Chattermarks

EVENT INFO:
Join North Cascades Institute for a book release celebration for John Scurlock’s Snow & Spire: Flights to Winter in the North Cascade Range. November 30, 2011 7-9 pm. Skagit Station Meeting Room, 105 E. Kincaid St, Mt Vernon. Free!

John Scurlock makes his living working as a paramedic for the Bellingham Fire Department, but finds his soulful calling soaring high above the North Cascades in a small yellow aircraft that he built with his own hands. Flying in all varieties of unpredictable weather above the raggedy peaks and yawning glaciers of our American Alps, he leans out the window, does his best to focus his digital camera and snaps photos.

The results reveal a vast landscape buried in snow and encrusted in ice, a wintery terra incognito of terrifying beauty and austere grace: the frost-bound North Face of Mt. Triumph, impossible cornices on Cloudcap Peak, fire lookouts encased in rime, the Pickett Range hidden in mist, Mount Baker’s shining snowfields, Ripsaw Ridge and Skagit Queen Creek and Park Creek Pass in snowy, silent repose. This is the terrain that holds the world’s record for most snowfall ever recorded in a single winter, and Scurlock’s photography unveils the artistic potential of this seldom-seen northern range: something primitive, forbidden and inaccessible, yet also profoundly and exquisitely beautiful, according to Scurlock.

Cornices on the Southeast Ridge of Cloudcap Peak

» Continue reading Snow & Spire: Flights to Winter in the North Cascade Range

By Hank Leftner — Join us at the Learning Center on October 22-23, 2011 for a Sourdough Speaker Series presentation by Hank as he introduces us to his acclaimed new memoir Faith of Cranes: Finding Hope and Family in Alaska. Details at www.ncascades.org/speakerseries of by calling (360) 854-2599.

Beneath moon or sun, storm or calm, in every moment of every day for over ten million years the voice of a sandhill crane has called out somewhere on the planet in a seamless lineage of sound.  There is cohesion in the chaotic calls of cranes; an invisible thread binding living beads, stitching the flocks, tying each generation to the next.

Cranes talk to their egg-bound chicks with murmurs and clicks.  The chicks imprint on the sound; they yearn to follow that voice even before breaking free of the shell.  The birds grow, add their high peeps to the throaty calls of the larger flock and are soon clucking to their own offspring. Our lives too are embedded in a rich sea of sounds.  While still in the womb a fetus listens and responds to the muted tones of the world it will soon enter.

The rich diversity of sound, music and wind, laughter and bird song, sobs and sea surf, poems and snow fall, stories and crane calls, – guides us through our lives and hold us in place as surely as gravity keeps our feet pinned to the spinning earth.  In the absence of sound and story prisoners, locked in solitary confinement, lose all orientation and quickly tumble toward insanity.  The lineage of voices that hold us in place come from near and far, the furred and feathered, the newly born and the long dead.

» Continue reading The call of the sandhill crane

By Debra Daniels-Zeller, author of The Northwest Vegetarian Cookbook — Join us for a special vegetarian harvest celebration at the Learning Center when Debra is the guest presenter for our September 24-25 Sourdough Speaker Series event!

This tray of fall fruit from Grouse Mountain Farm at the University District farmers market is a rainbow of culinary possibilities that can fill fall kitchens with sweet scents of the season. Decades ago friend Margie made this cake.  It’s so simple a child could make it.

Margie’s Raw Apple Cake
(Makes one 8-inch cake)
2 cups raw diced apples (use your favorite sweet-tart local apples)
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon soda
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 cup flour (use Nash’s whole wheat pastry flour)
1 cup chopped walnuts or hazelnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. degrees.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, blend egg with raw apples. Then add oil, cinnamon, soda, sugar and salt. Mix well. Stir in flour and nuts, leaving some out to decorate the top of the cake. Place mixture in baking pan. And bake for 35 to 45 minutes. Test with toothpick. Cool on cooling rack before slicing.

Here’s another easy recipe perfect for the end of summer!

Coleslaw with Apples and Carrots
(Make 6 servings)
Cabbage and carrot lovers in the Northwest can rejoice because these are available most of the year. For this recipe, I use traditionally made apple cider vinegar from Rockridge Orchards in Enumclaw, Washington. For ginger flavor variation, add ginger juice (squeezed from 1 tablespoon of grated ginger.)

