Fall 2005

Photo by Jack Kintner

Featured Articles

Putting your environmental bucks into your truck
In July of 2003, the Deming QuickStop on Mt. Baker Hwy, was one of the first gas stations in Washington State and the first in Whatcom County to sell biodiesel, an alternative to petroleum-based fuels,made from vegetable oil or animal fat.

I Ching, therefore I am
(Or how the North Cascades Institute Came Into Being)
Twenty-three years ago a young North Cascades National Park climbing ranger named Saul Weisberg and a friend, interpretive naturalist and park ranger Tom Fleischner, started talking about what later became the North Cascades Institute (NCI), a non-profit agency whose stated goal is to inspire folks toward a closer relationship with nature through direct experiences in the natural world.

The Healing Waters of Harrison Hot Springs
The first European to discover the hot water spring on the shores of southwestern B.C.’s biggest lake was a miner who fell out of his canoe and into water warmed by the spring while beaching his canoe in the gold rush winter of 1859.

The Bold Man and the Sea
For some reason, perhaps inspired by the talking fish mounted on your dentist’s office wall, you’ve decided to go out and catch a salmon,and have enlisted a local charter fishing boat to aid you in your cause.

Wine Tours Northwestern Washington & lower mainland British Columbia
The Taj Mahal in India was inspired by love. So was the 2004 Carpenter Creek signature “Green Apple” Riesling.

The High Life
“You feel like the earth is pretty large when you’re out in these places,” says Steve Hovde, looking through a summer’s worth of hiking pictures and wondering where they’ll go next.

Kind of a gneiss story
Saul Weisberg stood on a piece of land that was once just a small bench of more or less level ground 300 feet above the Skagit River on the south side of Sourdough Mountain, a steep piece of bedrock whose summit ridge, about a mile to the north, is almost a mile straight up from where he was standing.

Nature, red in tooth and claw
BEARS Where are they? There are both grizzly and black bears in Washington, but the first is very rare while the second is pretty common.

Radio Van Zandt. Come in please
The community of Van Zandt, with less than 500 people, historically under served by public transportation and communication infrastructure, has recently received new bus service from Whatcom Transportation Authority to its community center and has plans to build a low-power FM community radio station at the Van Zandt Community Hall, across the street from Everybody’s Store on SR 9.

Ju Juan A Mexicana serving up
Casa 542, Casa Que Pasa’s satellite restaurant, home of the world-famous potato burrito and the “last cocktail going east,” has new owners and a new name.

3rd Annual Mt. Baker Hill Climb
In an event that only a cyclist could love, but, boy do they ever, 271 riders ranging in age from 13 to 62 climbed 4,300 feet in the 24.5 miles between Glacier and the end of the road at Artist’s Point on September 18 in the third annual Mt. Baker Hill Climb.