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How an orca’s grief captivated the world
The story of an orca that gave birth to a stillborn calf in the Salish Sea near the San Juan Islands and who has been keeping her dead offspring afloat for eight days has touched people around the world. The Seattle Times reported yesterday that researchers had briefly lost track of Tahlequah (or J35, as she is also know) but then found she was still with her child and surrounding by other members of her pod. Orcas and other whales commonly express grief, and the sight of this whale and her vigil has drawn new attention to the southern resident pod. The group of just 75 orcas is critically endangered, its young are not finding enough food, and no calf has been born successfully among them in three years.
This week at Cascadia Magazine, we were honored to publish Paul Nelson’s poem “Elegy for Tahlequah’s Calf” expressing the sorrow and anger many of us feel watching Tahlequah and the decline of orcas in the waters of Washington and British Columbia. If you haven’t yet read this poem, please take a moment to experience it…
“She carried the dead calf 20 miles one day
in her teeth from time to time through the
full Ripe Thimbleberry Moon, through stage
one grief, denial. “We are going to be here
as long as necessary for her.”
Read the full poem online here.
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Cascadia wildfire updates
OPB reports that two large wildfires in southern Oregon, the Taylor Creek and Klondike, could merge if weather conditions don’t improve. The LA Times reports on the hellish conditions facing firefighters working the Carr fire in northern California, which has taken six lives and destroyed over 1,000 homes. Lightning sparked 130 wildfires in British Columbia this week. And in related news, coastal BC in now in a prolonged drought.
WA family forced to make agonizing decision over deportation
Nina Shapiro, writing for the Seattle Times, has a detailed and empathetic feature on a couple in Washington state — he’s Mexican, she’s American — and the agonizing decision they and their family have to make now that he’s being deported after living in the US for 34 years. In related news, Seattle Globalist reports on more than 18,000 Seattle immigrants caught in a citizenship backlog.
Shutting down encampments won’t end homelessness
Writing for the Tyee, Bernie Pauly and Marilou Gangon criticize recent efforts by local governments to seek injunctions to shut down homeless encampments near Nanaimo, BC and Victoria. Meanwhile, Real Change notes that people living in vehicles in Seattle are subject to eviction by police, and the city spent over $250,000 destroying confiscated vehicles. And Willamette Week reports on the explosion of Baby Boomers living the vanlife across Oregon, and likely their vehicles aren’t the ones being confiscated. Find out more about homeless people reduced to living in vehicles in a feature at Cascadia Magazine.
Density versus preservation in fight over Seattle theater
Much of Seattle was discussing the fate of the historic Showbox Theater this week, which is slated to be demolished and replaced with a 42-story apartment tower. Josh Feit stirred controversy with his claim that we can afford to be nostalgic about historic theaters only if we address the root causes of the housing crisis (zoning, zoning and. . . zoning). Lester Black argued at the Stranger that it’s a false choice between historic preservation and building more housing, longtime music journalist Charles Cross argues that saving the Showbox is saving what makes Seattle unique, and Knute Berger wonders if the landmark status process in Seattle is a sham. In other affordable housing news, the King County council rejected funding to improve the Seattle Mariner’s home field in favor of spending more money on affordable housing, and Grist has a video explaining why rising rents in places like Cascadia contribute to climate change.
Oregon Dungeness crab industry victim of climate change
OPB reports on how ocean acidification and warming waters off the coast of Oregon are negatively impacting Dungeness crab harvesting in Port Orford, Oregon — and how there aren’t many other options in this economically distressed community.
An ode to gritty Tacoma
Renee Simms, writing for City Arts, reflects on Tacoma, Washington — a city that’s for many years been the butt of jokes, but is home to a thriving, vibrant population. Moving there from Detroit, she loves the mix of old and new in this city: “How can we create an equitable arts scene where artists are not only funded but have stakes in how residents are educated and governed?”
On Bigfoot and other fetishes
If you need a humor break, read Sharma Shields’ hilarious essay at Slate about the recent spate of Bigfoot fetishes among elected officials. Apparently, writes the author of a novel in which there’s some hot and heavy action with a Sasquatch, Bigfoot is only the beginning: “Minerva Swelterville (R–Idaho) is rumored to have a half-dozen of those awesome octopus-eating-out-a-woman paintings in her house. As I like to tell my husband, “Ding dong! Cunnilingus bell!” I mean, who can blame her, really.”
And on that note, we wrap up today’s edition of Cascadia Daily. The demands of summer travel combined with the fact that this upstart publication doesn’t have much in the way of “staff” means that daily has been a bit of an aspiration rather than reality in the past few weeks. I’m off to backpack on Vancouver Island, and Cascadia Daily will return on Wed. Aug 8. –Andrew Engelson
Photo credit: Showbox Theater by Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0
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