Chattermarks

They say it is winter here in the North Cascades. With the shadowed days and the sting of cold to cheeks as you step outside, one might even believe it is true. But missing from this crisp landscape is also the white beauty of snow. While it is easy to lament the bare ground in January or the undeniable wish for skis and snowshoes, we can also find appreciation in winter’s more subtle forms. The hoar frost feathered like brandished fur on a fallen twig, the crunch of elegant crystalline ice rods pushing their way through hardened soil, the prominent, frozen stalactites dripping from mountain wall. Winter is here, and while we eagerly anticipate a world transformed by snow (the next couple weeks, they say!), we can still appreciate its other poetic manifestations.

Below, a few winter inspired poems.

Winter Song in the Foothills

Tim McNulty, from In Blue Mountain Dusk, 1992

 

On the colder nights

when the scattered chips

of winter stars

light the valley with frost,

the frozen lakes will sometimes

sing to themselves.

 

Their song

echoes through the snowforest hills

and still dense midnight air

like a great kettledrum

rumbling deep and hollow

in the belly of the earth.

 

Plates of ice shift and settle

against their banks of pasture

and wood,

while this strange and restless music

drifts past the frosty ears

of cows, owls

tucked in the hollows of night,

the gentle sleeping bears,

 

and carries up the hillside creeks

to startle us from sleep

- no song like we ever heard before -

and rock the house softly

on its moorings of ashes and dust.

Crystalline rods of ice, formed during cold, clear nights, push through moss and soil. Photo by Kiira Heymann.

» Continue reading Poetic Visualizations of the Winter Season

[We are excited to publish the second piece in our Foodshed Series, with monthly updates from the amazing chefs working so hard to provide program participants and staff at the Environmental Learning Center with sustainable, seasonal, and deliciously fresh food. In an age where the production and consumption of food are heavily disconnected, we work hard to preserve those ties by considering how food flows from the farms to our tables and all the processes in between. Purchasing from local farmers allows us to draw connections between their livelihoods and our own while at the same time contributing to our mission to conserve and restore Northwest environments through education. It's a renewing and rewarding partnership, and one we hope to keep sustaining and growing.]

I would like to introduce myself. I am Shelby Slater, the Chef at the Environmental Learning Center. I was born and raised in Anacortes, Washington and am proud to call the Pacific Northwest my home. One of the privileges I have working for the North Cascades Institute is running our Foodshed program, the largest component of which is working with local sources to supply our food. On my way to work the week of Thanksgiving, I made six stops between Anacortes and the Environmental Learning Center, and would like to share that journey as an anecdote to the success of our foodshed efforts.

» Continue reading Thanksgiving Shopping for the Environmental Learning Center

Written by North Cascades Education Intern, Matt Kraska.

It’s hard to believe it has already been two weeks since Thanksgiving. As many North Cascades Institute staff said their goodbyes and left to spend Thanksgiving with family and friends, others were saying hello as they arrived at the Environmental Learning Center for the Thanksgiving Family Getaway. Families traveled from a variety of places to spend a few days celebrating and feasting together. In contrast to our fall Mountain School programs that fill the dining hall with 5th– 8th grade youth, this event was filled with folks of all ages.

The giant snowman built in the middle of the amphitheatre, a tribute to the winter wonderland of the North Cascades.

The forest around Diablo Lake was blanketed with snow from days earlier, and there was more in the forecast for the weekend. All afternoon on Thanksgiving day the drizzle was on the verge of becoming snow, and soon enough flakes of white began to fall from the once gray sky. For many, this was the first snow of the year. Laughter filled the campus as everyone began catching snowflakes on their tongues, throwing snowballs, and building giant snow people. A little winter weather is sometimes all it takes to bring people together.

» Continue reading A Weekend of Warmth and Snow

[We are excited to publish the first piece in our Foodshed Series, with monthly updates from the amazing chefs working so hard to provide program participants and staff at the Environmental Learning Center with sustainable, seasonal, and deliciously fresh food. In an age where the production and consumption of food are heavily disconnected, we work hard to preserve those ties by considering how food flows from the farms to our tables and all the processes in between. Purchasing from local farmers allows us to draw connections between their livelihoods and our own while at the same time contributing to our mission to conserve Northwest environments through education. It's a renewing and rewarding partnership, and one we hope to keep sustaining and growing.]

Seasonality is a major component of the Foodshed Project at the Environmental Learning Center. By the time the leaves begin to yellow and fall, our refrigerator has already undergone several transformations. Tomatoes, cilantro, peppers and summer squash have made way for apples, hardy greens and, of course, the venerable pumpkin among other winter squash. Making use of our freezer space, we’ve managed to put up a decent supply of sweet corn off the cob as well as organic blueberries from Blue Heron Farm in Rockport and strawberries from Viva Farms in Burlington. It’s a pleasure to be able to preserve these great local products in the shoulder season. With some luck we’ll save some for the dark months as well.

