Chattermarks

John Miles will read from his book Koma Kulshan at Village Books on Sat, May 1, at 7 pm. Photo by Brett Baunton.

Mount Baker was officially named by George Vancouver for Lieutenant Joseph Baker of the good ship Discovery who directed his captain’s attention to the dominant white peak on the eastern horizon in 1792. Discovery had dropped anchor in Dungeness Bay on the northeast shore of the Olympic Peninsula. Vancouver was impressed, and since he was naming everything encountered on his historic voyage, honored his lieutenant by attaching his name to this great peak. Thus did this mountain come to bear the name of an otherwise obscure British naval officer.

Native people had various names for the peak, but to early white man’s ears the name spoken by the Nooksack people seemed to be “Koma Kulshan” which, they thought, must be the Indian name for the great peak – but it was not. The phrase kwomae klelsaen can be translated “go up high or way back in the mountains shooting.” So, the phrase which sounded like “koma Kulshan” to the white ear referred to the region of the mountain, not the mountain itself. My book, Koma Kulshan: The Story of Mount Baker, takes the Indian meaning and tells tales of the mountain and the region around it.

I am delighted to have a new edition of Koma Kulshan hot off the press after more than two decades. The original research and writing of this book, which was my first, occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with publication by The Mountaineers in 1984. It sold well, but went out of print around 1990. For many years I hoped to revise and reissue it, but the publisher had moved on to other priorities, so it languished. Then, in the summer of 2009, Chuck Robinson of Village Books, the great independent bookstore in Bellingham, approached me with an idea.

Chuck is an extraordinary entrepreneur and is always trying (with success) to keep his independent bookstore flourishing in this age of on-line and big-box bookstores. He was thinking of going into the publishing-on-demand business by installing an Espresso publishing machine in the store. Would I be interested in publishing my two North Cascades books (the other is my edited Impressions of the North Cascades) this way? I would and we have done it. Impressions became available in late fall, and Koma Kulshan in March.

» Continue reading Koma Kulshan

North Cascades National Park geologist Jon Riedel teaches students on a misty moraine ridge on the flanks of Mt. Baker

Elisabeth Keating, a freelance writer covering the Parks Climate Challenge, accompanied the students on their hike to a glacier on Mount Baker the second week of July 2009 and filed this report from the North Cascades.

On July 8, I arrived at the Horseshoe Cove campground at Baker Lake where the Parks Climate Challenge students were setting up camp and preparing for their glacier exploration. There are 19 high school students in this new program, each a young leader drawn from five urban areas around the country: Denver, Washington D.C., Seattle, Chicago and the Bay Area.

There are three phases to the Parks Climate Challenge: Phase 1 consists of 30 days in the North Cascades meeting with scientists, camping, exploring and learning. Phase 2 is a trip to Washington DC where students will meet with legislators and work on a service project on the Mall. For phase 3, the students will returnhome to create and lead an environmental project in their local communities. Possible projects could include planting trees, hosting a climate change day at their school or starting a recycling project at their school.

“We weren’t necessarily looking for students who are interested in careers in the environment,” explained Megan. “What’s most important is that they demonstrate leadership potential and that they return to their urban communities as ‘climate change ambassadors’ that the community will respond to.”

For most of these urban students, it’s been a process of many of “firsts”: first camping experiences, first time bathing in a stream, first time eating hummus, first time at a rodeo (the July 4th celebration in Sedro-Woolley!) and even the first time some had “s’mores.

Home Sweet Home: Setting up camp at Horseshoe Cove on Baker Lake

Everyone had fun putting up tents and cooking dinner, along with testing out the mosquito hats. “It’s not cool-looking,” one student noted, “but we don’t care as long as it gets the job done!”

Two Parks Climate Challenge students demo their “campfire style”—mosquito netting hats and sweats!

» Continue reading Parks Climate Challenge meets Mt. Baker’s glaciers

It’s been an exciting two weeks with the Parks Climate Challenge crew. After gathering everybody in Seattle, we took off for the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center to pack for our first camping trip.

This was just one of the many firsts we’ve celebrated on the trip so far: first camping trip, first s’mores,

Refining our s’more technique

» Continue reading The PCC Team is on the loose!

Ladies and gentlemen, meet your 2009 Parks Climate Challenge instructional team, Megan, Nick, Ian and Aneka!

What is the Parks Climate Challenge you ask? From our point of view it’s: one month, four instructors, twenty students, 620 student-days, and 1.8 million calories (Yes, we did the math.) After days of packing food, calling students, counting gear, discussing strategy, rehearsing logistics, preparing lessons and caching equipment, we are finally starting to feel almost ready to receive 20 kids from Washington D.C., Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago. The whole lot of us will spend the month of July traveling all over the North Cascades National Park learning about the National Park Service, climate change and the power of youth leadership.

Gear for twenty-four, or most of it.

The students will be arriving on Monday, so the four of us will spend the next two days buying last-minute items and putting the finishing touches on our lessons before taking one last day of well-deserved rest. Stay tuned for further dispatches!