Chattermarks

Northwest Cheapsleeps, the popular blog about “favorite places for budget travelers,” recently visited the Learning Center for our Base Camp program. Here is a report on their family-friendly experiences:

The North Cascades Institute has long been the premiere environmental education outfit in the Pacific Northwest, but I’d never before taken a class with them. Earlier this summer, as I was scanning their beautiful catalog and lusting over courses on landscape watercolor and mountain photography, I stumbled upon a new offering called Base Camp. Billed as flexible, affordable, enriching and fun, this fledgling program appealed to me immediately as an accessible, low-stress way for families to experience the outdoors. We could stay a few nights at the gorgeous NCI Learning Center on Lake Diablo, all meals included, and dabble in guided learning adventures offered three times a day, from hiking to canoeing to arts and crafts.

By the time our two-night stay arrived, I was eager for space from the city and quality time in nature. I also couldn’t wait to take a break from planning and making meals for a family of three! We arrived at the NCI Learning Center with just enough time to stash our stuff in our room before the orientation tour. Katie, a recent college grad and Kentucky transplant to the Northwest, showed us around the center, on the shores of Diablo Lake and surrounded by the North Cascades National Park complex. I was amazed at the comfy-looking library stocked to the ceiling with field guides and nature poetry. Brian was impressed with the comprehensive compost system outside the dining hall. Isaac helpfully pointed out the fire pits and sword ferns. Katie gave us the rundown on meal times, showed us the trailheads to the four or five trails that depart from the center, and invited us to join other base campers around the campfire after dinner for local native storytelling. I suddenly felt like I was at camp, a really nice camp.

Read the entire story at http://nwcheapsleeps.org/2010/08/06/north-cascades-institutes-base-camp/

As much as we love North Cascadian landscapes — and with over 7,000,000 acres of protected public lands in Washington and British Columbia, there will never be an end to options for explorations — we here at the Institute are still called to visit and experience other amazing places on our planet. We’ll publish accounts of some of the places NCI staff and graduate students visit in our new Road Trip series…

My first 2010 trip away from the Salish Sea occured in May when I caught the Keystone Ferry for Port Townsend and spent a solo week in Olympic National Park, hiking, paddling and observing the emerging lushness of spring.

My first destination was Lake Ozette in the far northwestern corner of the state. I posted up at a nearly-empty campground on the northshore, dropped my sea kayak on to the lake and paddled a couple of hours south to a remote backcountry campsite at Erickson’s Bay. I was lucky to have decent, stable weather, no wind and Ozette — the third largest lake in the state — all to myself. Trails from the bay, as well as from the northshore campground, wind 3 miles through coastal forests, prairies and the remains of homesteads to the wild Pacific coast, where one can explore tidepools, view sea stacks, observe seabirds and seals and search for migrating grey whales and the famous Wedding Rocks pictographs.

» Continue reading Road Trip: The Olympic Peninsula

Watercolors and wildlife: North Cascades Institute courses offer arts and outdoors

By SHANNON DININNY

The Associated Press

DIABLO, Wash.

For their 10th wedding anniversary, Kori Crane’s husband handed her a check and told her she could only spend it on an art class.

Not just any art class.

Crane designed and painted silk scarves in the remote wilderness of North Cascades National Park, drawing on the majestic mountains and towering pines for inspiration.

Nestled at the foot of Sourdough Mountain and on the shore of Diablo Lake, the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center is home to fine arts, writing, cultural and natural history courses, as well as family weekends that include kayaking, hiking, boating and fun.

Front and center, though, is the wilderness. One of the most remote national parks in the U.S., North Cascades offers miles of hiking trails, abundant wildlife and panoramic views of rugged peaks and glacier-fed lakes far from an urban center.

Crane, 39, of Mount Vernon, Wash., had visited the lodge once before for a hiking day. Already an active quilter and fiber artist but recovering from a recent shoulder injury, she made the trip to the North Cascades last year aiming to try something new.

