Maybe it’s the damp earth along a trail. Maybe it’s the scent of fallen leaves, moss, pine needles, and rain. Or maybe it’s that hard-to-describe smell that seems to appear just after a fall shower.

That distinct autumn smell has a lot to do with chemistry.

The smell of rain

One of the first smells you might notice is that familiar earthy smell after a rain. It even has a name: petrichor. The word sounds complicated, but the basic idea isn’t. During dry weather, plants release oils and soil microbes produce compounds that collect in the ground. 

One especially important compound is called geosmin, which is made by microorganisms living in soil. Our noses are actually really good at picking up geosmin, even in very small amounts, which is one reason you can notice that earthy smell almost immediately after a rain.

When rain finally arrives, especially after a dry stretch, raindrops hit dusty soil and disturb those compounds. Tiny droplets and particles can become airborne and drift upward. Suddenly, all those smells from the forest floor are floating around you. 

Why the North Cascades smell especially good

The forests of the North Cascades have plenty of ingredients to make that autumn smell. 

Think about a hike you’ve taken in the North Cascades. Maybe you’ve moseyed up Thunder Creek beneath the old-growth trees, wandered around the Environmental Learning Center, or made your way along Deer Creek Loop toward the waterfall. As you walk, you are beneath Douglas-firs, western hemlocks, cedars, and other conifers. The forest floor is covered with needles, leaves, twigs, bark, moss, and decaying plants. Add cool autumn temperatures and plenty of moisture, and you have an excellent recipe for interesting smells. Conifer needles contain aromatic oils and resins. When needles fall and break down, some of those chemicals contribute woody, fresh, or resinous aromas.

Then there’s the leaf litter, the layer of leaves, needles, twigs, and other plant material covering the forest floor. It might look like a pile of dead leaves, but there’s actually a lot going on underneath. Fungi, bacteria, and other decomposers are busy breaking all of that material down and returning nutrients to the soil. As they do their job, the chemicals inside those leaves change. Some of the compounds released during decomposition contribute to the earthy, musty smell we associate with autumn.

So when you smell that rich forest-floor scent on a North Cascades hike, you’re smelling an ecosystem at work.

Rain + dust = forest magic

There’s another cool trick happening when rain hits dry ground. Raindrops landing on dusty or porous soil can trap tiny pockets of air. When those bubbles burst, they can fling microscopic particles and aromatic compounds into the air. Those particles can carry earthy smells straight to your nose. So that wonderful “rain smell” isn’t really the rain itself. The rain is helping release compounds from the soil and carry them into the air where we can smell them.

A forest you can smell

Scientists actually have a word for these seasonal changes: phenology. It’s the study of how plants, animals, and ecosystems respond to the changing seasons. And in the North Cascades, autumn brings plenty of changes to notice. So next time you’re hiking in the North Cascades after a fall rain, take a second to stop and smell the forest. Notice the smell of wet bark, crushed needles, damp soil, moss, and fallen leaves. There’s a lot more going on in that earthy smell than you might think. That cozy autumn scent is really a combination of biology and chemistry, microbes making geosmin, plants releasing aromatic compounds, fungi breaking down fallen leaves, and raindrops stirring everything together.

Pretty impressive for a puddle, a pile of leaves, and some dirt.

Photos by Jodi Broughton, Mariassa Bluestein and NCI

The post From the Trail: Why Autumn Smells So Good in the North Cascades first appeared on North Cascades Institute.

Melinda Hurst Frye photographs the ecology of the forest floor, witnessing the cyclical life found within the lush biome of the Pacific Northwest. By embracing the flatbed scanner as a camera, Hurst Frye welcomes the slowness of the process for observation, evidence of the passage of time, and connection to the protagonists and assemblages of the understory. 

Hurst Frye’s work has been featured in publications for both art and science, such as WIRED and Orion Magazine, and varied exhibitions that include the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and Museum of Northwest Art, as well as in collections including the University of Oregon, the Summit/Seattle Convention Center, King County, and the Port of Seattle at SEA.

Melinda holds an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design, teaches regularly in the Seattle area, and is represented by J. Rinehart Gallery.

Julie Kim 김미정 is a Seattle based, Korean-American artist. She creates multi-layered watercolor paintings that explore themes of wholeness, transformation, and healing. Her paintings reflect both inner and outer landscapes, guided by an internal practice of slowness and presence.

Her process includes foraging natural rocks and minerals to create handmade earth pigments and paints. More than a material practice, this becomes a collaboration and dialogue with the land — infusing each painting with a sense of place, time, and the natural elements. Painting becomes a way of bridging the natural and human-made, the wild and urban, fluidity and structure.

Practices of movement and healing arts deeply inform her. As a student of yoga, dance, music, and the mind-body relationship, she approaches painting as a somatic and intuitive process, allowing sensation, rhythm, and stillness to guide her compositions.

Claire Thompson is a former longtime seasonal trail worker on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. She holds an MFA in Nature Writing from Western Colorado University and an MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana, and has taught writing at the University of Montana and Wenatchee Valley College. 

Her work is forthcoming in River Teeth and the anthology Cascadia Works, and has appeared in, among others, High Country News, Out There Outdoors, and Terrain, where she was a featured contributor to the 2022 “Lookout: Writing + Art About Wildfire” series and a finalist in the 2021 nonfiction contest. Claire grew up in Seattle and lives in Leavenworth, where she currently works at a bookstore and a brewery. She is at work on a researched memoir about the past, present, and future of public-lands stewardship.

Keep an eye out for updates from Melinda, Julie, and Claire as they work on their respective projects in the heart of the North Cascades. We’ll be sharing their work and experiences here.

Now Accepting Spring 2027 Proposals

Interested in joining the North Cascades Institute community to work on your own creative project? We are now soliciting proposals for Spring 2027 residencies. The priority deadline for proposals is October 30, 2026. If you have questions, please contact Nathan Drapela, Learning Center Programs Manager at nathan_drapela@ncascades.org.

The post Welcome to our Fall 2026 Creative Residents! first appeared on North Cascades Institute.