1/2 cup aioli or mayonnaise
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon ketchup
1/2 tablespoon chopped bottled hot peppers (optional)
Pinch of salt
2 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled and shredded
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 medium carrot, grated
4 to 4 1/2 cups thinly shredded green cabbage
1/4 cup chopped dried fruit such as apricots, figs, or sour cherries

1. Whisk together the aioli or mayonnaise, vinegar, ketchup, hot peppers if desired, and salt in a small bowl. Toss the shredded apples with the lemon juice.
2. Combine the apples, carrots, cabbage, and dried fruit in a large bowl. Toss and mix well, and blend in the dressing.

To find more of Debra’s recipes, visit her blog Food Connections at http://foodconnections.blogspot.com.

By Debra Daniels-Zeller, author of Northwest Vegetarian Cookbook — Join us for a special vegetarian harvest celebration at the Learning Center when Debra is the guest presenter for our September 24-25 Sourdough Speaker Series event!

Fall, apples and pears naturally flow together. Summer harvest is over and rainy winter days loom on the horizon. This time of year, baking with autumn fruit refreshes my seasonal passion. The fragrance of baking apples mingling with cinnamon brings back memories of my grandmother’s delectable homemade apple pie. Locally grown apples were always the essential ingredient.

Today, Washington provides an abundant selection of crisp apples and juicy pears. But the tree fruit industry also is vital to the state’s bottom line, reminding us of why it’s important to buy local.

The State Horticultural Society reports that Washington tree fruit is first in the state for overall economic value. More than 142,000 jobs are generated, from field work to advertising and sales. The total cumulative value is greater than that from Microsoft and Boeing combined. It’s also greater than the value of the biotechnology industry, which reportedly employs 19,300 statewide and generates only $1.8 billion in revenue.

The economic value of Washington tree fruit is more than $2 billion a year from the Yakima Valley alone. Half the apples grown in the United States and approximately 64 percent of our nation’s pear supply comes from Washington.

» Continue reading Why local matters, Washington apples and pears

We are pleased to offer a special limited-edition poster commemorating North Cascades Institute’s 25th anniversary. This high-quality poster features a new painting by watercolor artist Molly Hashimoto, who also is the featured artist on our catalog this year and is teaching two workshops at the Learning Center. Her piece depicts an iconic view from the Learning Center of Pyramid Peak, Diablo Lake and a detail of Diablo Dam.

We’re selling these posters for $10 in all five of our bookstores, including the Learning Center, Stehekin, Newhalem and Marblemount. We’re also making them available to purchase by phone or email for $15 includes tax and shipping/handling).

To purchase one of these keepsake posters from afar, please email nci@ncascades.org or call (360) 854-2599. All of the proceeds from the sale of these posters will help us to fund outdoor education opportunities for local youth!

Here’s Molly sharing some thoughts on her painting and this particular view:

» Continue reading 25th Anniversary posters for sale

As much as we love North Cascadian landscapes, we here at the Institute are still called to visit and experience other amazing places on our planet. We publish accounts of the places Institute staff and graduate students visit in our Road Trip series.

About this time last year, summer solstice, with its long days filled with light and birdsong, I left Bellingham and headed out on a pilgrimage to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons national parks. It is a tradition of mine to spend some portion of my summer out there in the glory of western Wyoming. Having lived for a few years as a snowboard bum/river rat in Jackson Hole in the late 1990s, I have tasted the ineffable sweetness of summertime in the Tetons and the surrounding Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Once you sip that nectar, it is impossible not to go back for more whenever possible.

This particular road trip with two good friends, one from Portland, another from San Francisco, started with a visit to Yellowstone’s northeastern Lamar Valley, an area of the park renowned for wildlife viewing opportunities and a more remote feeling than other popular attractions like Old Faithful or the springs at Mammoth. We spent two nights at the lovely Lamar Field Station in the heart of the valley, a rustic outpost that is operated by the Yellowstone Association as accommodations for many of their field excursions.

Approaching the Yellowstone Association’s Lamar Field Station

Out the front door of our cabin was a view across the verdant valley in fresh flush, studded with silhouettes of hundreds of bison grazing with their young. Out the back door, a trail followed a creek back to Druid Peak, the famed mountain where Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt let loose Canadian wolves in 1995 to reintroduce this vital carnivore to the ecosystem. It felt like a holy place, this ground where our culture made an attempt to right a wrong from the past, where the food chain thrives in all of its perfect, intact elegance.

