As technical and demanding as a day of boating might be, it requires
very little historical knowledge to be enjoyed. Fishermen denote
the passing of years in the movement of hot spots, and long-range
cruisers might pass by a memorable anchorage and bemoan how
much it has changed for the worse in the ensuing decade—but that
is a very diff erent kind of history. What I’m referring to is cruising
to uncover a shared or forgotten past, to explore a new place with an
open and inquisitive mind. Th at kind of cruising tends to deepen the
experience in my opinion, adding a magnetism not easily ignored.
I’ll be the fi rst to admit that you don’t need any more context than
a heavy hand on the throttle and an open chartplotter to appreciate
sunshine and a little sea spray on your face. Th en again, you wouldn’t
travel to Elba without knowing who was exiled there, or explore
Antarctica without at least acknowledging Shackleton’s ill-fated
expedition.
Blake Island is another one of those places—the kind that enriches
the curious traveler. Due west of Seattle, approximately 15 miles from
downtown but practically a world away, lies the island in the middle
of Puget Sound. On a clear day, standing on the island’s easternmost
shore, you can barely make out the city’s skyline: a distant reminder
of civilization. No roads or bridges connect this place to the outside
world, and if you didn’t know of its treasure, you could cruise right
past and be none the wiser. A tangle of well-worn trails crisscross
the island’s 476-acre state park, but the majority of its visitors—over
100,000 people a year—travel here explicitly to enjoy a salad bar and
sit in a darkened longhouse for fi ve hours, before piling back into
a ferry. For some tourists, this will be the culmination of their trip.
Tillicum Village is a Seattle tourist destination much in the same
way the Space Needle is, albeit with one major caveat. Owned and
operated by Argosy Cruises, the Tillicum Excursion (as it has come
to be known) is imperative in keeping the traditions of the First
Nations of the Pacifi c Northwest from slipping into obscurity—or
worse, undermined by a half-baked superfi ciality, like a knockoff
totem purchased at a tchotchke shop. A rare blend of digital and
analog storytelling and masked performances celebrate the distinct
cultures of a fi ercely independent maritime people. Th e longhouse
awaits guests on an exposed hillside surrounded by a dense thicket of
conifers. Large, weathered totem poles stand like sentries around the
property. Inside the longhouse—a replica, mind you, with an obliga-
tory gift shop—spirits move across a massive projection screen, the
largest of its kind in the world, save for a similar one in Las Vegas.
Incongruous? Maybe. And yet the Tillicum Excursion is primarily
aimed at educating kids, and the uninformed, who sometimes mar-
vel at the fact that there are populations of Native Americans still
alive in the U.S.
I was invited by Argosy Cruises and Inventech Marine Solutions
(IMS), the manufacturers of Life Proof Boats, to get a taste of the
Tillicum Excursion and the daily commute of its staff , who will soon
be taking one of Life Proof ’s hard-nosed utility vessels to work every
day across Puget Sound. (IMS is an R&D facility that founded Life
Proof Boats in 2015.) Th is was a nice alternative to the ferry, which
can accommodate 300 people, but is no match for the speed and
comfort of the vaguely militaristic, foam-collared Life Proof Boats
that are built in Seattle’s backyard of Bremerton, Washington.
Departing from the city’s seaport, the Life Proof 31 GT skims across
the water, its deep-V aluminum hull and twin 300-hp Yamahas mak-
ing short work of our journey. I look down at the chartplotter, which54