“I enjoy color a lot, so really being able to play with color on a grand scale is wonderful,” she said. “The atmosphere is inspiring for art.”

Seattle City Light built the five-acre facility as part of its Skagit River dam license for hydropower. The nonprofit North Cascades Institute manages the 16-building campus, which opened in 2005, and its adult course offerings help finance youth education programs.

Molly Hashimoto has traveled to the lodge for six years to teach watercolor classes, and the getaway hasn’t lost its magic.

“For me, it’s the ease of getting outdoors, and the beauty is unparalleled. The scale — it’s awesome,” she said. “You wouldn’t find that many places in the country where you can see from sea level to a mountain peak, almost a vertical mile. It’s awe-inspiring.”

The center’s wood floors and cedar walls are warm, earthy and inviting, with buildings named after trees found in the nearby woods: pine, maple, cedar, fir. The dining room overlooks the lake, where boat tours glide by. Meals are included and feature local, often organic, ingredients.

It’s already drawn visitors from across the country.

Donna Woodland, 49, of Montoursville, Pa., traveled with a friend from Oregon to work on watercolor landscapes, a progression from her nature journals and sketches at home.

“If I don’t draw for a few days or weeks, I find it affects my mood,” she said. “This forces me to draw around other people. Otherwise this is a solitary thing, and everyone sees things differently. You get feedback.”

Gazing across Diablo Lake at Colonial and Pyramid peaks, Hashimoto said she’d like to see more young people sign up for art courses. People with young families tend toward the family getaway weekends, she said, and people without families “are just working too hard.”

“Art is one of those things people should splurge on for themselves,” she said.

One of her regular students, Len Eisenhood of Seattle, also made the trip with his wife for their 40th wedding anniversary. She took a journaling course, while he focused on his watercolors.

“We love the Northwest, and to have this time dedicated to being in this gorgeous setting dawn to dusk was something to say yes to,” he said. “It’s a privilege to be here and have this time.”

Molly Hashimoto’s sketchbook

» Continue reading AP: Mountains Inspire in North Cascades Art Courses

When you plan your next trip into the North Cascades, be sure to visit the retail sales areas located in NPS visitors centers in and around North Cascades National Park. Thanks to a new agreement with the Park and Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest, the Institute provides a broad selection of books, maps, trail guides and gifts sure to interest any outdoor enthusiast. You’ll find new North Cascadian t-shirts, water bottles, postcards and publications that we’ve created especially for the region too, tapping in to the wealth of photography and art produced by our local friends like John Scurlock, Becky Fletcher, Brett Baunton and John D’Onofrio.

“We’ve been teaching people about the North Cascades for more than 24 years,” said Saul Weisberg, executive director. “Providing visitors with the tools and information they need to explore our public lands is an exciting next step for us.”

» Continue reading Visit the Institute’s new retail sites

Published in the Courier-Times on March 23, 2010 by Ralph Schwartz

SEDRO-WOOLLEY — The Park and Forest Information Center sits on prime real estate, near the intersection of Highway 20 and Highway 9. It also happens to be a prime location for solar power.

“I have a building that is facing due south with no shade or anything,” building owner Keith Earnst said, recounting his decision late last year to go solar.

Earnst’s building — the visitor center for the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest and North Cascades National Park [and the administrative headquarters of North Cascades Institute] — has a new and conspicuous feature. Local contractor Whidbey Sun & Wind installed 140 solar panels on the building’s roof earlier this month. They will generate enough electricity to power two and a half homes.
The U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service say solar energy aligns with their green agenda.

» Continue reading Going solar: panels on Institute building will cut energy costs

Do you know anyone who is seeking a graduate program in Environmental Education?

North Cascades Institute is seeking qualified applicants for our Master of Education residency program. This seven-quarter program includes twelve months of residency at the Institute’s Environmental Learning Center, located in the heart of North Cascades National Park. Course work includes natural and cultural history, place-based education, and leadership and nonprofit administration. Upon completion of the program, students receive an M.Ed from Western Washington University and a Certificate in Leadership and Nonprofit Administration from North Cascades Institute.

