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Into Cascadia’s wilderness
I had the good fortune to do some amazing hikes in the wilderness areas of Cascadia this summer. I backpacked the Juan de Fuca trail on Vancouver Island, did day hikes in Washington’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness, and did a fantastic backpacking trip to Cispus Basin in the Goat Rocks Wilderness of southwest Washington. We’re truly lucky to live in a region with close proximity to amazing forests, coastline, deserts, and mountains.
It was thanks to the efforts of tireless activists that these areas were preserved in a natural state. And we’ve got a lot here in Cascadia: nearly 4.5 million acres in Washington, 2.5 million acres in Oregon, and though British Columbia has a different system for categorizing wilderness, something close to 36 million acres of land is protected in BC.
The effort to preserve lands continues: in Oregon, the latest effort is to designate the 26,000-acre Devil’s Staircase area between the Umpqa and Smith rivers as wilderness. It contains some of the last remaining old-growth forest in southern Oregon. Meanwhile, some Washington Republicans, including former candidate for governor Bill Bryant, hiked the Olympic coastal wilderness this summer in memory of William O. Douglas’s famous hike — and to protest the Trump administration’s plans to open the coast to oil drilling.
And with our region’s growing population, pressures are mounting on some popular areas — such as the Enchantments in Washington’s Alpine Lake Wilderness, where, as Crosscut reports, selfie-seeking hikers are defying the permit system and trashing the pristine lakes. But it’s not all bad news: Will Sweger, writing for the South Seattle Emerald, reports on how nonprofit groups in Seattle are teaming up to encourage more people of color to explore the wonders of the North Cascades.
If you didn’t get out into Cascadia’s wildlands before Labor Day, no worries: September is a fantastic time to get out in mountains, and you can consult Cascadia Magazine’s Get Outside! column by Craig Romano for hiking suggestions from all across the region.
Cascadia Magazine original: Saving lives with supervised injection
Seattle and King county are still on the fence about how (and even if) they’ll set up one of the first supervised injection sites in the United States. Another city in Cascadia — Vancouver — has been running injection sites for 15 years, and Kelsey Hamlin’s feature at Cascadia Magazine examines that city’s experience, plus Seattle’s slow steps toward a system that can help save lives in the growing opioid addiction crisis. Read the full feature online now at Cascadia Magazine.
Oregon schools start with new security measures
As the new school year gets underway, many schools in Oregon are opening with new security measures meant to prevent mass shootings. And OR governor Kate Brown is arguing for a longer school year to improve student graduation rates. In British Columbia, school funding is at a new high, but some districts are still facing a teacher shortage. Teachers in some school districts near Vancouver, WA were still on strike this week, but unions and school officials reached agreements that resulted in raises for teachers in Spokane and Seattle.
One year after devastating Eagle Creek wildfire
OregonLive returns to areas of the Columbia Gorge hit by the massive Eagle Creek wildfire one year after it started and eventually consumed nearly 49,000 acres. In related news, the Seattle Times has a detailed report on how climate change is radically increasing the incidence of fire in the normally wetter west-side forests of the Cascades. Wildfires continue to burn in British Columbia, and in Oregon & Washington. And High Country News describes how a harmful policy of fire suppression came to be in the western US. For more info on how researchers are taking core samples of trees in Oregon to learn about cycles of fire and forest ecology, read Paul Lask’s feature “Coring the Forest,” now online at Cascadia Magazine.
Tariffs hit small Oregon solar power companies
Though the Trump administration’s new tariffs on Chinese solar power companies were supposed to help US businesses, the net affect has been negative for many small solar firms in Oregon, who have to purchase components from overseas — according to a report in Eugene Weekly.
Federal & provincial governments boost Vancouver transit
According to CBC, the Canadian federal and BC provincial governments are committing $3 billion to build new transit rail lines in the metro Vancouver area. Meanwhile, Seattle’s streetcar expansion is over budget, but the Oregonian reports that Seattle is starting to move past Portland in transit & bike infrastructure.
A young Seattle artist’s engagement with trash
City Arts profiles Anthony White, an emerging Seattle artist whose still-life paintings and installations transform consumerist junk, plastic, and luxury goods into vibrant, colorful works. “American consumerism lives at the top of my brain, always,” says the artist. White, whose paintings incorporate melted plastic, will have his first major solo show at Seattle’s Greg Kucera gallery in January 2019.
An interview with memoirist Kelly Sundberg
The Rumpus has a great interview online with Kelly Sundberg, who grew up in Idaho and who’s the author of an honest memoir about being in an abusive relationship, entitled Goodbye, Sweet Girl. “. . . as a girl growing up in Idaho, violence against women was normalized early on. That narrative also illustrated the ways in which my own parents’ kindness and empathy could be used against me because they tended to empathize with and make excuses for boys.” You can read Sundberg’s amazing essay about her struggle to leave that abusive relationship, “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” at Guernica magazine.
That’s today’s round-up of news, culture, & great writing from across Cascadia. Have a lovely evening. –Andrew Engelson.
Photo credits: “Welcome to My Last Supper,” by Anthony White used with permission of Greg Kucera Gallery.