Sights like these are now fond memories of months past.

» Continue reading News from the Kitchen

As members of the current M.Ed. graduate cohort, we often have opportunities to assist with North Cascades Institute programs and courses outside our regular teaching schedules. Last month I had the awesome opportunity to assist and participate in the 12th Annual Thunder Arm Writing Retreat offered at the Environmental Learning Center. Poet Tim McNulty and essayist Ana Maria Spagna led three dynamic days that dug deep into self-exploration through prose. Below I’d like to highlight my experience and reflections of the retreat and showcase a poem I wrote over those inspiring days.

I’m an Environmental Educator with an English degree. Simply put, I love reading. Reading has the ability to transport the reader and as a result has enchanted me my entire life. When I volunteered for the retreat it had been some years since I last wrote creatively but only a few weeks since I’d delved into a book. In school I was trained to dissect another’s writing through close reading and critical analysis, not to freely capture my own thoughts through creative writing. The essay for me historically evokes a sense of drudgery, as words like “term paper” and “final exam” flood into my mind. At the beginning of the second day of the retreat, Ana Maria gave a craft talk titled “Peeling Back: The Movement toward Honesty in the Personal Essay.” Through group free-writing exercises she demonstrated how the essay can be viewed as a door to get at the truth of the moment. For the first time my academic experience of an essay transformed into an organic process of self-reflection and natural development of ideas. Both Ana Maria and later Tim McNulty demanded that as writers we trust our voice.

» Continue reading Reflections on the 12th Annual Thunder Arm Writing Retreat

Earlier this October, Seattle artist and North Cascades Institute friend Molly Hashimoto led a wonderful and successful workshop on watercolor painting in nature at the Environmental Learning Center. Each day, Molly led students through exercises that developed tangible skills and techniques with the aim of guiding individuals towards their own unique artistic expressions. Molly and her students spent time in and around the Environmental Learning Center and along Washington Pass, finding inspiration in the many angles, elevations, and dramatic hues of the North Cascades. Below is a painted story highlighting the beautiful work of many of the workshop’s participants. A big thank you to Molly and to all who attended!

Check out Molly Hashimoto’s blog for a full recounting of her experience while teaching watercolors at the Environmental Learning Center.

» Continue reading Watercolors in the North Cascades

“Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn’t you like to get away? Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name! And they’re always glad you came! You want to go where you can see people are all the same. You want to go where everybody knows your name.” - Cheers’ Theme

The lyrics from that familiar childhood song ring true and clear to me these days, perhaps more so than they used to. Having recently moved to the North Cascades Institute’s Environmental Learning Center, I feel not only transported to a different place, but to a different time as well. Similar to the friends from Cheers who, at the end of each day, gathered on bar stools to clink mugs together and exchange stories, I look forward to seeing familiar, friendly faces around the kitchenette table, sipping tea or coffee and swapping light-hearted tales of the day. And yes, up here, everybody knows my name. And I, theirs.

It might be hard to imagine within the context of today’s constantly connected and communicating world, but picture a small, remote community consisting of twenty-five people. Tucked up in a beautiful corner of the world, this community is surrounded with towering snow-capped mountain peaks, glacial fed lakes and rivers, and trails greener than any you have ever seen. This community lives together: at least one hour from any fully equipped grocery store and two hours away from other “basic amenities” (a hospital, for example). This community works together: some days from seven o’clock in the morning until nine or ten at night – full days that usually require a special kind of energy and attentiveness for engaging with youth. This community plays together: at the end of a long week, down time affords opportunities to climb mountains, canoe across icy turquoise waters, and find hidden sit spots just off trail that allow for peaceful reflection on the brilliant, changing colors of our vine maples. This community doesn’t have cell phones (at least not ones that get reception). And most importantly, this community comes together as a group of individuals, often separated from families and partners by great distance. This community is home away from home. This community is a family – my family. This community is the North Cascades Institute.

Part of the ELC family enjoys dinner together. Photo by Katie Tozier.

» Continue reading Finding Community in the North Cascades

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I was leading a hike on the Diablo Lake Trail during our August Family Getaway, when one of the participants noticed something odd on the ground at the side of the path. We all stopped and got down on our hands and knees to see what he had found.

At first, it looked like a really big feather. It was about five inches long, an inch-and-a-half wide, and furry, in short, a tail that was detached from some sort of small-ish mammal. I picked it up, deciding to bring it back to the Learning Center with me to see if I could figure out what it came from and why it was laying next to the trail.

A quarter-mile farther up the trail we found a banana slug, and when we got down to look at it, we realized that it was on top of another tail. Where are these detached tails coming from?