» Continue reading Road Trip: Yellowstone

This month, our 25th anniversary year really starts hopping with a wide range of public events, field excursions, readings, open houses and the first family getaway of 2011. Here’s a round-up of what we’re doing — read on and see how you can plug in.

May 6: Book release party for Ana Maria Spagna’s Potluck: Community on the Edge of Wilderness
Reading, book sales and hor d’eouvres at the Libation Station in Mount Vernon, 5 pm, free!
www.ncascades.org/more_info/news/detail.html?news_id=2189

May 7-8: The History of the Legendary F-Style Mandolin with Stan Miller and John Reischman
Join Bellingham resident and master luthier Stan Miller as he shares his experiences in constructing of one of the most revered stringed-musical instruments ever developed. In our first-ever musical Sourdough Speaker event, mandolin legend John Reischman (Tony Rice Unit, The Jaybirds) will join Stan to demonstrate the range of sounds that these exquisite instruments are capable of producing. As Stan tells the fascinating story of the mandolin in words and images, John will provide a soundtrack of tunes, techniques and commentary.
www.ncascades.org/speakerseries

May 12 (Seattle’s Town Hall) and May 13 (Bellingham’s Sehome High School): Richard Louv
Hear the author of the best-selling book “Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder” introduce his latest publication, “The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder.” The Seattle event will feature an environmental education fair with over 20 organizations and a special on-stage conversation between Louv and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist William Dietrich.
www.ncascades.org/events

May 12 and May 14: Mountain School Open House
Join us to learn more about this award-winning residential environmental education program Thursday, May 12, 9am-4pm or Saturday, May 14, 9am-4pm. We’ll meet at our office in Sedro-Woolley and travel up the Skagit River together to our wilderness campus for a tour of our LEED-certified facility and a chance to meet Mountain School staff. Thursday attendees will have the opportunity to observe the Mountain School program in action. We’ll provide a hot lunch in our Dining Hall and organize transportation.
http://www.ncascades.org/more_info/news/detail.html?news_id=2188

May 14-15: Naturalists’ Delight: Spring Magic in the Methow
Join us for a weekend outdoor adventure with local naturalist Dana Visalli, editor of The Methow Naturalist and an attentive resident of the Methow for four decades. Meandering through the aspen-laced hills with all of our senses open, we’ll learn the basics of identifying the bewildering array of plants, mushrooms and mosses at our feet, while keeping an eye to the sky for birds, butterflies and bugs.
http://www.ncascades.org/programs/seminars/course.html?workshop_id=1042

May 20-22: Learning Center Stewardship Weekend
Join the National Park Service and Institute naturalists to tend to native flora and the habitat surrounding the Learning Center. You are invited to form a relationship with this piece of the planet by contributing to its well being by way of shovel, shears and some elbow grease. We’ll have a variety of projects for all abilities and we’ll provide all of the tools too. Your hard work will be rewarded when our talented kitchen staff serves up hearty and delicious meals. After a satisfying day of giving back to the earth, give yourself a treat and head out for a sunset stroll, relax in our library or spend an evening around the campfire sharing stories of this place. $50 suggested donation.
http://www.ncascades.org/programs/seminars/course.html?workshop_id=1043

May 24: Wendell Berry in Seattle
Critics and scholars have acknowledged Wendell Berry as a master of many literary genres, but whether he is writing poetry, fiction, or essays, his message is essentially the same: humans must learn to live in harmony with the natural rhythms of the earth or perish. Join North Cascades Institute and Seattle Arts & Lectures for our annual “Wilderness and Imagination” event at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall.
www.ncascades.org/events

May 28-30: Memorial Weekend Family Getaway
As spring emerges in the mountains with longer days and explosive green growth, gather your family in the North Cascades for a slate of engaging, hands-on activities including big canoe paddling, hiking local trails, outdoor games and nature crafts, campfires at nights and delicious meals in our lakeside dining hall.
www.ncascades.org/family

And coming up in June….

June 3-5: Spring Birding Weekend
Discover the diversity of avian life that wings into the Pacific Northwest every spring during its annual migration from Mexico and Central and South America to summer grounds in the north. Joining expert birders Libby Mills and Tim Manns, we’ll gain deeper awareness of those wonderful creatures that bring beauty and song to our days. We’ll explore forests, meadows and mountain streams in the Methow and Skagit valleys, spending the first night at the Learning Center on Diablo Lake and the second night camping in the Methow Valley.
http://www.ncascades.org/programs/seminars/course.html?workshop_id=1044

More programs, information and registration at www.ncascades.org/get_outside or (360) 854-2599.

