The Curve of Time: Readings by Heather Henderson

Friday, July 17th at 6pm.

Join audiobook narrator, Heather Henderson, for live readings from The Curve of Time, by M. Wilie Blanchet on Friday, July 17th at 6pm. This historical Pacific Northwest maritime memoir follows Blanchet’s trips she took with her children in the 1920s-1930s in a 25-foot cabin cruiser, Caprice. Heather has won national awards as a voice actress and has narrated hundreds of commercials and over one hundred audiobooks. The Curve of Time is a classic of regional literature and is perfect for the setting of the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center’s Doerfler Family Theater which overlooks Yaquina Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

Heather Henderson is an award-winning voice actress, writer and researcher. After graduating from the University of Oregon and then earning a Master’s in English at the University of Washington, she entered the Yale School of Drama for four years, earning her Doctorate of Fine Arts degree in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism. She spent her early career working as a publicist, dramaturg, and arts journalist. Her features, reviews and poems have appeared in newspapers and magazines on both coasts; her dramaturgy credits include the 1987 Broadway world premiere of August Wilson’s Fences.


Excerpted from Heather’s blog post about the book (https://heatherannehenderson.com/2014/07/04/a-narrators-joy-the-curve-of-time/):

“. . . Both her writing and the places she writes about are magical. I’ve been captivated by this book since the first time I read it many years ago. . . .


. . . just as extraordinary is the woman herself: eloquent, witty, tough, sensitive, sensible, and intrepid. Born in Montréal in 1892, Muriel Wylie Liffiton grew up in a well-to-do family; she attended private school and excelled as a scholar and a rower. She married early, at the age of 18, and shortly afterward she and her husband Geoffrey Blanchet moved to Vancouver Island, settling into a cottage at Curteis Point on the then-remote Saanich Peninsula north of Victoria. They bought a boat – the 25-foot cabin cruiser Caprice – and began to enjoy family outings in it around the shorelines and islands near their home.


In 1926, Geoffrey took Caprice out on a solo camping trip and didn’t return. The boat was found empty, and his body was never recovered . . .


This left Capi a young widow with five children to raise on little more than her own wits and financial creativity. She began taking her children on summer-long sojourns on Caprice. She wrote essays about their trips and ultimately published them as a compilation, The Curve of Time, released just a few months before her death in 1961.

Ernest Bloch Music Symposium Returns

Saturday, July 11, 2:30pm at the PMHC

Ernest Bloch – Ambler Through the Redwoods, Agate Beach Rockhound. Annual Music Symposium.

The Lincoln County Historical Society’s Ernest Bloch Legacy Committee will present their annual summer Ernest Bloch Music Symposium at the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center in the Doerfler Family Theater. The program will be on Saturday, July 11, 2026 beginning at 2:30pm. This year’s program is titled “Ernest Bloch: Ambler through the Redwoods, Agate Beach Rockhound.”

Live musical selections of the famous composer’s chamber music will be performed by Shauna Keyes, principal violist of the Newport Symphony and Constance Jackson, Portland based pianist. Lucienne Allen, one of the Great granddaughters of Ernest Bloch, will be sharing interesting and fun stories about her great grandfather and the Bloch family. Alexander Knapp, renowned Bloch scholar and musicologist, will share insights about the composer’s music. The overall theme of the presentations will be Bloch’s well-known love of nature and his obsessive collecting and polishing of agates that he found below his home that was situated above Agate Beach in Newport.

A reception will follow with mushroom coffee served, in honor of Bloch’s famous hobby for foraging wild mushrooms. Admission is free.

From left to right: Ernest Bloch in 1956, Lucienne Allen, Shauna Keyes, Constance Jackson and Alexander Knapp.

4th of July Jamboree!

Join us at the PMHC for the 4th of July Jamboree! We’ll have live music, games, pie and ice cream, a silent auction, crafts, and, of course, the best place to watch fireworks in Newport! Click on the poster below to purchase tickets!

Maritime Library Ribbon Cutting

Join us at the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center for the opening of our new Maritime Library on Saturday, June 6th at 2pm! We partnered with the Oregon Coots to host their maritime collection and will feature a rich catalog of maritime related books, charts, and magazines for guests to enjoy and for members of the Lincoln County Historical Society and Oregon Coots to check out. Along with our library we have created more staff offices, an exhibit prep area, and additional storage, thanks in part to a grant by the Siletz Tribal Charitable Contribution Fund and private donations. This is a free event, light snacks and refreshments will be served, and visitors can tour our comprehensive exhibit galleries.

The Pacific Maritime Heritage Center’s Maritime Library was made possible by generous donations and grants by:

• Bob and Jerryann Olson
• Dan Van Calcar
• Joe Novello and the George Muhek Trust
• Oregon Coots
• The Port of Toledo
• The Siletz Tribal Charitable Contribution Fund

Thank you to the volunteers who helped construct this library:

• Bud Shoemake
• Dan Van Calcar
• LCHS Board of Directors and Building Committee
• Retired Old Guys Sailing Club
• Oregon Coots
• Rau Plumbing
• Reino Randall
• United States Coast Guard, Yaquina Bay

Western Flyer: From Fisheries to Science

Join the Western Flyer Foundation and the Lincoln County Historical Society for an evening of film and conversation featuring The Western Flyer with Nick Offerman and a panel on cooperative fisheries science with local scientists and fishermen at the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center at 5:30pm on Wednesday, May 20. Panel moderated by Jack Barth (Oregon State University). Follow the link below to purchase tickets.

CLICK HERE to purchase tickets!