To better understand the rate of glacier loss and its impact on our region’s watersheds, I founded the North Cascade Glacier Climate Project (NCGCP) and led our first field season in 1984. The project’s goal was ambitious: to document the response of glaciers to climate change across the North Cascade Range for 50 years. The North Cascade Institute was founded shortly thereafter in 1986 with a goal of connecting people, nature and community through science, art, literature and the hands-on study of the natural and cultural history of the Pacific Northwest. 

To foster connection with the North Cascades natural environment we backpack to every glacier, using no helicopter support, and leave no equipment in place. By 2005 it was evident that the profound changes that we were observing could be communicated with science information alone.We evolved into a glacier science and art expedition team. Incorporating artists was an unusual approach  for science programs at the time, that has now become a desired approach. In recent years we have invited a painters, fiber artists, illustrators, writers, printmakers, photographers, and even a cake artist to join us. The result has been a series of exhibits “Shaped By Ice” that has leaned into the synergy of art and science to deepen our connection with the public intellectually and emotionally to glacier change.

In 2026 we embark on our 43rd summer of observations after a mild winter with limited snowpack and a warm spring leading to a snow cover declining to mid-summer levels by early June.

Measuring Glacier Change

Mass balance is the difference between “accumulation” (the amount of snow and ice added to the glacier each year) and “ablation” (the amount of snow and ice lost on the glacier each year). When ablation consistently exceeds accumulation, the glacier shrinks. We measure annual mass balance which is noted as the most sensitive climate variable for glaciers.

To determine mass balance we measure snow depth across the glacier using either a steel probe that can be driven through the snowpack or measuring the annual snow layer on the vertical wall of a crevasse. We observe ablation (melt) by observing the rate of snow depth loss using stakes emplaced for a brief period and observing the migration of the snow line. From 1984-2013 glaciers lost mass (avergae thinning) at a rate of 0.4 m/year. From 2014-2025 glaciers have lost mass at a rate of 1.5 m/year. Given that the average glacier was 50-60 m thick in 1984. The loss of 25-30 m represents a 40-50% loss of glacier volume.

Several glaciers we measured mass balance on annually have disappeared including Ice Worm (2023), Lewis (1993) and Spider Glacier (2005). 

In 1984 and 1985 we visited a network of 47 glaciers that we planned to return to every five years to understand how fast they were expanding or shrinking. Recognize that in the 1970s most large North Cascade glaciers were advancing, including all major glaciers on Mount Baker. In 1984 three of the glaciers were still advancing. By 1993 all 47 glaciers were retreating. In 2025, 12 of the 47 glaciers no longer exist.

The NCGCP annually measures three glaciers on Mount Baker (Easton, Rainbow, and Sholes), and periodically measure five others (Deming, Boulder, Coleman, Mazama, and Squak). By 2025, the average retreat of the eight glaciers since 1984 was 710 meters. From 1984 to 2025, the area of Mount Baker glaciers declined by 20-25% and experienced 24-27 meters of glacier thinning. In turn, glacier velocity (or, the rate at which these glaciers move, indicating the decline in mass balance) has declined, as has crevassing. The thinning also reveals new bedrock even high on the mountain.

The result is a North Cascade Range with less glacier cover and more lose rock on the newly deglaciated terrain. There is also an impact on our glacier fed alpine rivers. The combination of glacier loss and streamflow changes is best illustrated in the Skykomish River Basin.

Skykomish Valley 

Glaciers play an important role for rivers by buffering low flow periods and regulating stream temperatures during late summer. Without glaciers, the late-summer water supply diminishes and stream temperatures rise, which can reduce water quality and create unsuitable habitat for aquatic life. In the mid 1980s NCGCP identified nine glaciers in the Skykomish River basin that had active crevassing, an indication of thick and healthy ice accumulation, and sufficient area to be classified as a glacier. Between 2005 to 2023, six of these glaciers disappeared. 

Two of the three glaciers that remain – the Lynch and Columbia Glaciers – now comprise 88% of the basin’s glaciated area. From 1984 to 2013, the mean annual mass balance on the Lynch and Columbia Glaciers was –0.38 meters per year (meaning, on average, they lost 0.38 meters per year). From 2014 to 2025, the mean annual mass balance decreased to –1.55 meters per year. The basin’s third glacier, Foss Glacier, has lost 85% of its area since 1958 and has almost disappeared, with 2026 being the likely year of its loss. 

The basin is on a trajectory to lose all its remaining glaciers in the next two to three decades. This will complete the transition from a glaciated to an unglaciated watershed, with no capacity to restore any of the glaciers in the foreseeable future.

In the Skykomish River, ongoing glacier loss has resulted in lower late-summer streamflow and warmer stream temperatures. Since 1986, there have been 15 separate years when streamflow in the Skykomish River was significantly low (below 14 cubic meters per second) for 10 consecutive days, and since 2008, the river has repeatedly exceeded its maximum temperature threshold of 16oC (meaning that, under the Clean Water Act, the river violated water quality standards and was deemed “impaired”). 

From the Glaciers to the Sea: this painting tells the story of this watershed fed by North Cascade glaciers that flow out into the Puget Sound. The snowpack and glaciers in the mountains in this region provide crucial meltwater to river systems, many of which connect critically to the ocean. Columbia Glacier is seen on the left of the painting, with the beautiful Blanca Lake beneath. This is one of three glaciers remaining in this region, the other five have recently disappeared. On the right side is the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, three of the nine glaciers in this complex remain. Most recently lost was the Iceworm Glacier, in 2023.

The large bar graph in this piece shows Skykomish River discharge (the volume of water) from mid July to late September in 2023. The decrease in water over the dry, hot summer period is evident. The line graph that makes up the mountain above the bars shows the temperature of the river at this same time, highlighting heat wave events. When the temperature spikes, and when the river levels drop, a critical threshold is reached for salmon and other species. This highlights the importance of glaciers in acting as a buffer during drought and heat events.

