When I’d chosen to write a natural history project on wasps, the only lead I had was that maybe I should pay a visit to Twisp. There …
Read More of Between Fear and Fascination: Studying Vespids in the North Cascades
I’m feeling an inward thrum, a tingling aliveness, from my time beneath the majestic peaks of the North Cascades mountains. Last month, I served as creative resident …
Read More of North Cascades Institute – A Nature and Learning Paradise
One of the most iconic harbingers of spring is the sound and sight of the gentle queen bumble bee. When she emerges in early Spring, she has …
Read More of Bumblebees: An Essential Spring Harbinger
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
