A local man is using technology for walks back in time in historic La Conner.

Adam McGarity has developed a 45-minute audio tour of early La Conner history that highlights eight key locations covering about a half-mile distance between the downtown business district and the Civic Garden Club building on Second Street.

McGarity, who holds a history degree from Mercer University, in Macon, Ga., gave La Conner Town Councilmembers and other residents a preview of the tour Saturday afternoon.

The “time-based storytelling” project has drawn positive responses thus far. Mayor Ramon Hayes has called the tour “absolutely fabulous,” and teamed with Town Hall Office Assistant Danielle Freiberger to schedule McGarity’s weekend trial run.

The tour, which officially launched March 1, focuses on La Conner’s early development in the 1860s and 1870s.

“When you walk around La Conner,” says McGarity, “you can feel the history here. The trouble is, with hindsight, we see many slices of history from many time periods, all muddled together. But history happened a little bit at a time. Plus, so many interesting and important features of history aren’t represented in our old buildings and historical placards.

“You have to dig deeper,” he stresses, “and focus to get a more complete picture of the past.”

McGarity, a member of the La Conner Rotary Club, has certainly done his part, having made an intense study of local history a priority during down time imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Last fall, with COVID time on my hands, I started reading about local history and quickly saw that we have a fascinating past here in La Conner,” McGarity told the Weekly News. “I kind of knew it already from my visits to the museum on the hill, but now I had time to really dive deep. There are hidden layers of history all around us and I wanted to understand them better.”

His research followed an arc ranging from ancient Coast Salish tribes to early European-American and Chinese settlers.

“I wanted to understand the ways they lived and interacted with each other, the ways they depended on and changed the landscape and how they connected with American society at large,” says McGarity.

To do so, he read several titles published by the Skagit County Historical Society available here at the museum and Seaport Books, as well as outside sources.

“I spent a good deal of time,” McGarity says, “combing through old newspapers that are preserved digitally.”

The result is an audio tour with stops along Swinomish Channel and at the Maple Center Plaza Spirit Wheel, Magnus Anderson Cabin, Dugout Canoe display and various buildings in the Town’s Historic Preservation District.

Those taking the tour install the “Echoes Interactive Sound Walks” app on their cell devices and listen through headphones.

“The tour has story-telling and rich sound effects and music to make you feel and imagine the time,” says McGarity.

“I really want participants on this tour to imagine and feel the stories of people and places from a narrow time period,” he adds. “I do that by trying to highlight rich details of the time period – thoughts, feelings, events, scenes, relationships, perspectives, smells and, of course, sounds.”

McGarity is more than happy to share knowledge of La Conner, his and wife Nicky’s adopted hometown.

The couple moved to town in 2018 after three years in Seattle, where he was program manager for the World Language Department at City University and she was – and remains – a business professor at Shoreline Community College. Frequent visits to La Conner sold them on making a home here.

“We’ve been happy with our decision ever since,” he says.

Once here, McGarity was eager to delve into La Conner history.

“Personally,” says McGarity, “I dive into learning better when I’m actively building something with my new knowledge, so I decided to put together an audio tour.”

McGarity is hopeful the tour can help people make important connections and not see history as merely a collection of facts.

“More than anything,” he says, “I want people to feel genuinely interested and curious about our corner of the world and how it came to be. I want people to ask questions, maybe find a few answers and spark their imagination for a real world that was quite different from our own, but foundational to our community nowadays.”