The Skykomish River is a tributary of the Snohomish River, where efforts are being made by the Stillaguamish Tribe to improve conditions for salmon. These important efforts may be significantly offset by continued glacier loss.

Looking ahead

Across the North Cascade Range, we’ve witnessed a 35-50% loss of ice in the past decade, translating to a rate of 1.5 meters of ice thickness lost per year. For many of the relatively small alpine glaciers in the North Cascades, this rate of loss has resulted in extinction. 

In addition to environmental consequences, glacier loss significantly impacts our recreational experiences by altering climbing routes, increasing rockfall risk in newly deglaciated areas, and creating unstable ice caves. No longer can you stand atop a Cascade peak in late summer and look over a range of glacier-clad summits. 

At the current rate of loss, it’s uncertain whether fifty years from now any glaciers will remain. The possibility depends on the choices we make and the evolution of our energy production and consumption.

You can help protect our glaciers by: 

Contributing to the research. Share your observations with the North Cascade Glacier Climate Project by emailing mspelto@nichols.edu or tagging us on Instagram (@mspelto and @jillpelto). We cannot reach all of the glaciers we would like observations of.

Reduce Footprint: Identify how you can reduce your carbon footprint and implement those changes that in particular add net value now.

Participating in local climate advocacy. Work proactively with organizations that amplify your voice in asking lawmakers to support policies that protect our cherished landscapes, and educate your community about the impact of sustainable lifestyle choices on our glaciers. 

The post The North Cascade Glacier Climate Project: Observing Glacier Change with Art and Science Since 1984 first appeared on North Cascades Institute.

“Is the water really that color?”

The rivers shimmer in brilliant shades of turquoise, and Diablo Lake glows with an almost unreal blue-green color. Against a backdrop of evergreen forests, rugged peaks, and lingering snowfields, it looks more like something from a painting than real life. As a former North Cascades National Park ranger, I spent plenty of summer days roving the Diablo Lake overlook. Visitors would stop to admire the view, then almost inevitably ask, “Why is the water that color?” I heard every explanation imaginable, from algae and pollution to food coloring and even aliens.

The surprising part? The color isn’t enhanced by a camera filter or caused by chemicals in the water. It’s a completely natural phenomenon and the science behind it is just as fascinating as the view.

The Secret: Glacial Flour

Despite its name, glacial flour has nothing to do with baking.

Picture a glacier as a giant sheet of sandpaper slowly creeping down a mountainside. As it inches along, the immense weight of the ice grinds against the bedrock beneath it, crushing solid rock into incredibly tiny particles, so small that many are finer than ordinary sand or even silt. These microscopic fragments are known as glacial flour, or rock flour.

When warm weather arrives each summer, snow and glacier ice begin to melt. The meltwater carries millions of these microscopic rock particles into nearby streams, rivers, and lakes. Because they’re so fine, they stay suspended in the water instead of quickly sinking to the bottom.

Those tiny particles are what give North Cascades rivers and lakes their famous turquoise color.

Why the Water Looks So Blue-Green

Here’s where the science gets really interesting. Sunlight contains every color of the rainbow. When it shines into water filled with glacial flour, the suspended rock particles scatter blue and green wavelengths more effectively than reds and yellows. The result is the stunning turquoise color that makes North Cascades rivers and lakes so memorable.

It’s actually similar to why the sky appears blue. In the atmosphere, tiny air molecules scatter blue light. In glacier-fed rivers and lakes, microscopic rock particles are doing much the same thing beneath the water’s surface.

On bright, sunny days, the effect becomes even more dramatic, making the water seem to glow.

Summer Is When the Colors Are at Their Best

Summer is when the colors really come alive. As temperatures rise, glaciers melt faster, sending more glacial flour into rivers and lakes. The extra suspended rock particles make those turquoise and emerald colors even more vibrant.
By late summer, many rivers and lakes are at their most colorful. As cooler weather returns in the fall and glacier melt slows, less glacial flour enters the waterways and the brilliant colors gradually begin to fade.

It’s one of the North Cascades’ most beautiful seasonal changes.

Why Diablo Lake Is So Famous

No place showcases this natural phenomenon better than Diablo Lake.
Fed by glacier melt from the surrounding mountains, the lake receives a steady supply of glacial flour throughout the summer. Unlike rushing rivers, the calmer water allows those tiny particles to remain evenly suspended, creating the lake’s smooth, luminous blue-green color.

Surrounded by steep mountain slopes, evergreen forests, and dramatic peaks, it’s easy to see why Diablo Lake has become one of Washington’s most photographed places. The famous overlook along the North Cascades Highway gives visitors an unforgettable panoramic view, and on a clear summer day, the water almost doesn’t look real.

Photos are beautiful, but seeing the lake in person is something else entirely. If you’re feeling brave, stop by the Environmental Learning Center just off Highway 20 and take a dip in the glacier-fed waters of Diablo Lake. Just don’t expect it to be warm!

A Landscape That’s Still Changing

One of the coolest things about the North Cascades is this isn’t ancient history, it’s happening right now.

Glaciers may look frozen in place, but they’re always moving, slowly shaping the mountains one tiny grain of rock at a time. Every summer, they grind mountain rock into fine sediment, meltwater carries those particles downstream, and sunlight transforms the rivers and lakes into brilliant shades of turquoise.
It’s a reminder that these mountains are still changing. Every summer, they’re quietly reshaping the landscape one tiny grain of rock at a time.

So the next time you stop at Diablo Lake or watch a glacier-fed river winding through the North Cascades, you’ll know the secret behind that unforgettable color. You’re looking at millions of microscopic pieces of mountain rock, carried downstream by glacier melt and lit up by the summer sun. Even after spending so many summers in the North Cascades, I never got tired of seeing that color. Knowing the science behind it only made me appreciate it more.

But if you’d rather tell your friends it’s food coloring, I won’t ruin the story.

photos by Marissa Bluestein unless otherwise noted

The post Why North Cascades Rivers Glow Turquoise Every Summer (And Why Diablo Lake Is So Iconic) first appeared on North Cascades Institute.