Our professional residency is fully integrated into the degree program at Huxley College of the Environment at Western Washington University. It is an extremely unique opportunity, getting to live, learn and teach at the Learning Center in the heart of North Cascades National Park. (This blog was designed, in part, to share the graduate students experiences in their North Cascadian residency — click here for a list of all posts tagged with “M.Ed. Graduate Program!)

For more information and to apply, go to www.ncascades.org/graduate or contact our graduate program coordinator directly at 206-526-2567 or Tanya_Anderson@ncascades.org.

Please help us conserve Northwest environments through education by sharing this information with others who may be interested!

We’re getting ready for Barry Lopez’s visit to Seattle and couldn’t be more excited. We’re meeting him tonight at a private reception near Seward Park, and then co-hosting his presentation “Speak, Landscape” at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle tomorrow night, April 7. Inbetween, Barry will be doing an interview on KUOW 90.3 FM with Steve Scheer at 9 am and visiting a creative writing class at Roosevelt High School with the Writers in the Schools program.

If you don’t already have your ticket, Seattle Arts & Lectures is offering a special deal on them to all “Fans” on North Cascades Institute’s Facebook page. Tickets are available online, by phone at (206) 621-2230 or at the Benaroya Hall box office beginning at 6pm. The Institute will be tabling our exhibit in the lobby, handing our information on 2010 Learning Center programs and selling the beautiful Barry Lopez poster we designed using Rebecca Allan’s fascinating tondo paintings — come by and say hello!

We’ll leave you with this introspective biographical essay Barry has posted to his website:

For most of my writing life I’ve been driven, like other writers and artists, to explore. The shape this took from the start was geographical, bibliographical, and conversational–I traveled widely, read voraciously, and sought out stimulating conversation. Central to the ideas I developed about what it means to be a writer was the need to remain conscious of the voices I encountered while traveling, reading, and conversing. The voices from two communities, in particular, held my attention: the circle of artists and writers with whom I felt the greatest creative camaraderie, and the group of people–family, friends, mentors, professional colleagues–to whom I felt most beholden. This latter group eventually came to include readers interested in the sorts of things I was trying to illuminate, people with whom I imagine I share a common fate.

A dangerous bit of American folklore is that our social, environmental, and political problems, which grow more ominous by the day, call for the healing touch of a genius. They do, but if we’re intent on waiting for some such remarkable individual to show up we can count on disappointment. The solution to what threatens us, however, is already here, in another form. It’s in our diverse communities. Most often we recognize the quality of genius in an individual man or woman; but the source of that genius lies with the complicated network of carefully tended relationships that sets a vibrant human community apart from a solely political community.

» Continue reading Barry Lopez in Seattle tomorrow, KUOW interview at 9 am

Kathleen Dean Moore is one of the finest writers in our country, a great teacher and generous spirit. We’ve gotten to know her over the past few years as she has been an instructor in our Thunder Arm Writing Retreat at the Learning Center, teaching writing skills alongside Rick Bass, Holly Hughes, Gary Ferguson, Ana Maria Spagna and Jim Bertolino. So, when we received a copy of her new book Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature, published in early March by Shambhala, we were excited to plunge in to it and see what she has turned her attention to. Even better, we learned that she will be reading in Bellingham on April 2 and Seattle on April 3 (details and more dates at the end of the post).

In anticipation of her visit to the Fourth Corner, we struck up a conversation with Kathleen via email about her new publication.

NCI: What is Wild Comfort about? What were your motives in composing it?

KDM: Wild Comfort is about the healing power of the wet, wild world. Why does the sound of moving water calm us? What explains the gladness we feel in the return of tides, the return of spring, reliable morning after returning morning, bright in our eyes even if they are closed, or crying? How does the Earth transform dark into light, death into life, sorrow into a kind of peace that opens us to the wonder and solace of the world?

