Cascadia Daily, March 26, 2019

Cascadia Magazine in The Tyee

During a recent visit to Vancouver, I was invited to meet with the staff of The Tyee–a great online news site based in Vancouver– to talk about covering cross-border issues. We had a great discussion, and afterward reporter Christopher Cheung interviewed me about bio-regionalism, cross-border culture, and why we created Cascadia Magazine and Cascadia Daily.

It was a pleasure to talk about these issues, and why online nonprofit publications are helping keep great writing alive in the Pacific Northwest:

“We do have this creative culture, and we need to protect it. I think of it like protecting the wilderness, because we need to safeguard it or we’ll lose it. Or we’ll just be Geneva or San Francisco in three years, a place only rich people can afford to live in.

You can read the Q & A online here.

We owe a big thank you to The Tyee for taking the time to listen and for its commitment to cross-border issues. And hey, welcome to the new Cascadia Daily subscribers who’ve come here thanks to the article! We hope you enjoy the Pacific Northwest’s tastiest collection of links to news, arts, environmental reporting, essays, fiction and poetry.

–Andrew Engelson

Cascadia Magazine original: Two poems by Fiona Tinwei Lam

Cascadia Magazine is thrilled to publish two poems by Vancouver’s Fiona Tinwei Lam: “Sea Star,” and “Ode to a Crow.” The latter is a tribute to East Vancouver’s most famous corvid: Canuck the Crow, who’s become world famous for his antics harassing and befriending humans:
“Dark star of the show,
prankster, terror, tease, bad boy,
you ride the Skytrain for free, dive-bomb letter carriers,
target cyclists’ backpacks between rest stops at McDonalds…”

Read the full poems online here.

Oregon tackles campaign finance reform

OPB has a detailed report on the Oregon legislature’s effort to introduce serious campaign finance reform to a state where there’s almost no reporting requirements and where political action committees spent more than $1 billion in last November’s election. ““You could have a political action committee that is ‘Wonderful Oregonians for Kittens,’ that is funded by the tobacco companies,” one legislator notes.

When will Vancouver deal with homeless death crisis?

Over at The Tyee, Jessica Hannon of Megaphone Media points out that the latest statistics show 175 people die on the streets of British Columbia each year, but that the city of Vancouver and British Columbia’s ruling NDP have failed to take significant action. In other housing news, Portland Tribune reports that the metro Portland area will make $75 million in funds available to construct affordable housing, thanks to a regional measure passed in 2016.

Electric seaplanes to connect Cascadia, & other transport news

CBC reports that Harbour Airlines, a British Columbia company that operates seaplane routes between Seattle, Victoria, and Vancouver plans to launch the world’s first fleet of electric-powered seaplanes manufactured by MagniX, a company based in Washington state. In other transportation news, a ferry between Langdale and Horseshoe Bay BC crashed into a dock, stranding passengers for hours. Washington State Ferries plans to raise ticket prices as it transitions from diesel to electric ferries. E-scooters are scheduled to return to Portland’s streets in late April. And Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan killed a bike lane project in northeast Seattle, ensuring that more bike commuters risk death and dismemberment on their morning rides. Apparently Durkan didn’t get the memo that we have 12 years to turn things around before climate change seriously spanks the world’s ass.

Mapping lessons from a fatal landslide

Five years after a landslide in Oso, Washington killed 43 people, KUOW talk with geologists who are mapping landslide-prone areas across the Cascades in hopes of better understanding what factors contribute to unstable mountainsides. In related news The Narwhal looks at how clearcuts in central British Columbia are contributing to massive spring floods, especially in the Kettle River watershed.

Flash fiction by Clara Cristofaro

We’ve all been in dead-end and boring jobs at some point, and writer Clara Cristofaro (who lives in New Westminster, BC) has a sharp flash fiction piece “Office Ladies” online at Barrelhouse. “They judge celebrity diets, political policy, the barista’s new hairstyle. They judge strangers and friends. Only their own children are off limits. One sometimes talks about the other’s children but whispered, behind a hand. The office ladies observe their own rules.” Read the full story here.

“The Garden,” poetry by Kamari Bright

Over at Moss, you can read Seattle-based poet Kamari Bright’s “The Garden,” a great (and ultimately funny) take on the story of Adam and Eve:
“He saw what the woman
pulled from his body
knew long before, that
he was dim and
dirt-made.”


Read the full poem online here. That’s today’s assortment of news, arts, culture, poetry and other stuff from across the Cascadia bioregion. Have a great evening and see you tomorrow!  –Andrew Engelson

Photo credits: Andrew Engelson by Christopher Cheung