Chattermarks

People experience the seasonal transformations of the natural world in a myriad of ways. Each of us may recognize subtleties taking hold of a landscape in times of change that others will miss completely because they have learned to pay attention to different details. Amidst downpours of rain in the lowlands and dustings of snow in the mountains, it can be easy to settle in to quieter and more thoughtful routines. It can be easy to put our noses in books and our feet in slippers, forgetful that these changes bring new forms of burgeoning and often unnoticed life back into the world.

For some, these changes affect most the olfactory realm, delighting that sense with smells of duff and rich, turning soils. For others, it is the sight of a golden larch contrasted against crystalline snow and mountain peaks, and still others notice most the mosses of the forest floor amplified to new shades of green by the quickening rains. Perhaps for some it is the elongated light and the shadows that persist which give new meaning to the color and character of the trees. Or some may simply feel it as an urgent knowing from deep within, a connection to the undercurrents of a timeless, cyclical change.

By combining our individual morsels of detail and thought about the essential elements of fall, we are able to paint a richer understanding of this place in which we live. We are able collectively to tell a story that captures the beauty of the changing seasons in the North Cascades ecosystem. In the process, we learn to draw on other’s knowledge in order to widen our own, ultimately coming to appreciate a more communal understanding of place. Below, staff and graduate students share their own unique vignettes of fall, offering perspectives of this region that span many seasons to just a few months.

Tigerlily pods ready to sow their seeds on the fecund soils of the Methow Valley. Photo by Jess Newley.

» Continue reading Fall Vignettes from the Institute

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

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’

Lately, on these cool autumn mornings at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, I’ve taken to gazing south from my porch as the first, angled rays of sun illuminate the buttress of Pyramid Peak across Diablo Lake. Since our first torrential weather event passed through a few weeks ago, the steep walls of Pyramid have glistened with snow dustings in the early light, giving relief and texture to the bare, sculptured rock. I breathe deeply, savoring my gratitude for these moments to welcome the day.

Sometimes I wonder at how lucky I am to be living in the presence of such rugged giants as Pyramid, Colonial and Sourdough peaks in the heart of the North Cascades. In my first month of being here as part of the M.Ed.Graduate Program, I have sought to learn the names and scale the slopes of these and other mountains in my new backyard as a way to understand, and become attentive to, the stories written on this landscape. Some peaks — Desolation, Logan, Hozomeen, the McMillan Spires — appear as glimpses on clear days if you stand in the right drainage, at the right angle and distance. I still shout and point when I see them, for their glaciated summits rise as silent, colossal forms into the sky.

» Continue reading Peaks in Place

In cultures around the world, oral tradition plays an important role in teaching people about the world around them. Through storytelling, elders can warn listeners of potential dangers, teach the medicinal uses of native plants and the importance of ecological balance, explain cultural norms and portend consequences of breaking mores.

This tradition exists at North Cascades Institute as well, in the form of natural history presentations from one graduate student cohort to another. Cohort 10 has been living and learning in the North Cascades for over a year now, and its members have become knowledgeable naturalists and skilled educators. Cohort 11 students began classes in Bellingham in June, and will begin their yearlong residency with North Cascades Institute in late August. The overlap between cohorts in the summer is one of the biggest strengths of the graduate program, as it allows time for each of the “elders” in Cohort 10 to share knowledge with the incoming students. While each student had a particular natural history topic they chose to teach, through the design of their presentations, they also shared teaching techniques, inspirational stories and sage advice. Perhaps more importantly, they helped connect the incoming students to this place through their passion to live, learn and teach in the North Cascades.

» Continue reading A meeting of minds, a sharing of ideas

Back row, left to right: Jacob Belsher, Elise Ehrheart, Sarah Bernstein, Mollie Behn, Susan Brown, Katie Tozier, Kiira Heymann, Erin Soper, Ashley Kvitek, Alex Patia. Front row, left to right: Emmanuel Camarillo, Colby Mitchell, Jess Newley, Christen Kiser

On June 21^st, fourteen new students in North Cascades Institute’s graduate residency program started their first quarter of classes at Western Washington University. In late August, they will move to the Environmental Learning Center to start a one-year professional residency, working towards a Master of Education in Environmental Education and a Certificate in Leadership and Nonprofit Administration.

The three courses that students take the first summer are all taught by professor John Miles, creating a cohesive summer block that is a combination of classroom time and field excursions to local public lands. During their first week of classes, students explored the Lower Skagit River and the Puget Sound. During the second week, students journeyed to the Environmental Learning Center to study the Upper Skagit River.

