Cascadia Daily, Jan. 29, 2019 | Cascadia Magazine

Cascadia Magazine original essay: All the Elements at Play

Be sure to make time to read Jason Arias’s hilarious essay “All the Elements at Play” about a family trip to a safari park on the Oregon coast now online here at Cascadia Magazine. it’s an absolutely true tale of Pokemon, a chimpanzee named George, and karma. Read more here.

A report from the Gitdumden checkpoint

Photojournalist Amber Bracken has a solid report for the New York Times on the standoff between members of Wet’suwet’en First Nation and the RCMP over a gas pipeline in northern British Columbia. The photos poignantly demonstrate the intensity of this fight over Indigenous rights. “Our people never ever surrendered or ceded any portion of this territory. We are the rightful titleholders of the territory, we are the caretakers of this land and that’s what we are going to do, take care of this land,” say one of the hereditary elders. Meanwhile, CBC reports that the company that owns Coastal GasLink is looking to sell most of its stake in the pipeline.

Why are immigration officials boarding Greyhound buses in Spokane?

Twitter was astir this week with reaction to an incident in which comedian Mohanad Elshieky was questioned for 20 minutes by immigration officials who boarded the Greyhound bus Elshieky was planning to take from Spokane to Portland. The Inlander notes that Spokane passed a law forbidding such searches without a warrant, but border patrol ignored it. Willamette Week has more on reaction from immigration officials.

Seattle billionaire looks for a new hobby

So by now you’ve probably heard that former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is pondering a run for president of the US as an independent, annoying just about everyone except himself. Charles Mudede, writing for the Stranger, notes that Seattle is no longer a “socialist hellhole,” but a haven for enlightened rich white guys. The Seattle Times points out that Schultz’s salary was 1,049 times that of his median employees. And the Washington state Democrats weren’t shy on Twitter about expressing what they thought of the local coffee oligarch running for prez.

Oregon makes is easier to use prescribed burns

OPB reports that the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission has eased pollution rules in order to make it easier to use prescribed burns to reduce risks of catastrophic wildfires. In sorta related news, King County (which includes Seattle) is in a dilemma over trash, Seattle Weekly reports. Landfills are too full of garbage and future options include shipping by rail to Oregon or burning it to generate power.

A first person account of the December storms in BC

Sofia Osborne has a lovely essay at The Tyee, a first-person account of hunkering down with her father during the December 2018 storm that hit BC’s Gulf Islands with 100 km winds. “That morning, I wake up too early. The walls are shaking. It sounds like the rest of the house has melted away, like my room is a ship in a storm. How can the wind be so loud?”

Poetry by Sarah Stockton

At the online journal The Shallow Ends, you can read “From the Diaries,” by Sarah Stockton, who lives in the rural Pacific Northwest:
“Dear Anais—
Remember exchanging those lists of past lovers?
I left a few names out- revisions forthcoming.”
Read the full poem here.

That’s all the Cascadia news & arts that’s fit to print (or rather, fits in an e-mail newsletter). More tomorrow. –Andrew Engelson

Photo credit: Starbucks cup via Washington state Democrats Twitter,