Making a New Northwest Town

Hamilton town center was built in a deep oxbow of the Skagit River. In the early days, the town grew quickly along the riverbank on a robust diet of logging and coal mining. When Skagit County was established in 1883, Hamilton’s economic power and prominence allowed it to vie with Mount Vernon for the county seat.

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The Palouse in Me

A writer with farming in her blood, Teri Hein ponders how different and similar it was to be a kid on a farm in the 60s from today from under the night sky.

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2016 Ampersand Live: Performer Tracey Conway

Tracey Conway shares Brenda Peterson’s “The Secret City Life of Raccoons,” a story about the urban as well as adorable and mischievous critter.

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Let Nature Change Your Mind

Lake Serene sits just south of Mount Index in the Central Cascades range, glistening high above Gold Bar at an elevation of about 2,500 feet. You can access it by hiking a steadily inclining trail through old growth evergreens, abundant fern beds and mossy undergrowth. A serene state of mind is harder to geolocate, but according to recent brain science, a walk in the woods will get you there, too.

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A Note From the Editor

Forterra is pleased to announce our new publication that focuses on people & place in the Northwest. Learn why we believe that this place is who we are.

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the garden at higo

1—an imaginary page from chiyo murakami’s diary 1936
2—KOBO comes to Higo

To the memory of the Higo Variety Store and Binko and John, owners of KOBO at Higo

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Promise for the Pika

If the polar bear ever needed relief as the stricken planet’s most preemptively mourned victim of ecological disaster, the American pika has stood with apparent readiness to accept the nomination. The diminutive, rock-dwelling cousin of the rabbit certainly delivers the cuteness factor writes Glenn Nelson.

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About the Cover

Photographer David Moskowitz spent 18 months researching wolves for his book, Wolves in the Land of Salmon. While in the North Cascades, he came across some wolf tracks, then bear fur, then scat and finally, these remains of a black bear.

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