Astoria instructor finds links between diverse cultures for boat graves, burials at sea

Julie Brown is an English and humanities instructor at Clatsop Community College in Astoria. One of the most popular courses she teaches is on maritime culture, which takes students out of the classroom and onto the decks of ships to see firsthand what life is like working as a bar pilot on the Columbia River or as a deckhand on the Lady Washington, an exact replica of an 18th-century, 90-foot-tall ship that was the first recorded vessel to sail to the Oregon coast. Eight years ago, a former student encouraged Brown to train to work as a deckhand aboard the Lady Washington, which she did for two years, traveling from British Columbia to San Diego, while juggling her teaching duties. The Astorian recently previewed a lecture Brown gave to a packed audience on how cultures as diverse as Vikings and Chinook Indians used boats to bury their dead at sea or on land. Brown joins us to talk about these ancient practices, and how her love for writing, literature and maritime history has taken her from the halls of Oxford to the bars of Astoria.