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Plan your weekend Cascadia getaway…
In the US, Memorial Day is this weekend, the traditional start to a season of hiking, camping, and outdoor exploration. If you’re looking for ideas, check out Cascadia Magazine’s Get Outside! columns by Craig Romano.
Or check out Northwest Trip Finder, a great resource for camping, hiking, and weekend getaways. They recently profiled Washington’s Steamboat Rock State Park.
Portland Monthly has a detailed guide to this summer’s camping and hiking in Oregon and Washington. 604 Now magazine has a selection of Vancouver-area hikes that lead to great swimming (still probably icy cold, but after a long hike you might need cooling off). And Seattle Magazine has a guide to sunny getaways (I’m not sure they guarantee the “sunny” part, but you’ll have a great time regardless of the weather). Or if you’re on the hunt for wild morel mushrooms, now’s the season: Langdon Cook at Seattle Magazine tells you where to go.
And if you’re hunting for a hike in Washington state, be sure to visit Washington Trail Association’s fantastic website.
Join us for our first public event! Cascadia Magazine’s Almost Summer Reading features poets, fiction writers, and journalists published in Cascadia Magazine reading from and talking about their work. It’s free, so grab a cool beverage and listen to some fantastic writing from Donna Miscolta, Anca Szilágyi, Montreux Rotholtz, Michael Schmeltzer, Daniel Hawkins, Niki Stojnic, and Matt Stangel.
6:30 – 8 p.m., Friday June 1
Vermillion on Seattle’s Capitol Hill: 1508 11th Ave.
Will KinderMorgan walk away from BC pipeline expansion?
An energy industry analyst, speaking with News 1130, is convinced that KinderMorgan, tiring of protests and the feud between British Columbia and Alberta, will abandon the proposed expansion of the TransMountain pipeline by its deadline of May 31. Meanwhile, Andrew Nikiforuk at The Tyee notes that KinderMorgan never intended to pay for the pipeline on its own, and is shaking down the Alberta and Canadian government for public funding for a new pipeline that would increase tanker traffic in the Salish Sea 7 times over.
The companies planning to test self-driving cars in Cascadia
Northwest Public Broadcasting profiles the companies planning to test self-driving cars and shuttles in Washington (7 companies) and Oregon (2 companies). The Georgia Straight reports on a potential concern for riders of self-driving vehicles: privacy and data collection.
David Suzuki: dangerous insects on the rise with climate change
Writing for the Georgia Straight, Vancouver environmentalist David Suzuki writes about how climate change is increasing the number of dangerous arthropods in Cascadia — from mountain pine beetles devastating BC forests to increases in disease-spreading ticks, mosquitoes, and spiders. “…vector-borne diseases spread by parasitic insects and arachnids more than tripled in the U.S. over 12 years…”
Amazon pushing facial-recognition software to police
Seattle-based Amazon, according to the New York Times, is marketing its facial-recognition technology to police forces in North America, raising concerns of the ACLU and privacy activists. “We have it being used in unaccountable ways and with no regulation,” said one critic. In Portland, the ACLU is asking for a review of how Portland police deal with protests, including a 2017 demonstration that resulted in mass arrests.
How basketball became part of BC First Nations culture
Writing for the Walrus, Trevor Jang tells the story of how basketball became such an integral part of contemporary First Nations culture on Vancouver Island. During the time the Canadian government banned potlatch ceremonies and gatherings of Indigenous people, basketball was exempt, and became a way to bond and compete with other bands. Meanwhile, the Eugene Register-Guard reports on the LadyHawks — a team in a new all-female American football league.
“Is That Mushroom or Ash,” fiction by Darla Mottram
At Pacifica Literary Review, you’ll find the story “Is That Mushroom or Ash,” by Portland writer Darla Mottram. It’s a raw account of a young female addict who becomes unwillingly entangled in a sexual relationship with her lover’s friend. “I feel like a piece of space trash, drifting, far outside the atmosphere I exited. No hope of returning. No one looking for me.”
That’s today’s arts, culture and news from across Cascadia. –Andrew Engelson
Photo credit: Waymo self-driving car by Wikimedia Commons user Grendelkhan, CC BY-SA 4.0