Residents of British Columbia's Peace Valley -- including members of the Saulteau First Nations -- are fighting the controversial Site C dam project, which would flood their land and alter the region's ecology. Alison Bate talks with families whose lives have been turned upside down by the project.
Writer Paul Lask spent a week with an all-female crew taking tree core samples in the forests of northeast Oregon, a place of rich natural beauty. The rigorous work helps researchers determine the ways in which human activity is altering the ecology of the Blue Mountains.
First Nations chief Ernest Alfred set off a battle to ban fish farms in British Columbia by occupying a tiny island in Broughton Archipelago. Indigenous activists claim the farms spread disease to wild salmon, and in June, the BC government announced future permits must meet First Nations approval.
Facing a crisis of drug overdose fatalities, Seattle is considering opening a safe consumption site. In Cascadia, Vancouver led the way 15 years ago and now allows safe injection sites across the city. Though controversial, the sites have a proven track record of reducing overdose deaths.
A group of activists in Vancouver BC worked in secret in 2003 to set up the city's first safe injection site. Journalist Travis Lupick tells the story of how this safe space for drug users to inject heroin under medical supervision came into being.
Scott Owens is one of more than 2,000 people living in their vehicles across Seattle. In vans and cars, this segment of the homeless population lives a fragile existence on the margins, finding it difficult to get access to bathrooms and showers--and always facing the possibility of eviction by police.
Entrepreneurs like Raft Hollingsworth are creating new minority-owned cannabis businesses across Cascadia. But people of color face huge hurdles in the race to enter the Northwest's legal weed industry--although new efforts are taking shape to increase equity in communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs.
First Nations activists are using an array of tactics to oppose KinderMorgan's proposed TransMountain pipeline across British Columbia. Using lawsuits, direct action, and construction of tiny homes in the pipeline's path, Cascadia's Indigenous nations are taking lessons from the Standing Rock protests in North Dakota.
Seattle art book publisher Ed Marquand helped create a vibrant artisan incubator space called Mighty Tieton in a tiny Yakima Valley town, a place where creative businesses employ bookbinders, printers, and mosaic artists. It all began when a "goat head" thorn gave his bicycle a flat tire...
Faced with skyrocketing housing costs, the three largest cities in the Pacific Northwest -- Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland-- are taking different approaches to reigning in costs and building more affordable units, whether it's changing zoning, increasing public-funded housing, or making deals with developers.