» Continue reading Exploring the Upper Skagit

Stewardship and friendship were at the heart of the efforts during the third North Cascades Wild spring day trip in May. More than a dozen participants from Whatcom and Skagit counties came together at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center as a final chance to meet with their peers before we set out together in the wilderness this summer.

Some program participants met earlier this spring to volunteer a day of service at North Cascades National Park’s native plant nursery and also attended the Migratory Shorebird Festival at the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. This day’s trip was set aside for NC Wild participants and staff to volunteer during North Cascades Institute’s annual Stewardship Weekend, an event bringing volunteers of all ages together to assist in plant restoration efforts on Learning Center grounds. It was also a chance for NC Wild youth to familiarize themselves with both canoe and paddle, as it will serve as a mode of transportation for the program.

This summer these students, as well as others from Northwest Washington, will embark on 12-day backpacking and canoe wilderness expeditions in North Cascades National Park and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. During these trips participants will focus on leadership development, community building, sense of place and stewardship. Spring and fall day trips, such as this one, provide a chance for students to build community through service work.

» Continue reading Building Community Through Stewardship

Each season the graduate students at North Cascades Institute go on a retreat. The purpose is relaxation, fun, and to learn a little more about natural history. For the spring season, myself and the other planners decided that getting out and exploring places closer to home would be perfect. A canoe ride across the lake, riparian exploration along the Skagit, and working the land at Blue Heron Farms became the main activities for a three-day stretch in May.

Imagine gray clouds. Cool and wet, the wind licks the skin. The 11 graduate students of Cohort 10 and their fearless leader, Tanya, piled backpacks, fire wood, food, and themselves into six tandem canoes, despite the 180 degree change in weather from the previous day. Spring had teased us with sunny skies while we worked with Mountain School students in and amongst the newly budding plants the day before. Making the best of it, our group set out towards the destination, Thunder Point campground, situated on the other side of Diablo Lake in North Cascades National Park. Canoes slide in, paddles hit water, and the day began.

» Continue reading Closer Connections

As students in the Masters of Environmental Education program, naturalizing is at the forefront of our studies. Our curriculum encourages, and requires, us to get outside and document our experiences in nature. We keep journals marked with sketches, notes and questions that record our findings and observations as we explore the North Cascades landscape.

As the spring months of April and May have greeted us, so have the birds. Our winged residents have returned to the North Cascades and many of us have been eagerly watching. A major perk of living in North Cascades National Park for a year is the opportunity to live deep in the mountain landscape under Colonial and Pyramid peaks, and keep close watch of the changing seasons throughout our year-long residency in this place.

With my home at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center in close proximity to the forest, I have found myself in the midst of an ironic naturalist’s moment with birds. For several months, I have closely observed web cams zoomed in on an eagle’s nest located in Iowa, and another located on Hornby Island near Vancouver Island. While immersed in close observations of the intimate lives of eagle parents feeding and caring for their chicks, I noticed a red-breasted sapsucker prospecting a lodgepole pine right out my back door.

» Continue reading Birding Tools of the 21st Century

Spring is near. I can feel it.

Here in the North Cascades, small changes signal the coming season. The surrounding forest echoes with bird song, swarms of robins and dark-eyed juncos flit between branches of deciduous alder, paper birch and vine maple. Within the last month, sounds of varied thrushes, pine siskins, red-breasted sapsuckers and Pacific wrens have again filled the forest. Each day my eyes scout for newcomers, as I learn which birds will return to the North Cascades and when. Although I know most birds were gone all winter, their vocal return reminds me just how silent the forest has been. And I welcome the jubilant sound of their song.

The sun rises much earlier and sets much later. In the forest, spring changes are slowly emerging and apparent in the smaller details of the vegetation. I noticed these changes when I passed by a young red alder that had emerged from its dormancy seemingly overnight. The tree’s maroon bud casings, which have protected the new leaves through winter, have unfurled, revealing new small, bright green leaves. It’s catkins that were so tightly bound over winter have opened. Several feet down the trail I notice small white buds of the vine maple beginning to decorate its long, green branches that stretch through the lower forest canopy.

Along nearby trails, Oregon grape begins to form buds, which will eventually bloom and form sour, purple berries in the summer. Until this winter I had only seen the plant with its berries and am excited to see how the plant will transform from its winter stage, to flowers and finally form its fruit. New blooms of coltsfoot emerge along the Buster Brown trail near Deer Creek. At this early stage, the plants looks like a tightly bound bouquet of small blooms, reminding passersby that spring is near.

Top: Mountain School students and staff awake this spring to a wintry landscape. Above: A new leaf of a red alder begins to grow, showing initial signs of spring.

» Continue reading Awaiting Spring