NCI: What did you learn in the writing of it? Did you end up somewhere different than where you started?

KDM: I had started out to write a book about happiness, examining times of gladness and by that means learning how to live.  But events overtook me, death after death, and my book became a different journey toward learning how to live.  Even though I was still writing about what I love the most — floating in fog, pitching camp in the desert, tracking buzzards and whales — I found myself on the trail of the hardest questions I know. How do we restore meaning to lives suddenly unmoored?  How can grief bring us into the deepest currents of life, and so connect us to sources of wonder and solace? How do we find the way to celebration and the courage to be glad again?

NCI: Do you have any specific hopes as far as how your essays in this book will be received by the reader? Anything particular you hope will linger in the readers mind?

» Continue reading Kathleen Dean Moore’s “Wild Comfort”

North Cascades Institute is delighted to be welcoming Barry Lopez to Seattle on Wednesday, April 7, and we hope you’ll join us for a one-of-a-kind presentation Barry is calling “Speak, Landscape.” Here’s the skinny on our annual literary event in Seattle next week:

Seattle Arts & Lectures and North Cascades Institute present An Evening with Barry Lopez
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Benaroya Hall, Seattle

Join Seattle Arts & Lectures and North Cascades Institute in welcoming Barry Lopez for a special engagement at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. Lopez, a long-time Pacific Northwesterner and recipient of numerous awards, prizes and fellowships for his fiction and nonfiction writing, will discuss his recent groundbreaking work, “Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape.”

Tickets ($10-50) are available at www.lectures.org or (206) 621-2230

In his nonfiction, Mr. Lopez writes often about the relationship between the physical landscape and human culture. In his fiction, he frequently addresses issues of intimacy, ethics, and identity. Lopez deftly integrates environmental and humanitarian concerns in both forms. Best known for Arctic Dreams, a National Book Award winner, Lopez’ books includes Of Wolves and Men, Winter Count, About This Life, Resistance, Crow and Weasel, Desert Notes, The Rediscovery of North America and Aplogia. His writing have appeared in Orion, Harper’s, Granta, Outside, National Geographic, The Georgia Review and The Sun. His work has been widely anthologized and translated into thirteen languages.

Most recently, Lopez has co-edited Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, a landmark work of language, geography, and folklore.

Lopez is a recipient of the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the John Hay, John Burroughs and Christopher Medals, Guggenheim, Lannan, and National Science Foundation fellowships, Pushcart Prizes and other honors. Last year, he received the C.E.S. Wood Distinguished Writer Award, given to an “Oregon author in recognition of an enduring, substantial literary career,” joining the company of Ken Kesey and Ursula Le Guin. Lopez travels widely and has collaborated with a number of artists on a variety of projects in theater, music, and the fine arts.

Lopez lives on the McKenzie River in the Cascade range east of Eugene, Oregon.

Here is a pdf of an essay Barry published last year entitled “An Intimate Geography” to give you a taste of his thought and prose, and here is an essay he published in National Geographic on permafrost.

Photo by David Liittschwager

Spring into Summer with the Institute’s Early Bird Discount! From now through March 31st, when you sign up for one of our 2010 programs — Diablo Downtimes, art or writing retreats, natural history excursions, Ross Lake journeys or any program with tuition over $100 — you will receive $50.00 off each class registration. It’s a great opportunity to sign up for as many as you like and save!

We’ve just completed uploading dozens of new educational adventures for people of all ages to our website and we’re open for registration. Please visit www.ncascades.org/get_outside to view the Institute’s many unique spring and summer offerings. This year, we’re teaching birding, Pacific Northwest weather with Cliff Mass, basket-making with natural materials, digital photography, papercutting art with Nikki McClure, wilderness orienteering, wildflowers and pollinators, watercoloring and journal-making, wildlife tracking and more, including the 2010 Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival.

To register with the Early Bird $50 discount, call us at our NEW number, (360) 854-2599 (This discount is not valid for Family Getaways or Base Camp and cannot be combined with scholarships).