Edmund Augustus Porcher was the captain of a Royal Navy vessel serving an Esquimalt-based tour of duty on Vancouver Island. Porcher was also a watercolor artist who made an impressive array of sensitive and skillfully executed paintings of what he saw. A Tour Of Duty In The Pacific Northwest: E. A. Porcher and H.M.S. Sparrowhawk, 1865-1868 is an impressive and uniquely informative work drawn from the ship's record and Captain Porcher's commentaries, enhanced with his superb paintings and illustrations presenting the reader with a kind of "window in time" to understand and feel what it was like in those times and places along Canada's Pacific coasts, as well as the complex and multifaceted roles and functions of a British war vessel. A Tour Of Duty In The Pacific Northwest is a unique and highly recommended contribution that will be greatly appreciated by students of maritime, and Canadian nineteenth century history.