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

Written by Special Guest Blogger Elisabeth Keating.

On a cool Thursday evening in late July, a group of adventurers gather at the Environmental Learning Center for the 24th (and possibly final) year of one of North Cascades Institute’s most popular courses: Ross Lake By Boat and Boot a three-day exploratory workshop on the people and places of the Skagit River Valley, led by Gerry Cook and Bob Mierendorf. Both Bob and Gerry have had celebrated careers with the National Park Service – Bob is in his 25th year as the North Cascades National Park Archaeologist, and Gerry, recently retired from 44 years as a Park employee, has been a North Cascades fire lookout (1967 and 1971), a Park designer and architect, and an instructor and captain of the Ross Lake Mule. Bob and Gerry have led this class since 1997, labeled fondly by those who know them as The Bob and Gerry show.

At orientation, Bob welcomes us to what he and Gerry call Up River University: Nature’s classroom in general, and the floating classroom on board the Ross Lake Mule in particular. In our handout is an essay about the history of the area’s indigenous people, a map of today’s current Ross Lake, the class field itinerary, and a timeline of key events in the Upper Skagit reaching back 24,000 years to the present day. Before the creation of the dams along the Skagit River in the first half of the 20th century, the heart of the North Cascades was so rugged and inaccessible that few outsiders ventured in.

Looking out across the great expanse of Ross Lake on board the NPS Mule.

Gerry gives us a brief orientation to our home for the next few days – The Ross Lake Mule built in 1968. The North Cascades National Park inherited the NPS Mule from Katmai National Park in Alaska in 1976. The Mule hauled tons and tons of sand, gravel, cement, and materials of all kinds until it met its most noble calling: a floating wilderness classroom for students and adults.

» Continue reading Reflections on the Upper Skagit: Ross Lake by Boat and Boot

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

Written by former NC Wild Student and Remarkable Young Leader, Kassandra Barnedt

The North Cascades – untouched, wild, remarkable, friendship, beauty, but most importantly life changing. Every trip to this mystical place is unique, but somehow these trips bring each one of us back to the same place. My journey with the North Cascades National Park began with family outings as a small child to the Newhalem Visitor Center. As I grew, so did my interest, and I began participating in youth programs. The North Cascades Wild Summer Youth Program was my first experience enjoying the wilderness of the North Cascades.

North Cascades Wild 2009 was two weeks of backpacking, canoeing, and hiking amongst breathtaking mountains and refreshing waterfalls. We also summited Desolation Peak at the north end of Ross Lake. The scenery was inspiring and the learning opportunities were great, but the thing that keeps everyone coming back were the relationships we formed while out in the wilderness. Something about the wild brings everyone together. Barriers are broken down and people learn to work together despite their differences. After this amazing two week journey I was left craving more of the North Cascades.

North Cascades Wild 2009 trip at lighting stock camp.

Searching for more opportunities to be involved with the North Cascades, I applied for an eight week job with the Youth Conservation Corps at the North Cascades National Park Nursery. We worked with National Park employees Mike Brondi and Cheryl Cunningham in the Marblemount  Nursery. I learned about seed collection, invasive species, revegetation, and how to clear roads. We even cleaned campsites and had the chance to work with staff in other maintenance areas. The summer was well worth the hard work. Again the next summer I could not resist and I applied to work as the Youth Conservation Corps Crew Leader.

» Continue reading Sharing My Love of the North Cascades

[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

Practicing natural history requires us to be consciously aware, to be intentional observers of our surroundings. To be a naturalist involves surrendering what we know about a place in order to learn from it. Slowly we will make notes of patterns and similarities, notes of how things are connected and how and when these connections occur. When we become familiar with a place, that familiarity is grounded in our first efforts to identify and name individual pieces of the landscape.

In my dalliances so far into the naturalist world and into the North Cascades, I have made attempts to name what I see, collect these pieces as parts of a whole, and better understand this place as my home. Learning and pulling from the experiences of the naturalists of our community is a special part of the M.Ed. Graduate Residency at North Cascades Institute I have been inspired by words and experiences about what it means to identify something by name, to understand the patterns of place, to see the connection between recognition and reverence, and to cultivate that curiosity that pulls us more deeply into relationships with the places we call home. Here are some thoughts I’ve gleaned and some experiences I’ll share about the art of naming in the practice of natural history.

» Continue reading Naming as Knowing

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

I knew that when I moved to North Cascades Institute’s Environmental Learning Center to begin the residency portion of my Masters in Environmental Education degree, it was going to be an amazing year. I have always wanted to live on a lake in the mountains, so this part of the program was a big draw for me. Unsurprisingly, the year flew by and, before I knew it, summer was drawing to a close and it was time to return to Bellingham for the last two quarters at Western Washington University. But before returning to that more “civilized” and academic sphere, I decided to both symbolically and physically transition away from my amazing year living in the midst of the North Cascades by backpacking from Ross Lake to Bellingham with another grad student and several North Cascades Institute staff.

Map of our route, heading west from Ross Lake to Hannegan Pass Trailhead

We only had four and a half days to make this trek, so we had to cut a few corners:  we took a boat from Ross Lake dam up to Little Beaver Creek, and were then picked up from the Hannegan Pass Trailhead.  If we had been purists, we would have hiked the entire route. However, that would have taken a bit more time than we had. Our roughly forty-five mile, 7500′ gain route, camping at Perry Creek, Tapto Lakes, Copper Creek, and Egg Lake, still gave us long, but breathtakingly beautiful days.

» Continue reading From the Learning Center to Bellingham: A Grad’s Transition Back to the ‘Real World’