SUBSCRIBE TO THE FREE NEWSLETTER
Where to hike: Mount McCausland
The weather forecast for Seattle and western Washington this weekend looks lovely, so why not go for a hike? Craig Romano, in his latest Get Outside! column for Cascadia Magazine, recommends Mount McCausland, a moderately difficult hike in Washington’s Henry M. Jackson Wilderness.
In a little over six miles, you’ll get to the summit of an unremarkable peak with a FANTASTIC view of surrounding peaks, including Lichtenberg Mountain and Lake Valhalla.
It’s a great summer hike in the Henry M. Jackson Wilderness, named for the US senator, moderate Democrat, and strong advocate for environmental protection.
Read Craig Romano’s full writeup with photos, trail description and directions to the trailhead here, exclusively at Cascadia Magazine. For more ideas for hikes across Cascadia, check out the Get Outside! archive.
Man who stayed in Seattle sanctuary one year detained by ICE
Nina Shapiro, writing for the Seattle Times, reports that Jose Robles, who took sanctuary at a Seattle church for over a year, was detained by immigration officials shortly after voluntarily leaving his self confinement today. Robles, who is undocumented but has been in the US for 20 years, is fighting separation from his family, sparked by a dismissed domestic violence charge in 2010. In related news, after antifa activist Willem Van Spronsen was shot dead by police during an attack on the Northwest Detention Center (an ICE holding facility) in Tacoma, his daughter Ariel writes at KUOW a moving essay in honor of Van Spronsen’s memory: “I don’t condone violent action, but I am proud of him for saying all the things I am too scared to say.” And at Portland Mercury, Alex Zielinski writes a detailed profile of Bryan Soli Mendoza’s Kafkaesque journey through the United States’ cruel and bizarre system for asylum seekers.
Seattle wealth tax unconstitutional but income tax OK
The Seattle Times reported this week that the WA state court of appeals ruled against a wealthy homeowners’ tax levied by the city of Seattle, but in a surprising turn of events, the judge also invalidated a 1984 legislative ban on cities in Washington charging an income tax. Patch has an analysis of the ruling, which if backed up by the Washington Supreme Court could allow cities such as Seattle to set up an income tax to fund services and desperate need for affordable housing (over 150,000 units, by one estimate).
Slow progress at Native American boarding school in Oregon
OPB follows up on the status of the Chemawa boarding school for Native American students outside Salem, Oregon, and finds slight but slow progress on improving poor conditions at the school. A series of investigative reports by OPB in 2017 found distressing stories of bullying, violence, and abuse at the the federally-funded school.
Eagle takes a selfie video on Haida Gwaii
On the lighter side of the news, CBC reports on an amazing video captured when James Williams, a member of the Haida Nation Eagle Clan, set up his camera near some bald eagles feeding on a beach on Haida Gwaii. An eagle picked up the camera, and after someone found it several weeks later, Williams saw the jaw-dropping video of the eagle flying off.
Washington State Book Award nominees announced
Over at Seattle Review of Books, find a complete list of the nominees for the 2019 Washington State Book Awards, including The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu, So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, Unpresidented by Martha Brockenbrough, Instruments of the True Measure by Laura Da’, and So Lucky by Nicola Griffith (if you haven’t yet, be sure to read Sharma Shields’ fantastic review/persona essay about So Lucky at Cascadia Magazine.)
Poetry translated by Seattle’s Don Mee Choi
Over at LitHub, read “Lean on the Water,” a poem by Kim Hyesoon, translated from Korean by Seattle poet Don Mee Choi:
“Lean your body on the water and cling to it
Can’t bear it any longer. I twist my body
holding onto the fingers of water and
wear a coat woven with water’s hair
I crouch and cover my face…”
Choi was recently awarded the Griffin poetry prize for her translation of Autobiography of Death by Kim Hyesoon, one of South Korea’s most prominent poets. Read the full poem here.
That’s today’s edition of Cascadia Daily, a collection of news, arts and poetry from across the Pacific Northwest. –Andrew Engelson
Photo credit Seattle protest against ICE in 2018 by Backbone Campaign via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0