Spring is a time of great change in the Pacific Northwest. The warmer weather and abundant daylight signals species from insects to plants and animals to emerge …
Read More of Gifts of Spring: Migrating Birds of the Upper Skagit
Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.” – Robin Wall Kimmerer A certain power …
Read More of Gifts of Spring: Flowering Plants of the Skagit Valley
I sat on a pile of leaves and conifer needles in the space between where two large roots of a western red cedar sloped to the ground.
Read More of Going Feral: Field Notes on Wonder and Wanderlust: Excerpt from Heather Durham
Here’s a story line. A boy grows up in an idyllic place, a small rural place, the plains of Nebraska, say, or small town North Carolina. What …
Read More of UPLAKE: Restless Essays of Coming and Going: Excerpt from Ana Marie Spagna
Officially, we celebrated our planet Mon., April 22, and many of us took part in a wide variety of celebrations, work parties and other gatherings intended to …
Read More of Climate Science: From Students to Stewards
I was given the opportunity to go on my first camping trip when I was 15. It was a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, …
Read More of “Why I Do The Work” : A Testimony from Youth Leadership Adventure’s Elle Gasperini
On an unusually warm and sunny March Saturday in the Skagit Valley, I visited the home of Kimber Burrows, North Cascades Institute’s Mountain School Manager. Cars filled …
Read More of Listening to Community Voices: Proposed Mining in Marblemount
Do you have childhood memories of daydreaming about being a squirrel and gliding from tree to tree in a forest? Can you recall getting lost in tiny …
Read More of Forest School: An Environmental Education
The North Cascades Environmental Learning Center is home to an extensive Natural History collection used for environmental programming located in the Sundew Classroom. Named after a carnivorous …
Read More of Under the Stars: Astronomy at the Environmental Learning Center
The North Cascades Institute offers a great diversity of year-round programming, but few will disagree that Mountain School has been one of our greatest successes. For 28 years, the …
Read More of On the Bus to Wonder: Burlington-Edison Joins Our Mountain School Community
