Originally published in Coastwatch magazine, the 22 essays in A Historian's Coast combine history, ecology, and a homegrown curiosity about the coastal past. Most of them center around a rare travel journal, a long-forgotten book, or a lost diary, excerpts of which are included. But perhaps adventures is a more apt description than essays. In an effort to make musty archives come alive, Cecelski gets in his boat and explores coastal places to see how they have changed since those long-ago days. Maybe you have seen him. "I am the one in the small boat paddling into the swamp and, as always, into the past," he says.