El Western Flyer community is filled with people who have been hooked on John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts for years, often decades. We suspect many of you recognize yourselves in that description.
There is something remarkable about the staying power of their ideas. More than 85 years after Steinbeck and Ricketts climbed aboard the Western Flyer and set off for the Sea of Cortez, their core questions still feel surprisingly relevant: How are we connected to the natural world? What happens when we disturb one part of an ecosystem? How do we balance curiosity, science, and our impulse to control nature? And what happens when our technology starts taking on a stubborn life of its own? (We’re looking at you, Sea-Cow.)
This season, Steinbeck’s California is reaching a much larger, and likely much younger, audience with Netflix’s new adaptation of East of Eden. For many viewers, this sweeping saga rooted in the Salinas Valley will be their first real encounter with Steinbeck, and we are thrilled about where that spark might lead.
East of Eden is a doorway into a much larger world.
Follow Steinbeck west from the Salinas Valley toward Monterey Bay and you eventually encounter Ed Ricketts, the tidepools and intertidal life that fascinated them both, the small laboratory on Cannery Row where writers and artists gathered, and, ultimately, a 77-foot sardine fishing boat called the Western Flyer.
When Steinbeck and Ricketts chartered the boat in 1940 for their six-week expedition to the Gulf of California, what emerged was far more than a research log. Mar de Cortés moves freely among marine biology, philosophy, human behavior, humor, and adventure.
Hoy en día, el Western Flyer is back home on Monterey Bay, carrying students and scientists instead of sardines, equipped with scientific tools and technologies Steinbeck and Ricketts could scarcely have imagined. Yet the core work remains remarkably familiar: go out, look closely, ask questions, and try to understand the ocean as a living whole.
So we’ll be tuning in to East of Eden alongside everyone else, and keeping an eye out for the curious minds who watch it and want to know what lies farther down the coast.
Maybe they’ll pick up Steinbeck for the first time. Maybe they’ll drive through the Salinas Valley and see the landscape with fresh eyes. Maybe they’ll make their way to Monterey, discover Ed Ricketts, and read El tronco del Mar de Cortés.
And maybe, eventually, they’ll find their way to the Western Flyer.
We can’t wait to welcome them aboard.
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