Chattermarks

For those of you following the progression of the Parks Climate Challenge 2009 participants, you will be glad to hear that the talented and empowered youth are in the process of fulfilling the third stage of this incredible new program. PCC students around the country are creating, implementing and leading service projects focused on engaging youth in their home communities on the issue of climate change in collaboration with a local National Park and Elementary School. On November 3rd, with the faithful guidance of North Cascades National Park, North Cascades Institute and Seattle Parks and Recreation, the five motivated students haling from the Seattle area facilitated an education field trip to Carkeek Park for over 80 rambunctious elementary students. Laura Humes, Sydney Jarol, Yvonne Chan, Sarah Salvador and Heather McPherson used their knowledge and leadership to inspire 4th/5th graders from from Parkwood, Whittier and Echo Lake Elementary Schools on a beautiful day in Seattle.

» Continue reading Taking the Lead

We’ve just now wrapped up our final events of our North Cascades Wild 2009 season. And what a season it’s been! Forty-seven students from Skagit, Lake Forest Park and Seattle participated in our summer wilderness 12-day canoe camping and backpacking trips on Ross Lake in North Cascades National Park. During the trips, students learned about and practiced leadership, community building, stewardship and natural and cultural history. We built and brushed trails, conducted Park-led research to count non-native red-sided shiners, cleaned campsites, picked native plant seeds, stuffed ourselves with huckleberries and thimbleberries, and hiked and canoed for miles. Together, we contributed more than 1400 hours of service to North Cascades National Park!

Students from Trip 4 built a new trail along Ross Lake in late July.

Trip 1 students canoeing on Ross Lake in early July.

Our summer season culminated in two events this fall: Our North Cascades Wild Reunion at Camp Long in Seattle on September 12th, and our final Day Trip for Skagit students on October 3rd.

» Continue reading A Fitting End to a Wild Season: North Cascades Wild 2009

May 30 was a great day for a paddle in Seattle, with full sun and a light breeze to take the edge off. With a myriad of wild lakes, rivers and open sound waters to choose from, the Duwamish Waterway hardly seems like a choice location for an excursion. An EPA Superfund site, the Duwamish River flows through the backsides of various industries – shipyards, cement factories, and scrap plants to name a few. It is a heavily traveled waterway, where industry supercedes habitat. But don’t tell that to the osprey, purple martins, killdeer, bald eagles, great blue herons and other birds we saw out on the water that day.

Cruising past a cement plant

» Continue reading Surfing a Superfund site

If you know anything about Gary Snyder, then you can understand why we here at North Cascades Institute are incredibly excited about his forthcoming visit to Seattle on May 27. Strands of Snyder are interwoven in to the Institute, our mission, our staff and our North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, and his poetry and worldview have an almost totemic presence in our work.  The 50 years of poetry, interviews and essays that Snyder has produced has educated, inspired and illuminated many of us in many different ways. Some of us came out west after reading one of his books on the mountains and trails of our region. Others have been impacted by his writing about community, culture, watersheds, ecology and sustainability — concepts he was exploring decades before they became influential buzzwords in our society. I know of people that have become fire lookouts or trail workers, poets or environmental educators, Buddhists or off-the-grid pioneers in part because of the example Snyder set in both his lifestyle and his writing.

Has Gary Snyder likewise inspired or informed you in some way? Has a particular poem crystalized some thought or feeling for you? Did one of his essays change the way you look at the world ? Which of his writings have impacted you and why?

We’re curious and hope you’ll share your Snyder story with us. Everybody who responds to this post with a germaine comment will be eligible to receive a free copy of Snyder’s book Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems, a compendium of mountain poetry that is turning 50 years old this year. I’ll give folks a week to respond and then randomly pick three lucky winners, announcing them in the comments early next week.

» Continue reading Gary Snyder and “Riprap” book give-away