Exploring the Salish Sea

Exploring The Salish Sea with the Pen & Ink drawings of Margy Gates. This work celebrates the unique and rich beauty of the Salish Sea and its environs. It depicts fauna and flora iconic to the area, as well as plants and animals seen only infrequently. The artist is not Coast Salish, but her depictions of native arts and crafts attempt to interpret the spirit of the tribal and First Nations artists’ and artisans’ creations. The Salish Sea (SAY-lish) is a designation for the inland sea of Washington State in the United States and its neighbor to the north, the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the Northwest Coast of North America. The term Salish honors the Coast Salish peoples who lived in the area long before the arrival of European and American explorers and settlers. To describe the beauties of this region, will, on some future occasion, be a very grateful task to the pen of a skillful panegyrist. The serenity of the climate, the innumerable pleasing landscapes, and the abundant fertility that unassisted nature puts forth, require only to be enriched by the industry of man with villages, mansions, cottages, and other buildings, to render it the most lovely country that can be imagined. -George Vancouver, 1792