By now, almost everyone knows something about Dune, but did you know that Dune‘s author was born just south of Seattle on October 8, 1920, in the blue-collar city of Tacoma? Here are some enjoyable things to know about, or explore in, this neighbor of Seattle—including a way the city honors one of its most famous former residents, Frank Herbert.
Also known as “Grit City,” Tacoma’s name comes from the Puyallup Tribe, whose reservation encompasses much of the Port of Tacoma and part of the city itself. The area’s Indigenous communities have many names for the stratovolcano that the colonizers named Mount Rainier, one of which sounds like “Tacoma,” hence the name of the city. The Lushootseed word taqʷuʔmaʔ is often pronounced by non-Lushootseed speakers as “Tahoma” and is one of the two names suggested in the Tribe’s bid to change the federal government’s name for their mountain. Many non-Indigenous Tacomans call the mountain Tahoma out of respect for the peak itself and the ancestral caretakers of the land on which they live.
Tacoma is home to the LeMay car museum and the Museum of Glass. Near the Museum of Glass is the Chihuly Bridge of Glass, a 500-foot-long pedestrian bridge featuring three large glass installations and over 100 smaller works of glass art by Dale Chihuly, a Tacoma-born luminary. The bridge is free and open to the public 24/7 and has a great view of Tahoma’s majesty on clear days, as well as the hustle and bustle of the busy Port of Tacoma. The Port wraps around Commencement Bay, and west of the bay is Point Defiance Park and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the abode of the legendary “kraken” that Seattle’s hockey team is named after. The “kraken” in question was eventually identified as the giant Pacific octopus, a species that can be found all over Puget Sound, although underneath the Narrows Bridge is a hot spot for this cryptid-adjacent mollusk. It is recommended to limit one’s experience of the Tacoma Narrows kraken to the joy of knowledge, rather than that of personal exploration.
Point Defiance Park, on the other hand, is perfectly suited for enjoyment that comes from personal exploration. The park is home to a handful of attractions, like the Point Defiance Zoo and, most notably for readers of the Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow blog, Dune Peninsula. Park visitors are often delighted to see one of Puget Sound’s many orca pods in the waters offshore. Starting with the Wilson Way pedestrian bridge, the Frank Herbert Trail runs for just over a mile to and around the 11-acre Dune Peninsula. The paved trail is an easy walk bordered by embedded medallions containing quotes from Frank Herbert and Dune. Visitors to Dune Peninsula can also enjoy two large Dune-inspired metal sculptures: Alluvion by Adam Kuby and Little Makers by Nichole Rathburn.
Should you find yourself with an extra day or two in Seattle before or after the Worldcon, consider taking a quick day trip down to Tacoma, which is linked to Seattle by public transportation. A stop at Tacoma Dome Station puts you within walking distance of the LeMay, the Museum of Glass, and the Bridge of Glass. From there, a bus can take you to Point Defiance Park for the start of your scenic adventure down the Frank Herbert Trail.
[Author’s / Editor’s Note: For more information about Frank Herbert’s life and works, I strongly recommend Brian Herbert’s Dreamer of Dune: The Biography of Frank Herbert (Tor, 2004).]
BE Allatt is an independent scholar, author, occasional film crew member, and freelance editor and proofreader who regularly contracts for a hybrid press. They hold an M.A. in Literature with a concentration in science fiction studies from Texas State University, which they earned by writing a thesis on Frank Herbert’s Dune. BE introduced the social sciences concept of mononormativity as a critical lens through which to view SFF in a chapter in the critical anthology Exploring the Fantastic: Genre, Ideology, and Popular Culture (eds. Batzke et al.), and BE’s academic track presentation on Heinleinian Non-Monogamies at the San Jose Worldcon was awarded a prize by The Heinlein Society. Currently, BE serves as Public Information Officer for the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA) and as Lead Editor for Seattle Worldcon, as well as Editor-in-Chief for the Worldcon’s Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow blog. Most importantly, at least as far as the cat is concerned, BE is a dedicated servant to a bossy tuxedo cat named Eimear.