MEARES ISLAND, IN THE SOUTHWESTERN CORNER OF BRITISH COLUMBIA’S VANCOUVER ISLAND, IS AN IMAGE OF THE FUTURE.

So are the many islands, lakes, and peninsulas in Clayoquot Sound around Meares Island. The region’s original inhabitants, the Tla-o-qui-aht nation, have declared the entire 400-square-mile (1,000 sq km) area to be a ‘tribal park.’ Canadian maps may show it as a mix of national park, provincial timber zones, and private land with a few tiny First Nations reserves, but to the Tla-o-qui-aht it is all their territory, and always has been.

In the twentieth century, much of the Tla-o-qui-aht homeland was logged—badly, by firms that stripped the country of its valuable ancient cedar and created erosion and ruin. ‘They came and left,’ says Saya Masso, head of the Tla-o-qui-aht natural resource department in Tofino, the biggest town in the area. ‘That was fifty years ago. And they didn’t restore the land, and neither did British Columbia or Canada. So we’re doing it.’

The Tla-o-qui-aht are rechanneling streams, re-creating the prelogging ecosystem, protecting the herring spawning areas, and blockading logging roads in delicate areas where visitors shouldn’t go. On top of the conservation work, they are beginning the tedious but vital business of nation-building: starting their own education programs, hiring their own police (‘park guardians’), issuing their own parking permits in towns like Tofino, and, possibly most important, persuading businesses to fund these services with something akin to a tax—a 1 percent surcharge for the Tla-o-qui-aht nation’s endeavors.

When Tla-o-qui-aht like Masso talk about this work, they often use the word sovereignty. Typically, sovereignty means ‘self-rule.’ But to Masso the term means more than that. It stands for a vision of Native societies as autonomous cultures, part of the modern world but rooted in their own long-standing values, working as equal partners with nontribal governments at every level…” —

“Sovereignty is something you inherit, like citizenship. This is an unceded nation, meaning we never signed a treaty here. And so that enables us to decide our own future.” — Riley Caputo, Tribal Parks Guardian

top photo: Carrying cedar boards to repair a walkway, Joe Louie passes the welcome sign to the Tla-o-qui-aht’s Meares Island tribal park, near Vancouver Island in British Columbia in February 2022. The island has been effectively controlled by the nation since the 1980s, when it stopped loggers from working there during a renowned series of battles over sovereignty known as the War in the Woods. Today Tla-o-qui-aht parks guardians, including Louie, maintain and protect the land.

Excerpt from Guardians of Life: Indigenous Knowledge, Indigenous Science, and Restoring the Planet – “Vancouver Island Rebuilding Indigenous Sovereignty,” written by Charles Mann. Published by The Mountaineers 

The post Guardians of Life: Vancouver Island Rebuilding Indigenous Sovereignty first appeared on North Cascades Institute.

There are already enough books focused on the world’s environmental woes, so in The Earth Said Remember Me I focus on solutions. The book is a resistance manual for environmental defense, presented in the form of meditations and explorations. I offer readers a simple, four-part antidote to environmental amnesia. Go Outside. Bear Witness. Make a Record. Pass It On.

This excerpt comes from Chapter 4 “Pass It On,” in which I highlight how the oral histories of Coast Salish peoples have been at once an anchor and a sail in their efforts to restore salmon populations.

— Jason Dove Mark

—————————————————————————————————–

Jewell Praying Wolf James was set to go fishing, so if we wanted to talk, I’d have to meet him at the river. The previous few days had been packed with rain and the Nooksack was running fast and strong, the currents aswirl in a chocolate-milk-like flood. It was late autumn, and the cottonwood and willow were bare. Dogwood blared red. Snow geese and tundra swans scratched the sky in tattered Vs, southward bound.

The Nooksack River forms the eastern boundary of the Lummi Nation, one of the most populous Native tribes in the state of Washington. The reservation is located on a peninsula that elbows into Bellingham Bay, a slip of woods and wetlands fringed with gravel beaches. From Gooseberry Point—a place inhabited for thousands of years—the western horizon is crammed with forested mountaintops, every one of them an island. On that cool fall day, the river was busy with Lummi (pronounced lum-EE) fishermen. They zipped across the water in small aluminum skiffs setting drift nets to catch chum salmon on their spawning run.

I live ten miles from the reservation boundary, and I’ve often walked the riverbank there. I had heard Lummi folks refer to the place as “Stick’s Drag,” for the logjams that pile up at the river bend. Jewell had another name: “Outlaw’s Drag,” a memory from when state authorities hounded Native tribes to try to prevent them from exercising their treaty rights to hunt and fish. When he was a kid in the 1950s, Jewell remembered, there was a village on the riverbank—about twenty families, plus a couple of fish houses that bought and sold the catch. Jewell and the other children were paid a few pennies each to help pull the nets out of the water. “But I decided not to be a fisherman,” he told me, “because there were too many fishermen and not enough fish.”

Jewell had come to the river for some recreational fishing. The day before, he had filled a five-gallon bucket with ooligans, a small smelt that, deep-fried, make for a crunchy delicacy. Now, Jewell was hoping to repeat his performance. When I arrived, he was standing in the shallows in knee-high rubber boots, plying the water with a metal dip net attached to an eight-foot-long aluminum pole. He had cinched a rope around his waist and tied it off to a riverbank alder; falling into that cold, swift water would be trouble. His bucket held just three finger-sized fish.

Jewell, who also goes by the Lummi name tse-Sealth, was annoyed—less at the paltry catch than at the other ooligan dipnetters working upstream. The elders would not have been pleased. “You see the people dipping ooligans there? Well, this is the spawning grounds of the ooligans. They don’t go any further. And my grandfather says we never allowed anybody to drift in between the two bridges. They’re dragging their nets over the ooligans’ spawning grounds and so there’s hardly any ooligans, you see?”

