Chattermarks

Every family has different holiday traditions.  Most families gather for a big meal on Thanksgiving. Some watch or play football. My family likes to run in a local “Turkey Trot”. But how many people go for a canoe ride in a 14-person voyageur canoe on Thanksgiving?

This year, several families had that opportunity as participants in the first Thanksgiving Family Getaway program at North Cascade Institute’s Environmental Learning Center on Diablo Lake.

Families from all over Washington and Oregon gathered at Diablo Lake to celebrate Thanksgiving while surrounded by pristine beauty. Though the forecast called for rain, rain, and more rain, we were showered with more sunshine than precipitation. Families enjoyed activities such as canoeing, hiking, tracking, art classes, and the microscope lab.

» Continue reading Rewriting Thanksgiving traditions

The ninth cohort of graduate students at North Cascades Institute finished their first quarter of graduate school with a nine-day backpacking trip across the North Cascade mountain range.   Each student reflected upon one day of the trip to create this summary of their adventure.

» Continue reading Nine days with cohort 9

When I went to graduate school, I spent a lot of time in stuffy rooms while professors spewed information at me. I frantically took notes in class, hoping that it would all make sense when I reviewed it later. North Cascades Institute’s Graduate Residency in Environmental Education is a very different experience.

» Continue reading A week in the life of a graduate student

Backpacking in the North Cascades is great, but last weekend I wanted to do something different. I decided to try canoe camping. The Environmental Learning Center on Diablo Lake was the perfect starting point for my three-day trip.

» Continue reading A long weekend on Ross Lake

Who says graduate school has to involve sitting in classrooms listening to lectures?

The first two weeks of class for the ninth cohort of students in the M.Ed program at North Cascades Institute and Western Washington University have been anything but traditional. After a couple of days of orientation to the program, Cohort 9 headed into the field. Students observed bald eagles at Padilla Bay, took time to journal on top of Mount Erie, and poked around the mouth of the Skagit River before heading to Bay View State Park for a barbeque.

» Continue reading Poking Around