaped BC, co-author of The Remarkable World of Frances Barkley 1769-1845, and co-editor of In Her Own Right: Selected Essays on the History of Women in BC. A founder of Women's Studies curricula and ancillary programs at Camosun College, she is also a former department chair, instructor and frequent public speaker. Much like her subject, Converse is most at peace on the water.