In celebration of our 25th year of connecting people to nature through hands-on experiences in the outdoors, North Cascades Institute has opened over 50 new programs for registration, ranging from natural history classes focused on birds, butterflies and bugs to family camps, art and writing retreats and backcountry adventures in North Cascades National Park. All the details are now available at www.ncascades.org/get_outside or by calling (360) 854-2599.

Plan ahead to join us and take advantage of the Early Bird discount. From now through the Spring Equinox (March 20), when you sign up for most programs with tuition over $100, you’ll receive $25 off each registration. It’s a great opportunity to sign up for as many as you like and save! (The Early Bird discount is not valid for Family Getaways or Base Camp and cannot be combined with scholarships. Tuition must be paid in full at time of registration.)

To register with the Early Bird discount, call us at (360) 854-2599.

The 2011 slate of North Cascades Institute programs for people of all ages includes Family Getaways, Base Camp, the Sourdough Speaker Series, Diablo Downtimes and over 30 different classes and extended retreats that explore the natural and cultural history of the Pacific Northwest. Class topics range from art (watercoloring, digital photography, cedar weaving), biology (corvids, dragonflies, rare carnivores, butterflies, mushrooms, birding), history (of the Skagit dams, of Ross Lake, of Washington State trails), writing (poetry, natural history essays, blogging) and field excursions (exploring Mt. Baker, Seattle, Ross and Diablo Lakes in North Cascades National Park). The roster of teaching staff includes Robert Michael Pyle, Dennis Paulson, Tim McNulty, Libby Mills, Molly Hashimoto, Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Langdon Cook, Mark Turner, Ana Maria Spagna, Jennifer Hahn and Nick O’Connell. More information and registration at www.ncascades.org/get_outside

Most Institute classes take place at North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, our award-winning green facility on Diablo Lake in the heart of the North Cascades run in partnership between the Institute, National Park Service and Seattle City Light. Other classes take place in the field, exploring the natural history of Seattle, the Skagit and Methow Valleys, the Arid Land Ecology Reserve and North Cascades backcountry.

It’s that time of the year when North Cascades Institute is gearing up for another year of exciting programs for youth and we’re actively recruiting students to be a part of North Cascades Wild, Cascades Climate Challenge and Mountain School in 2011. Please help us spread the word to parents and teachers about these amazing opportunities.

North Cascades Wild

Recruitment is underway for North Cascades Wild, our successful youth development and wilderness conservation program in partnership with North Cascades National Park and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. While the due date for Skagit and Whatcom students has passed, we’re currently recruiting 9th -11th grade students from Seattle, Tukwila and Lake Forest Park — applications are due April 15th.

North Cascades Wild is a tuition-free program for 9th-11th graders from Seattle, Lake Forest Park, and Skagit and Whatcom Counties. Established in 2006, the program features:

* 12-day summer canoe camping, hiking and conservation service trips in North Cascades National Park and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest
* Spring and fall Saturday outdoor/service field trips (for Skagit and Whatcom County students)
* a fall Reunion, and
* the opportunity to attend a 3-day Youth Leadership Conference in November at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center

Students earn 30 community service hours after completion of post-program requirements while receiving training in leadership development, conservation service, community building and natural and cultural history. Students are eligible for job and internship opportunities on public lands after their participation in the program and can also build their Senior Culminating Project into their experience. The program is intended to be a gateway program for students, to turn them on to stewardship, leadership and community building and while developing their sense of place through the study of natural and cultural history.

For an application, please contact Amy Brown, North Cascades Wild Program Coordinator, at 360-854-2582 or
abrown@ncascades.org.

Cascades Climate Challenge

Know a high school student interested in the environment and science? Tell them about Cascades Climate Challenge!

Cascades Climate Challenge is a tuition-free program dedicated to turning today’s youth into climate change leaders for communities in the Pacific Northwest. North Cascades Institute conducts the program in partnership with North Cascades National Park and the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

Students meet in North Cascades National Park and spends three weeks in the North Cascades during either the July or August session, where they study climate change science in the field and develop their presentation skills. Hiking to glaciers, interviewing scientists and resource mangers, and participating in service projects with park personnel all allow the students to connect with the park and see the effects of climate change up close. In the final part of their summer experience, students create and teach lessons to an outside audience in preparation for their fall service projects.

