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Get Outside! Tomlike Mountain
Cascadia Magazine hiking columnist Craig Romano says Oregon’s Tomlike Mountain has one of the most stupendous views from any hike in the Columbia Gorge, and based on his photos we find no reason to argue the point!
Though the forecast for this coming weekend looks a bit cloudy, read his writeup of this hike not far from Portland and tuck it away for a brisk, clear October day when the hillsides full of huckleberry are turning crimson and you’ll see magnificent views of surrounding volcanoes, including Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Hood.
Check out the full writeup online here at Cascadia Magazine with trail description, photos, and directions to the trailhead.
And if you like this and other articles you find at Cascadia Magazine, please visit our donate page and make a contribution in advance of our Fall Fund Drive kicking off in October, in which we’ll need to raise $20,000 to keep publishing great writing from across the Pacific Northwest.
“Inauguration Day,” by Melinda Price Wiltshire
“When the man took office
I was driving down the road in another country—
Cascadia, warm wet slide along the western wall…”
Melinda Price Wiltshire’s poem “Inauguration” online at Cascadia Magazine captures a gloomy, grey moment when winter arrives in Cascadia just as Donald Trump takes office. Read the poem in full here.
A Seattle couple’s story after deportation
You should make time to read Nina Shapiro’s detailed and nuanced feature in the Seattle Times about a family’s life in Zacatecas, Mexico after Rafael Valdez was sent back to Mexico because of two DUI convictions. Life for for Rafael, his two children and his wife Joy, who’s a US citizen from Seattle, has its pleasures, as well as complexities as the family has a hard time making ends meet and the parents worry about crime and violence.
Federal banking act will help cannabis businesses
OPB reports on a bill passed in the US Congress that would make it much easier for US banks to do transactions with cannabis businesses in states where pot is legal. Meanwhile, the Georgia Straight looks at how BC growers are learning to use organic soils to produce high-quality marijuana.
A radical experiment in no-barrier housing 15 years later
Erica C. Barnett, writing for Crosscut, profiles a no-barrier housing site in Seattle that was based on a radical idea when it opened in 15 years ago: providing shelter for people with alcohol addiction without requiring them them to seek treatment. The experiment in “housing first” philosophy has now been adopted in sites across North America. In related news, Eugene Weekly looks at the practice of shipping the homeless and people with mental health issues to an Oregon state hospital with little legal recourse. And Real Change looks at the difficulties of living in vans and vehicles in Seattle, where crackdowns are frequent and alternate housing options limited.
How did one humpback whale die?
Hakai Magazine has a great feature about Stephen Raverty, a veterinary pathologist who’s called upon to study dead whales washed up on the British Columbia coast to better determine the cause of death. Writer Larry Pynn looks at Raverty’s rather gruesome work on a humpback that washed ashore on remote Calvert Island, BC.
Portraits of Portland writers
Oregon Arts Watch features amazing photographs and text by K.B. Dixon that capture a variety of Portland-based authors, including poet laureate Kim Stafford, poet Samiya Bashir, novelist Omar El Akkad, writer Lidia Yuknavitch, and novelist Leni Zumas, among others.
Poetry by Shin Yu Pai
The latest installment from Seattle poet Shin Yu Pai’s month long residency at Seattle Review of Books is “Virga,” a meditation on lessons taken from rain that falls from clouds but never hits the ground:
“as young people we are
taught to hold our tears”
Read the full poem online here. And don’t miss her poem “Ensō” online at Cascadia Magazine.
That’s today’s mix-tape of poetry, environmental and arts reporting and other newsy stuff from across the Cascadia bioregion. If you like this newsletter, please take a moment to forward it to a friend and urge them to sign up! Thanks! –Andrew Engelson
Photo credit: Shin Yu Pai by Polly Jirkovsky Gual