After puzzling about it for a while with some of my coworkers, I decided to ask our Science Coordinator, Jeff Anderson, to see if he had any ideas. And he did! The conclusion? A flying squirrel. The anatomy index at flyingsquirrels.com has this to say:

Flying squirrels have “break-away” tails. Should a predator attack and grab a flyer’s tail, escape is possible, if only at the cost of part of its tail, not its life. The sight of a wild flying squirrel with half a tail is not an uncommon sight. The affected squirrel makes adjustments to this loss and can live a normal life afterwards.

Mystery solved.

To learn more about flying squirrels, visit www.flyingsquirrels.com

Lily the black bear and her two cubs stop by for a visit. They’re seen almost every day! Photo by John Harter

The summer has been whizzing by at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center! Families, children, adults, and black bears alike have been visiting and lounging amongst the Douglas firs and huckleberry bushes here on Diablo Lake. Most of the graduate M.Ed. students are out in the woods with high schoolers on their final North Cascades Wild and Cascades Climate Challenge trips, but a few have been holding down the fort. Elizabeth Penhollow has been changing lives through the Kulshan Creek Program, Stephanie Bennett and Nick Mikula have been immersed in interning for North Cascades National Park, and I have been working the Institute’s summer programs. It has been a fulfilling and busy summer for sure!

Water and sunlight create a beautiful summer rainbow over Diablo Lake. Photo by Stephanie Pate

Stephanie and Hannah orienting participants at the Memorial Day Family Getaway. photo: NCI

Summer canoe training with graduate student Stephanie Pate and Matt Chapman the education intern. Photo by Stephanie Pate.

Stephanie and her new friend at the August Family Getaway, one of the great programs! Photo Stephanie Pate.

Myself and all of cohort 10 are enjoying their summer. Sadly though, our residency is at a close, and it’s that time of year for the departure back to “civilization” as a new group of grads to begin their special time up in the mountains. This very real life example of the ever-changing cycle of life is bittersweet for some. Quiet mountain moments, hikes through the forests, laughing on the lake, and other great memories are abundant. I don’t want to leave this landscape that has been called home for a year but yet I am excited for the opportunities and adventures that await in Bellingham and beyond. Classes, buses, street lamps and new friends will fill my senses instead of the smells, sights, and sounds of the mountains. A new chapter is beginning, and yet one thing is for certain, whether a graduate student, staff member, or a visitor, this place is beautiful and holds a special place in our hearts.

~ Photo by Jeremy Magee.

Last week the first climate change teacher workshop was held at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center. Twenty science teachers from Oregon and Washington were invited to spend a week at NCI’s Diablo Lake campus and discuss ideas and challenges for integrating climate change into curriculum and lessons. In an attempt to make direct connections between climate change and home communities, the workshop focused on regional evidence and effects of climate change in the Pacific Northwest.

Glaciers on a beach with Ian. ~  Photo by J. Magee.

Interpretive ranger Andrew Pringle welcomed us to the park and gave us an overview of the area. Racing the rising winds, we quickly jumped into the big canoes and went out on the lake with aquatic ecologist Ashley Rawhouser to gather data and zooplankton samples. Back in the classroom, Ashley explained how these fit into a lake system and what trends to pay attention to over the years.

Andrew and Ashley lowering the data logger. ~  Photo by Jack McLeod.

Collecting zooplankton and water temperature data. ~ Photo by J. McLeod.

Keying out zooplankton. ~ Photo by J. McLeod.

During the the next year, each teacher will undertake a service learning project with their students to connect lessons on climate change with actions that address it. They will be connecting their lessons to the National Park system in some way, and many of them are hoping to use the data that Ashley and other scientists have collected in the park.

Ashley laying out the ecology of the Skagit River. ~ Photo by D. Masterman.

The next day found us out on Railroad Grade with geologist Jon Riedel. Jon shared his work with glaciers over the past decade and fielded questions on a range of climate topics.

Jon shows old photos of the Easton glacier and its position. ~ Photo by J. McLeod.

Perusing glacier data sets in the field. ~  Photo by J. McLeod.

Mr. Magee enjoys the ride home. ~ Photo by J. McLeod.

Back in the classroom, teachers traded ideas on lesson plans, creative ways around barriers and shared their service project ideas. We created an online site for sharing documents and ideas and will be sharing our projects with other teachers nationwide with the launch of the Parks Climate Challenge website.

Andrew talks about interpreting climate change. ~ Photo by D. Masterman.

This program was started by an initial grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and further developed with funds from the National Park Foundation as part of a larger initiative called the Parks Climate Challenge.

A big thank you to our supporters and to all the teachers who took time out of their summer to participate in the workshop!