For years Jewell directed the Lummi Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office, and as he took a break from dip-netting to eat a sandwich of salmon salad on wheat bread he launched into an energetic monologue about Native rights. Jewell briefly went to law school before returning to the reservation to assist the Lum-mi’s sovereignty advocacy, and he’s spent time in rooms at the White House and the United Nations. He has the affect of a seasoned litigator, his talk a whirlwind of statutes and citations and court decisions—all of it delivered with the heat of a preacher.

“I’m always an aggressive speaker when it comes to those issues,” he said. A leader from another tribal nation once called him “the angry voice behind the movement.” “I was aggressive as a child, and rather than turn that aggression inward, I’m going to turn it outward in defense of my people.” The passion has kept him youthful: though in his seventies, his hair, worn long in a braid, remains mostly black, touched with bright silver at the temples.

Jewell’s uncompromising advocacy for Indigenous sovereignty also comes in the form of storytelling. He is the master artist of the House of Tears carvers, a Lummi collective that specializes in creating massive totem poles that fuse art and activism. Over the decades, Jewell has carved poles to oppose tar sands mining, to try to liberate an orca held captive at an amusement park in Florida, and to commemorate the victims of the 9/11 attacks—a pole that stands in the Congressional Cemetery.

While non-Natives commonly refer to the carved artwork as totem poles, Jewell prefers “story poles.” I had first seen one years earlier, when I met Jewell as he was preparing to take a twenty-five-foot-tall story pole carved from a four-hundred-year-old cedar on a cross-country trip to oppose extractive projects like oil and gas pipelines. Painted in turquoise and red, gilded with copper, it was a polyglot of symbols from various cultures: bear, salmon, orca, moon.

“It’s a collection of stories from around the world,” Jewell told me at that time. “It basically shows that red, black, white, and yellow were all Indigenous. At one time, we were all extremely connected to the earth and taught our children how to care about the environment we live within.” Along its journey, crowds of people came to see the pole and lay their hands upon it, the carving acting as a kind of megaphone broadcasting messages of resistance to environmental destruction.

Now, on the banks of the Nooksack, Jewell had another story to share. He lit up a cigarette and I noticed that the fingers of his left hand were dotted with the blue ink of a homemade tattoo: L-O-V-E.

“I used to be head of [Lummi Nation] fisheries. From ’79 to ’84. When I was fisheries director, the fishermen were upset because I had to close down the spring Chinook fishing, because there was hardly any spring Chinook. I was only twenty-six at the time, but I had enough sense to know that we can’t keep destroying the population without consequences.”

The Lummi fishermen were livid. “They felt like I was an asshole, that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

There was a big meeting. Jewell got up and, in front of everyone, told the story of Salmon Woman. The legend is a foundation of Lummi culture, and Jewell’s capsule version of the story goes something like this:

The People were starving and so Raven, which is the leader, found Salmon Woman when he was lost in a fog. And Salmon Woman, knowing the People were starving, gave her salmon children to Raven’s people. And she sang a song to lift the fog and have her children follow her to the rivers. She brought the salmon to the rivers. Once she did, the People were able to survive. All Salmon Woman wanted was for us to respect her children. So we’re supposed to return their bones to the water and as a consequence their spirit would return to the house of the Salmon Chief, and then they would come back next year.

The fishermen weren’t having it. “We’re hungry!” they yelled. “We’ve got to feed our families, you bastard, and here you are standing there and telling us children’s stories!”

Jewell thought he’d have a minute to interpret the tale’s mean-ing: the necessity of protecting the salmon, protecting the river, protecting the spawning beds. But the crowd was getting rowdy. It was becoming, he said, a “let’s hang him type of moment.”

Then an elder, the late George Cagey, got up to speak. He told the room, “You’re right! We have the right to take those spring Chinook. Let’s go to the river and take those spring Chinook. And when we take everyone last one, let’s go to the spawning beds and stomp on the eggs.” Everyone in the crowd hung their heads, went home, and accepted the fisheries’ closure.

“He made them realize what the story was all about,” Jewell said. “It’s our duty to protect the salmon and the habitat.”

***

The Pacific Northwest salmon are the stuff of legend. They are also a textbook-worthy example of environmental generational amnesia. To read the salmon literature is to enter a library of shifting baselines, to see, once more, how easily the meaning of scarce can shrink even as the definition of abundant shrivels.

For thousands upon thousands of years, they came by the tens of millions from the sea to the rivers: Chinook, coho, sockeye, pinks, chum. Every creek across greater Cascadia had its own genetically distinct population of salmonoid, the fish home to their one stream and no other. It was a vast wheel of life churning between salt water and soil, the nutrients of the ocean cycled upstream to feed the forest and all its inhabitants. After spending their adult years in the Pacific, they navigated back to their natal waters by using the planet’s magnetic field like a compass as well as by scent memory. It was Proust-like—the fish returning to their childhood home by the lure of smell.

When the first Europeans arrived at the Salish Sea—the inland salt waters that stretch from present-day Olympia, Washing-ton, to Campbell River, British Columbia, and which includes the Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia—they were gobsmacked by the fairy-tale beauty. Glacier-armored peaks towering above primordial forests, meadows dressing the riverbanks. “The country before us exhibited every-thing that bounteous nature could be expected to draw into one point of view,” British navigator George Vancouver wrote upon his arrival. A century later, John Muir called the sea “the Mediterranean of the North American continent.”

Most of all, the newcomers marveled at the fish. The once-great salmon runs of Europe were nothing more than relics; the salmon fisheries of North America’s Atlantic Coast would soon fall, too, smashed under the heel of nascent industrialism. But in the Pacific Northwest plentitude remained. When Lewis and Clark arrived on the Columbia River in 1805, they wouldn’t even attempt to estimate the salmon: “The number is incredible to say.” In the 1840s, a pioneer in what today is Oregon wrote, “I never saw so many fish collected together before.” The settlers were astounded by the fishes’ size as much as by their sheer numbers. Hundred-pound Chinook were not uncommon; “June hogs,” they were called.

