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To our new readers, welcome to Cascadia Daily!
We’ve had a big surge in new readers here at Cascadia Daily in the past month and just want to take a moment to say thanks to those of you who recently signed up! You’ve found the Pacific Northwest’s tastiest selection of news, culture, and thought-provoking writing.
Each weekday, we hand-pick an assortment of stories relevant to life in the Cascadia bioregion stretching from northern California to southeast Alaska, and east from the Pacific to the Continental Divide. In each newsletter you’ll find a selection of links to news, environmental reporting, arts coverage, essays, fiction, and poetry — spanning the wide diversity of cultures and people in Cascadia.
This newsletter is part of a larger project, the nonprofit online publication Cascadia Magazine, a home for long-form journalism, arts profiles, environmental reporting, fiction, poetry, essays, and photography from across the Pacific Northwest. .
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Cascadia Magazine original: “Sea Star” by Fiona Tinwei Lam
The sunflower sea stars found on the coast of Cascadia are being threatened by a disease that’s decimating populations. In her poem “Sea Star,” now online at Cascadia Magazine, Vancouver poeet Fiona Tinwei Lam alludes to this crisis and her personal reaction to it:
“…Galaxies/of your sunflower kin dissolving/ on reefs from Alaska to Mexico.”
Read the full poem plus “Ode to a Crow,” online here.
Death rates climb in Oregon & Washington’s jails
OPB, KUOW, and Northwest News Network have teamed up to do some blockbuster investigative reporting about rising death rates in WA and OR’s jails. Poor tracking of data and lax statewide standards have hidden a growing crisis. The rate has gone from 123 per 100K to over 162 per 100K in ten years, and will likely spiked to 200 in 2018. “If we were seeing the numbers published of how many people are dying on a county-by-county basis, many more people would stand up and say it’s not acceptable.”
The data guru of Vancouver’s zany housing market
The Tyee profiles Andy Yan, an urban planner who coined the phrase “hedge city” and exposed the crisis in absentee owners of condos in Vancouver. Yan is a sharp, funny guy with a quote for every aspect of the housing crisis: “It seems that being able to choose the right parents is the shortest path to home ownership in the city of Vancouver.” In related news, the Georgia Straight reports that the BC government is proposing to make corporate investment in real estate more transparent. And be sure to check out the Upzones podcast’s interview with Seattle housing activist Laura Loe and Ethan P. Goodman of Seattle Tech 4 Housing. And Portland Mercury looks at several tenant rights reforms the Portland city council is considering, including making it more difficult for landlords to refuse renters using federal housing vouchers.
Wildfire season has started early in Cascadia
Crosscut reports that 51 wildfires started burning in Western Washington in March, which should normally be too wet to burn. Early wildfires have also sparked in interior British Columbia, Global News notes, and in western Oregon, a fire in the North Sanitam recreation area in mid-March cost over $300,000 to fight. The Inlander reports that in response to last year’s intense fire season, the Washington commissioner of public lands is asking for a huge, $62 million boost in state spending for firefighting and forest health.
Why we need Bigfoot
Laura Krantz, writing for High Country News, talks about her obsession with the Bigfoot myth, and why she’s been podcasting, interviewing and writing about people fascinated with the Sasquatch. And The Oregonian has a cool article on a Cascadia mythical creature you’ve probably never heard of: Colossal Claude, a huge sea monster reportedly spotted at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1934.
Shortlist for BC Book Awards announced
Okay, we’re a little slow on this one, but last month, the nominees for the BC Book awards were announced, and the list includes authors Eden Robinson (Trickster Drift), Lindsay Wong (The Woo-Woo), Sarah Cox (Breaching the Peace), and poet Shazia Hafiz Ramji, (Port of Being). Ramji inadvertently stirred up a small controversy on Twitter when she made an appeal for money to pay for the entry ticket to the award ceremony (her publisher later decided pay and the BC Book Awards are now reviewing their policy of charging nominated authors).
An interview with photographer Lauren Ray
SAD Magazine has an interview with Vancouver-based photographer Lauren Ray, who hauls her camera everywhere she goes and seeks to capture magical moments in mundane, everyday life. “I’d rather shoot on an $8 camera held together with duct tape than a Hasselblad or something.” Ray is speaking tonight (April 4) as part of the Capture Photography Festival happening at venues all over the greater Vancouver area through the end of April. Find out more about Lauren Ray’s work at her website.
That’s today’s assortment of news, arts & culture from all across the Cascadia bioregion. Have a great evening! –Andrew Engelson
Photo credit: abandoned car courtesy of Lauren Ray