In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • The 1940 Ricketts-Steinbeck Sea of Cortez Expedition, with Annotated Lists of Species and Collection Sites
  • Richard C. Brusca (bio)

The tide teaches us to live with mystery and complexity. It lives in the body of a mud shrimp, signaling when to swim and when to burrow. It lives in sandpipers, crabs, and whelks. It lives in the spirit of bores, in the prayers of monks. The tide is vibration, music, time.

—Jonathan White, Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean

Introduction

In March of 1940, modern marine ecology in the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California) was born with the pioneering expedition of Edward (Ed) F. Ricketts and John Steinbeck aboard the Western Flyer, a sardine seiner out of Monterey, California. Although earlier biologists had visited the area, none had done so using an ecological, or “holistic,” approach and none had done so with the intent of undertaking a broad faunal survey (Brusca 2018a). This was the first expedition to catalog the littoral/ intertidal fauna of the Gulf of California. As Ricketts wrote in a letter to Steinbeck in 1941, “It seems gratifying to reflect on the fact that we, unsupported and unaided, seem to have taken more species, in greater number, and better preserved, than expeditions more pretentious and endowed” (Ricketts 1941). That assessment was probably accurate.

The science and philosophy of that voyage are eloquently chronicled in their 1941 book, Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research. Initially, they discussed exploring the region by car, but soon realized that the inaccessibility by land of most coastal sites on the Baja [End Page 218] California Peninsula demanded they charter a boat for the work. Thus, using funds from Steinbeck’s successful early writing career, he and Ricketts chartered the Western Flyer for the 6-week expedition. The expedition’s northernmost collecting sites were in the Midriff Islands, at Puerto Refugio on Isla Ángel de la Guarda, and at “Red Bluff Point” on Isla Tiburón. Thus, they barely “touched down” in the Northern Gulf and did not explore the biodiversity-rich coastlines of northeastern Baja California or northern Sonora. Their southernmost site on the Baja California Peninsula was Cabo San Lucas (at the tip of the peninsula), and on the mainland coast it was the Bahía Agiabampo coastal lagoon complex (on the Sonora-Sinaloa border). Although Isla Tiburón is part of the Comcaac/Seri Indian Territory, there is no evidence that Steinbeck or Ricketts had any actual encounters with the Comcaac People. The vast majority of Comcaac today reside on their communal property in the towns of Punta Chueca and El Desemboque, just north of Bahía Kino. But in the past they traded at least as far north as Puerto Peñasco and Bahía Adair, in the Upper Gulf (Mitchell et al. 2020).

Members of the expedition were Ed Ricketts, John Steinbeck, Carol Henning (Steinbeck’s first of three wives), Anthony (Tony) Berry (captain), Sparky Enea (seaman and Captain Berry’s brother-in-law), “Tiny” Colleto (seaman), and Hall (Tex) Travis (engineer). Steinbeck paid Captain Berry $2,500 for the 6-week charter (for the fascinating backstory on the Western Flyer, and the deal between Steinbeck and Berry, see Bailey 2015). The agreement was that Ricketts would reimburse Steinbeck one-half the charter price from royalties on their book once it was published, but there seems to be no evidence that ever happened. There is no doubt, however, that Ricketts saw the expedition as an opportunity to acquire specimens for sale through his Pacific Biological Laboratories, and he apparently made as much as $12,000 by doing so (Bailey 2015). However, none of this was mentioned in their 1941 book.

The landmark Ricketts-Steinbeck voyage to the Sea of Cortez, and the book it spawned, had a profound impact on the lives of the two men and on the American environmental consciousness (see Astro and Hayashi 1971; Astro 1973, 1995; Hedgpeth 1978a,b; Brusca 1993, 2018a; Beegel et al. 1997; Enea and Lynch 1991; Rodger 2002, 2006; Tamm 2004; Brusca 2004; Lannoo 2010; Bailey 2015; Hannibal 2016). In addition, it brought a new awareness of the Gulf of California...

pdf