It didn’t take long for amazement to curdle into avarice. Within just a few generations, the settlers transformed the sea’s natural wealth into cold, hard cash in a spasm of destruction. The first white settlers had shown little interest in salmon (their attention was focused on otter furs and land grabs) but with the invention of fish canning their hunger fell on the sea. The largest salmon-processing facility in the world sprang up in the Fairhaven district of Bellingham—not far from where I live today—and by the turn of the last century it was annually packing five million one-pound cans of salmon. As lumberjacks converted ancient groves of cedar and fir to board feet of lumber, the hillsides lost their footing and suffocated the spawning streams with silt and mud. At the river mouths, pulp and paper mills asphyxiated the coastal waters with sawdust.

The truly fatal blow arrived in in the mid-twentieth century in the form of hydroelectric dams. Concrete curtains descended across Cascadia. On the Columbia River, the Grand Coulee Dam was completed in 1942 without any fish ladders, annihilating a thousand miles of spawning habitat. After dams went up on the Yakima River, the number of annual sockeye spawners collapsed from some six hundred thousand to scant thousands. The great wheel of life between headwaters and ocean was jammed shut.

For more than a century, people in the Pacific Northwest have been worrying about the unmistakable decline of salmon. Then each new generation redefines “decline” downward. There’s always something worse than worst.

The Pacific salmon population collapsed by 50 percent between 1849 to 1980, around the time Bruce Brown wrote a book called Mountain in the Clouds in which he bemoaned that the likeliest place to find a wild salmon in Washington was in “the state archives.” Since then, twenty-eight species of salmon and steelhead have been placed on the endangered species list. In his 1990 paean to Cascadia, The Good Rain, Timothy Egan laments how the sockeye runs on the Fraser River had fallen from a historic high 40 million to a mere 2 million. Thirty years later, the 2020 sockeye run on the Fraser was a measly 280,000 fish. His-tory repeated itself—and then it compounded.

The ever-present state of emergency seems to have anesthetized our discernment. How else to explain a celebratory Seattle Times article about the return of five thousand Chinook to the city’s Lake Washington? “A splendid abundance,” the newspaper called it, even though the figure was a small fraction of the historic high. Some years ago, the Associated Press trumpeted that the fall Chinook on the Snake River had made a “comeback.” The run was about seventy-five thousand; the run in the 1930s was more than six times larger.

Recall that the concept of shifting baseline syndrome sprang from fisheries science. The latest peer-reviewed evidence comes from the salmon-spawning rivers of Idaho, where many runs are classified as endangered or threatened. The Chinook population in Idaho rivers is about 3 percent of what it was in the 1950s, and the government fisheries managers have set 10 percent of the 1950s baseline as their recovery goal. But, according to one group of government scientists, in the 1950s the fish numbers were just one-third of what they had been in the 1880s. “Even modest increases in salmon returns are incorrectly interpreted as ‘record runs’ despite being far below historical abundances,” the researchers warn.

It all comes back to memory. In Salmon, Mark Kurlansky spends nearly four hundred pages detailing the long train of abuses the fish have suffered and then, at the very end of the book, indicts shifting baseline syndrome as a main culprit pre-venting real restoration. “If the goal is to get a river back to its disastrous level of 1950 or even 1850, the salmon will not be restored. The problem is that no one remembers the abundance of salmon before the Industrial Revolution and so they cannot aspire to it.”

When a fraction of a fraction is considered success, the definition of environmental restoration has been rendered into garbage. It’s as if you awoke from horrible car crash to be consoled by the doctor that you’ll only be paralyzed from the neck down: it might be survival, but you’d never call it recovery.

Excerpted from The Earth Said Remember Me: How to Revive Our Memories and Restore the Planet. Copyright (c) 2026 by Jason Dove Mark. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

Jason Dove Mark has served as editor-in-chief of Sierra and editor of Earth Island Journal. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Atlantic. He lives in Bellingham, WA.

The post “The Earth Said Remember Me” by Jason Dove Mark first appeared on North Cascades Institute.

Plan Ahead and Prepare

A successful trip begins long before stepping onto the trail. Summer conditions can vary significantly across the North Cascades, with lingering snowfields, changing weather, wildfires and varying trail conditions. Research your route, check forecasts, understand permit requirements, and bring the appropriate gear.

Planning ahead not only improves safety but also reduces impacts on the environment. Well-prepared visitors are less likely to create new campsites, take damaging shortcuts, or leave behind equipment and waste when challenges arise.

Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces

Many alpine plants in the North Cascades grow slowly because of the region’s short growing season. A few footsteps through a meadow may not seem significant, but damaged vegetation can take years to recover, just ask mountain heather. It can be tempting to step off trail for a photo or a better view, especially in alpine areas. However, repeatedly walking through vegetation creates informal paths and can damage fragile plant communities. Staying on established trails helps protect these areas from unnecessary wear. Stay on established trails whenever possible and camp only in designated sites or on durable surfaces such as rock, gravel, or hardened ground. By concentrating use in appropriate areas, visitors help protect fragile vegetation and reduce erosion throughout the backcountry.

Dispose of Waste Properly

One of the simplest Leave No Trace principles is also one of the most important: pack it in, pack it out.

All trash, food scraps, and litter should leave the backcountry with you. Even biodegradable items such as fruit peels, nut shells, and food scraps can attract wildlife and alter natural ecosystems. Proper disposal of human waste is equally important and should always follow local regulations and best practices.

A clean campsite should look as though no one was ever there.

Leave What You Find

Part of the magic of the North Cascades is discovering its natural wonders. Whether it’s a patch of wildflowers, an unusual rock formation, or evidence of the area’s rich natural history, these features are best appreciated where they are found.

Avoid picking flowers, moving rocks, carving into trees, or collecting souvenirs. In national parks, natural and cultural resources are protected by federal law. Leaving natural and cultural features undisturbed preserves the experience for future visitors and protects the integrity of the landscape.

Minimize Campfire Impacts

Campfires have long been a part of outdoor recreation, but they can also have significant impacts on the environment. In many areas of the North Cascades, campfire restrictions exist to protect natural resources and reduce wildfire risk.