Each year, 40 high school students from Oregon and Washington are selected on the basis of teacher recommendations, service and leadership experience, an essay application and a personal interview. Students from a wide range of communities and backgrounds are encouraged to apply. Applications, more information, photos and a cool video are all online at www.ncascades.org/programs/youth/climate_challenge/. You can also keep up with the latest news by “Liking” Cascades Climate Challenge on Facebook. For more details or questions, contact us at nci@ncascades.org.

Mountain School

Learn in the mountains this year! Mountain School, our award-winning environmental education program for elementary, middle and high school students and teachers based at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, has a few slots available in April and May. With blooming flowers and extended daylight hours, spring is a wonderful time to visit the Environmental Learning Center.

Looking ahead, we also have opportunities for classrooms in the fall.

For questions or to register, contact Aneka Singlaub, Youth Outreach Coordinator, at 360-854-2595 or aneka_singlaub@ncascades.org . For more information on the program, including a fun video, visit www.ncascades.org/school.

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Last but not least, check out our new Youth Leadership Conference video, featuring alumni from the aforementioned programs!

Note: Kathleen Dean Moore will present her new book Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril at Village Books in Bellingham on Wed, February 9, at 7 pm; free!

Because of humanity’s addiction to fossil fuels, we are warming our earth beneath a cloak of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

Here in Washington State, rising temperatures and a warmer climate are causing our glaciers to melt faster than they can replenish themselves. This is leading us towards a future with less fresh water for agriculture and drinking and less resources for inexpensive hydroelectric generation. Over 40 of our coastal communities are threatened by rising sea levels. Sagebrush-steppe and alpine ecosystems may disappear as the tree line shifts, and growing seasons will change in unpredictable ways. The loss of several amphibian species, alterations in bird and butterfly migratory patterns and invasions of unchecked, voracious insect infestations are already underway. Ocean acidification is choking the abundant life in Puget Sound and bays of the outer coast. Eastside forests are drying up and wildland fires will become more prevalent. We humans will face a deadly spike in infectious, respiratory and heat-related illnesses as the natural world around us smolders.

Heard this laundry list of doom before? Most likely you have, and it’s because scientists have done an impressive job of both studying the phenomenon of global climate change and communicating the causes and effects to the public. The effort has be so heroic that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

While the data, interpretations and subsequent warnings from the scientific community are essential pieces of this puzzle, Kathleen Dean Moore, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University, recognized that something was missing. Moore, the author of personal essay/nature writing books like Riverwalking, Holdfast and Wild Comfort, teaches environmental ethics and moral reasoning to students and she soon realized that the scientists’ arguments, no matter how comprehensive, were not going to inspire us to act to save our world.

“Clearly, information is not enough,” she writes. “A piece is largely missing from the public discourse about climate change: namely an affirmation of our moral responsibilities in the world that the scientists describe. No amount of factual information will tell us what we ought to do. For that, we need moral convictions… Facts and moral convictions together can help us understand what we ought to do – something neither can do alone.”

In the new volume Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, co-edited by Michael P. Nelson for Trinity University Press, Moore assembles eighty of the world’s leading visionaries, leaders and writers to create a compelling call to action to confront the challenges of climate change based on moral and ethical grounds. Moore and Nelson have orchestrated a chorus featuring the sterling voices of the Dalai Lama, Barack Obama, Desmond Tutu, John Paul II, Barbara Kingsolver, Paul Hawken, Thich Naht Hanh, E.O. Wilson, Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben, Terry Tempest Williams, Gary Snyder, bell hooks and many, many others from cultures and countries around the planet.

“Do we have a moral oblication to take action to protect the future of a planet in peril?” the editors asked of their contributors, “and if so, why?”

The answers – inspiring, creative, sobering and grounded in reason – are presented in thematic clusters, including “Yes, for the survival of humankind,” “Yes, to honor our duties of gratitude and reciprocity, “Yes, for the stewardship of God’s creation, “Yes, because justice demands it,” “Yes, because the world is beautiful.”

Moral Ground strives to start the conversation about “who we are when we are at out best, what we must do to be worthy of our gifts” and how we might live on Earth “respectfully, responsibly and joyously.” These are essential questions to ponder here at the most crucial turning point our planet has ever faced.