34 SMITHSONIAN.COM | September 2019
terested.” In the essay “About Ed Ricketts,” which is
included in The Log from the Sea of Cortez, Steinbeck
joked, “If he could have found a woman who was not
only married, but a mother, in prison, and one of Si-
amese twins, he would have been delighted.” Among
his eccentricities was a phobia of getting his head wet.
He waded happily in tide pools up to his chest, but a
single raindrop on his head would throw him into a
panic, so he wore waterproof hats.
Despite his vast daily intake of beer, Ricketts
worked long hours in the lab with great precision,
wrote extensively, and devoured scientifi c mono-
graphs and other challenging books. “His mind was
kaleidoscopic,” says Shillinglaw. “He was into Jung-
ian psychology, Nietzsche, Chinese poetry, medieval
music, classical music. He corresponded with scien-
tists all over the world, and he was friends with all
the bums and prostitutes on Cannery Row.” On the
walls of this room, Ricketts hung yards and yards of
graph paper with colored lines tracing the musical
and artistic achievements in China, Western Europe,
Greece, Rome and Egypt. The lines illustrated his
theory that culture advances in sudden dramatic
jumps followed by long plateaus.
Steinbeck, as a young, struggling, fi ercely dedi-
cated writer, met Ricketts in 1930, and they became
friends and encouragers of each other’s work. In
1939, the same year Steinbeck published The Grapes
of Wrath, Ricketts came out of obscurity with Be-
tween Pacifi c Tides, a seminal work of marine biol-
ogy still taught today. Instead of grouping creatures
taxonomically, he grouped them by habitats and
examined them as communities—an early break-
through in ecological thinking.
IN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY of 1940, the two men,
and Steinbeck’s fi rst wife, Carol, rushed to organize
the expedition to Baja California. Originally con-
ceived as a car trip, it had morphed into a 4,000-mile
sea journey, with at least 25 stops planned for col-
lecting marine invertebrates. None of the local boat
owners would charter them a vessel for such a ridic-
ulous-sounding project, but along came the Western
Flyer, sailing into Monterey Bay with captain Tony
Berry at the helm. He had done a scientifi c research
trip in Alaska between fi shing runs, and found it
easy enough, so he agreed to a six-week charter.
They loaded up the Flyer with equipment, books,
food, wine and other supplies. After a massive fare-
well party at the Monterey dock, they fi red up the
engine and chugged away down the California coast.
You wouldn’t know it from reading The Log, but in
addition to Ed Ricketts, Tony Berry and the three-
man crew, Carol Steinbeck was onboard with her
husband. Susan Shillinglaw, who wrote a fascinating
Near Santa
Rosalía, Baja
California Sur.
Steinbeck and
Ricketts an-
chored at barrier
islands, using
long-handled
dip nets to col-
lect creatures.