Before lighting a fire, know the regulations for the area you are visiting. When permitted, use established fire rings and keep fires small. Better yet, consider using a camp stove for cooking. Small decisions can make a big difference in protecting forests and reducing the risk of human-caused wildfires.

Respect Wildlife

Wildlife encounters are often among the most memorable parts of any North Cascades adventure. North Cascades National Park provides vital habitat for more than 75 species of mammals, 200 bird species, and diverse amphibians and fish.  Black bears, mountain goats, marmots, deer, pikas (above) and birds are some of the most common wildlife you will see while visiting the area. 

Observe animals from a safe distance and never feed them. A general rule is to stay 25 yards away from most wildlife and 100 yards away from predators like bears and wolves. Secure food and scented items properly, and avoid approaching wildlife for photographs. Feeding or disturbing animals can alter their behavior, threaten their health, and create dangerous situations for both wildlife and people. Giving wildlife space allows animals to remain wild and reduces the likelihood of negative encounters.

Be Considerate of Other Visitors

The North Cascades offer opportunities for solitude, reflection, and adventure. Every visitor plays a role in preserving that experience.

Keep noise levels down, yield appropriately on trails, respect campsite boundaries, and practice courtesy when sharing popular destinations. Small acts of consideration help ensure that everyone can enjoy the peace and beauty that make this landscape so special.

A Shared Responsibility

The North Cascades remain one of the most remote and undeveloped landscapes in the country, but that character depends on the choices visitors make every day. As summer recreation reaches its peak, whether you’re spending an afternoon on a popular trail or several days in the backcountry, following Leave No Trace principles helps protect the park’s ecosystems and ensures others can enjoy the same experience in the future. 

All photos by Marissa Bluestein

The post Leave No Trace in the North Cascades: Protecting a Wild Place During Peak Adventure Season first appeared on North Cascades Institute.

Birding Across the Skagit Valley

The beginning of 2026 saw Field Programs venturing forth to observe migratory birds with avian enthusiasts Joe Ordoñez and Brendan McGarry. Affectionately called “Birding by Butt”, we warmed up in our vehicles in between each birding hotspot so that we could brave chilly temperatures.

This was just the beginning of wildlife encounters during programs as we watched winter weather ease into salmonberry blossoms, sunny skies, and participants gaining hands-on experiences with the natural world. 

Seaweed Foraging & Feasting

In mid-April, you would have found Field Programs on the shores of the Salish Sea for an exploration of the senses as we foraged for seaweeds then feasted in our kelp kitchens under the expert instruction of Jennifer Hahn.

In one breath spouting the culinary uses of each seaweed and the next discussing sustainable harvesting, Jennifer wove together the story of the tides which left participants with a meaningful understanding of what we can do to protect this resource for generations to come.

Exploring the Salish Sea

With Highway 20 closed for winter, we took advantage of alternative transportation and took to the seas aboard the Snow Goose with Captain Dan and Orion with Captain Kevin.

Between island explorations, marine science activities, sightings of orcas, sea otters, harbor porpoise and tideline crustaceans, we barely had time to take a photo! Participants appreciated the abundance of the Salish Sea from plankton all the way up the food chain.

Learning Center Seminars

May kicked off with two seminar weekends at the Environmental Learning Center and didn’t slow down from there. While one group painted landscapes and forest scenes with renowned artist Molly Hashimoto, the other headed farther afield with naturalist Chris Byrd for a deep dive into native plants, large mammal sign, and even forest forensics.

Dinner conversations highlighted the profound impact of engaging in the natural world as participants swapped stories from the day and discussed our place on the planet.

Exciting Eastside Excursions

Field Programs also took the long way around to the east side of the mountains this spring to observe snakes with current and former WDFW biologists John Rohrer and Scott Fitkin, and spent a long weekend birding with long-time instructor Libby Mills.

The Methow Valley did not disappoint: over 26 snakes were spotted in addition to 92 species of bird. These experiences were more than just looking at neat wildlife; they are powerful reminders that the North Cascades ecosystem is home to our wild neighbors who rely on public lands and conservation efforts to survive. 

More to Come in 2026

Looking to July and beyond, we are gearing up for lots more field programs! You can join us to dabble in the arts with night sky photography, nature writing, and illustrated poetry. We’ll engage our scientific minds studying the geology of the Upper Skagit Valley (did we mention by river raft??) and by peering closely at lichens, fungi, and animal tracks. Come fall, we’ll tune into a mindful experience with forest bathing and then return to the cycle of the seasons with more winter birding.

It’s going to be a busy year, and we hope to meet you in person in the field or online in our virtual classroom. Bring your questions for our experts, your enthusiasm, and your sense of adventure!

Meet the Team

Hi! We are Emily and Shelby—the new Field Programs Manager and Coordinator at the North Cascades Institute. We both joined the team earlier this year and are thrilled to be bringing participants a broad suite of classes including old favorites and new offerings!

Emily grew up on both sides of the U.S. / Canada border and has always been happy to call the PNW home. She looks forward to crafting courses that engage all of the senses—with a particular delight in foraging! Shelby is originally from Idaho and spent some time on the East Coast, but is now thrilled to be back in the PNW and helping connect people of all ages to her favorite ecosystem. We can’t wait to meet you in the field! 

The post Spring 2026 Field Programs Highlights first appeared on North Cascades Institute.

Some students left determined to spend more time outdoors. Others discovered a sense of calm during quiet reflection in nature, or found the confidence to share more of themselves with their peers. After waving goodbye to the last school bus of fifth-graders until Fall, Mountain School Manager Megan Carter shares some of our favorite photos and memories:

A student from Little Mountain wrote in a postcard to their future self: “I would like to experience more nature and realize that nature is amazing and that there are cool things to learn about and just enjoy this amazing place and the waterfall.”

A chaperone shared that a student who had attended Mountain School earlier in the year had done a “complete 180” afterward. According to the chaperone, the experience inspired the student, and their family was amazed by the positive changes they had seen.

One instructor reflected on a group that was initially skeptical of being outdoors. By the end of the program, those same students were asking questions about the forest, showing genuine curiosity, and connecting with nature in ways they hadn’t expected.

