SUBSCRIBE TO THE FREE NEWSLETTER
Your Labor Day hike: Green Mountain
Labor Day is a great time for hiking (and September is the BEST month on trails across Cascadia). So if you’re up for a challenge in Washington’s north-central Cascades check out Green Mountain, Craig Romano’s latest column at Cascadia Magazine. Don’t be fooled by the banal name: this difficult hike offers expansive views of forested valleys and Glacier Peak, wildflowers in season, and delicious huckleberries.
It’s not an easy hike, but the payoff is spectacular. Find the full trail description, photos, and directions to the trailhead here.
And if you find these hike suggestions useful and appreciate all the other great writing at Cascadia Magazine, take a moment to become a recurring contributor. Your subscription of just $5 or $10 a month can help us continue to publish great writing from across the Pacific Northwest. Thanks!
The destruction of BC’s inland rainforest
This weekend, please take a moment to read Daniel Mesec’s report “Clear-Cut” at Cascadia Magazine about how timber companies are destroying a rare ecosystem in northern British Columbia and hoping you won’t notice. Only 9 percent of BC’s surprisingly damp inland rainforest is protected–leaving thousand-year-old cedars cut down. “A primary forest is one that has never been industrialized in the past. They’re important to conserve because they’re irreplaceable,” says Michelle Connolly of Conservation North, which is working to preserve the remaining old growth. Read more here.
Flurry of small quakes in Cascadia
OPB reports on a flurry of small earthquakes in Oregon, the Olympic peninsula, and off Vancouver Island in the past couple weeks–a regular occurrence in the region every 14 months or so, and not indicative of whether the “big one” is imminent.
Lawsuit against Seattle City Light over billing
The Seattle Times looks at a class-action lawsuit against Seattle’s public electric power system by customers who received excessive bills making up for past errors (sometime over $1,000 per month)
Oldest human artifacts in North America found in Idaho
OPB report that archaeologists have found remains of fire pits and tools in an Idaho site that are 16,500 years old–thousands of years older than any other human artifacts in North America. The discovery in the Cooper’s Ferry archaeology site at the confluence of the Snake and Salmon Rivers is shaking up the previous narrative that the first humans on the continent came over a land bridge connecting Asia and Alaska. Instead a new theory suggests that coastal people followed a maritime “kelp highway” by sea along the Pacific Coast.
Vancouver condo prices drop, and where are public restrooms?
Prices for condominiums in Vancouver have dropped slightly, but they’re still the most expensive in Canada, the Vancouver Sun reports. Meanwhile, Christopher Cheung at The Tyee looks at a pressing urban issue: public washrooms. Vancouver has very few, and as a result the homeless population is forced to dirty city parks and public spaces. At Sea-Tac airport’s new terminal, the hands-free eco-friendly restrooms were rated some of the best in the nation, but in Seattle there are only six public restrooms open 24/7, terribly insufficient for a city of 725,000.
J.C. Geiger, Eugene’s master storyteller
Eugene Weekly profiles J.C Geiger, who won The Moth’s 2018 storytelling competition, and who’s started the Eugene, Oregon’s own home-grown narrator night: The Sloth Storytelling Hour, which meets 7 pm Thursdays at the Atrium building in downtown Eugene.
Poetry by Ed Harkness
At Seattle Review of Books, take a moment to read Seattle poet Ed Harkness’ “Glass Beads,” which casts an eye on overlooked beauty:
“Give these light-filled planets one more hour
to glimmer,
if in no other way than in the words I’ve picked
to preserve
their glassy beauty on this winter night.”
Read the poem in full here.
That’s today’s curated collection of arts, news, poetry and other stuff from across the Pacific Northwest. Enjoy the Labor (Labour) Day holiday, and we’ll see you again on Tuesday! –Andrew Engelson
Photo credit: Cooper’s Ferry archaeological site by Bureau of Land Management CC BY-SA 2.0