The Banks-Vernonia State Trail offers lucky cyclists a glimpse of the past and the future in one corner of Oregon’s old timber country. Oregon’s first rails-to-trails linear state park is on the edge of the Northern Coast Range that tumbles down to the Pacific Ocean. …
Category: Environment
Summer at the Ballard Locks in Seattle means boats, birds and the timeless ritual of Pacific salmon runs
The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks may be the coolest place to hang out in Seattle. On a recent morning we caught a cool breeze ahead of the summer swelter. We strolled passed the manicured lawns and gardens. Great blue heron glided overhead in a busy …
Canada’s Reifel Bird Sanctuary is a haven for swans, cranes, owls and the people who love to gaze at them
British Columbia’s George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary is the best place on the West Coast to see some of the world’s most spectacular birds, including trumpeter swans, eagles, owls and sandhill cranes. This pit stop for migratory birds is the perfect reason to linger …
Seattle’s Carkeek Park, where wild salmon return from the sea to spawn in a neighborhood creek
From mid November to mid December salmon return to spawn in Piper’s Creek, which flows into the Puget Sound at Seattle’s Carkeek Park. We stumbled upon this year’s run late in the season. There was one lone salmon alive, laboring in the cold, shallow water …
Brewer, baker, woodturner, treasure maker: All in a day’s work for Bluegrass State forester Scott Shouse
To me it was just an overgrown limb destined for the woodpile. But Scott Shouse, the forester extraordinaire, looked at the thigh-thick lilac branch we had just cut down and saw the makings of a rustic wooden treasure box.
Greg Lamm 