During a sit spot activity with a particularly energetic group, students became so engaged that they asked to do it a second time. Afterward, several shared that they felt calm and peaceful—a powerful reminder of how meaningful quiet time in nature can be for young people.

One instructor noted that a student who had been reluctant to participate became emotional about leaving at the end of the program, crying as they boarded the bus because they didn’t want Mountain School to end.

A teacher observed that the Indigenous storytelling program “Salmon Boy” created such a welcoming environment that one student felt comfortable sharing her identity as a Swinomish princess during the talent show—an example of how representation and belonging can open doors for students.

These are moments that remind us why outdoor education matters: meaningful experiences in nature can spark curiosity, foster belonging, and leave a lasting impact long after the bus ride home.

 

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THANK YOU to our entire Mountain School Team for making this program possible: Mountain School Manager Megan Carter; Program Coordinators Annika Lee and Claire Demorest; and Instructors Jackson Boyle, Kat Fowler, Emily Mehalchin, Ryan Morton, Michael Mulvihill, Manali Rege-Colt, Bailey Shannon, Alexander Templeton, Ocean Tennant-McCubbin, and Grace Warner.

See more photos in our Spring 2026 Mountain School photo album.

The post Spring 2026 Mountain School Highlights first appeared on North Cascades Institute.

Early spring in the North Cascades  is a time of transition. Snow still covers the high peaks, but lower forests are already shifting into vibrant greens. Waterfalls grow stronger with snowmelt, rivers run high, and the trails feel quieter than in peak summer season. It’s a mix of winter and spring happening all at once, and that combination makes this a great time to explore.

Highway 20 Closure: What to Plan For

Before heading out, it’s important to know that State Route 20 (North Cascades Highway) is currently closed from Ross Dam Trailhead (near milepost 134) on the west side to Porcupine Creek (near milepost 156) on the east side, according to Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). They are currently estimating a full reopening around June 25. 

This means, right now,  you cannot cross the park via Highway 20 right now, and eastern destinations like Rainy Pass and Washington Pass are not accessible from the west. As a result, early spring hiking is focused on the western side of the North Cascades National Park Service Complex.

The good news is that this area still offers a wide variety of trails, from accessible forest walks to scenic viewpoints near Diablo Lake.

North Cascades Institute Environmental Learning Center

One of the best places to start is the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, located on the shore of Diablo Lake. Surrounded by steep forested slopes and glacier-fed water, it’s both a learning space and a peaceful base for exploring the surrounding area.

In early spring, the setting feels especially fresh. Mosses are bright, streams are full, and bird activity increases throughout the forest. Several trails around the campus provide easy access to the landscape, and some are ADA-accessible, making it possible for more visitors to experience the lake and forest environment comfortably.

If you’re looking for a quiet forest walk, the Deer Creek Loop is a good option. Listen for spring bird song as you go. If you want a bit more effort, continue uphill and you’ll reach a small early-season waterfall. For something longer, the Diablo Lake Trail runs from the parking area along the shoreline and eventually reaches Ross Dam. 

After your hike, rest your legs on the beaches of the glacier fed Diablo Lake and take in the views of Pyramid and Colonial peaks. 

ADA-Friendly Trails in the Area

Even in a rugged mountain landscape like the North Cascades, there are several accessible trails that work well in early spring.

In Newhalem, the River Loop Trail offers another accessible option. This easy path follows the Skagit River through old-growth forest. During spring, the river is especially powerful as snowmelt increases water flow, creating a dramatic but accessible riverside experience.

The Sterling Munro Boardwalk, located behind the Newhalem Visitor Center, is fully ADA-accessible and winds through shady Douglas fir and huckleberry before opening to a sweeping view of the Picket Range. 

The Trail of the Cedars is another gentle walk, featuring large cedar and Douglas fir trees covered in moss and lichens. The forest here feels quiet and shaded, with soft ground that contains a history of logging, damming and fire.

The Happy Creek Forest Walk is a short ADA-accessible boardwalk trail near the Environmental Learning Center area (near Ross Dam trail head, make sure to check road closures). It passes through dense, mossy old-growth forest with interpretive signs that highlight the surrounding ecology. The creek nearby adds a steady natural soundtrack, especially during spring runoff.

Thunder Creek: A Classic Spring Hike

Thunder Creek is one of the standout hiking areas on the western side of the park complex. The lower Thunder Creek Trail is often accessible earlier in the season and offers a straightforward route into a broad glacial valley.

In spring, Thunder Creek is at its peak flow, fueled by melting snow from surrounding mountains. The sound of rushing water stays with you for much of the hike, and the surrounding old growth forest feels especially lush during this time of year. Many hikers turn around at the Thunder Creek bridge, but the trail continues much farther for those who want a longer outing.

Thunder Arm and Thunder Knob Views

The Thunder Arm area near Diablo Lake is another strong choice for early spring hiking. While higher elevation routes may still be snow-covered, lower trails offer clear access to forest and lake views.

The Thunder Knob Trail is the highlight here. It climbs gradually through forest before opening to views of Diablo Lake’s bright blue-green water, framed by steep, snow-dusted peaks. In early spring, cloud cover often moves through the mountains, adding that classic Pacific Northwest moodiness to the views throughout the hike.

Why Early Spring Is Worth It

Early spring is one of the most interesting times to visit the North Cascades. Snow is still present at higher elevations, while lower elevations are quickly greening up. Waterfalls are strong, wildlife is more active, and the trails are generally quieter.

Conditions can change quickly, so hikers should be prepared for mud, lingering snow, and cool, wet weather. Waterproof gear and layered clothing make a big difference this time of year.

Even with the Highway 20 closure between Colonial Creek Campground (near milepost 130) and Porcupine Creek (near milepost 156), the western North Cascades still offer plenty of rewarding early spring hikes. From ADA-accessible forest walks to riverside trails and lake viewpoints, it’s a season that highlights the park’s quieter, more subtle beauty.

The post From the Trail: Spring Hiking in the North Cascades first appeared on North Cascades Institute.