Posts filed under "Talking Story"
Stimulus money
According to an article in the current Peninsula Daily News, federal stimulus money has been alotted to get the removal of the Elwha dams underway this summer. The Elwha and Glines Canyon dams were constructed (in 1913 and 1927, respectively), without fish ladders and effectively killed off the most productive salmon run in the State […]
Read More
Goblin Gates
On March 4, 1890, Charles Barnes, a member of the Press Party, was the first white man to lay eyes on the Goblin Gates. The area, just upstream from Lake Mills, was once looked at as a possible hydroelectric site, but after the land was acquired by the National Park Service, that threat was removed. […]
Read More
Gear
How much gear do you need? Kayaks, sleeping bags, packs, pads, tents, stoves. A GPS, VHF, ELB, and other “necessary” electronic doodads. Layers of clothing, Goretex and fleece, down and wool. And charts, maps, trekking poles, water bottles, dry bags, filters, and blah, blah, blah. There are too many people whose closets and garages are […]
Read More
A Period piece
In 1988, the U.S. Air Force announced the closure of the Makah Air Force Radar Station, a 277-acre site just south of Cape Flattery near Hobuck Beach. The military had been paying the tribe an annual rent of $236,000 for the facility and at its peak, it had been staffed by 81 Air Force personnel […]
Read More
A Clean beach is a happy beach
I went out to Neah Bay on Saturday. It was Earth Day and I’d wrangled the day off from the Port Angeles symposium in order to help out with the beach cleanup organized by the Surfrider Foundation. All along Highway 112, I saw other cars and trucks pulled off to the side, the drivers on […]
Read More
Jade erratic
The next time you are faced with travel delays, slow service, or when you feel abandoned someplace far from home, consider the erratic. A jade erratic (or glacial erratic) is a rock that deviates from the size and type of rock native to the area in which it is found. The name is derived from […]
Read More
Bridge work
The eastern half of the Hood Canal Bridge is nearing the end of its structural service life, according to the engineering gurus at WSDOT. Just repairing the structure would not significantly extend the life of the bridge, so rebuilding has been selected as the more cost-effective solution. When it’s completed, the bridge will have a […]
Read More
Blast from the past
I’ve often wondered how long an untended website will stick around. If no one visits, if it never gets updated, will it stay online forever anyway, a sort of cyber-time capsule? Is there a purge system of some kind, that flushes away the dead sites, or do they stay on, not really alive but not […]
Read More
Fu-Sang
What would you think if I told you that, although Robert Gray sailed across the Columbia River bar in 1792, he wasn’t the first explorer to do so? Or if I mentioned that Juan de Fuca wasn’t the first outsider who traveled on the straits that bear his name? What if you were to find […]
Read More
Puget Sound Challenge – Day 10
In two decades of sea kayaking, I have paddled the waters between Tacoma’s Titlow Beach and Point Defiance more than anywhere else. For six glorious years, I was fortunate enough to live at Salmon Beach, a community of homes stuck between the sandy cliffs and the Tacoma Narrows, and I was able to get out […]
Read MoreNew Release
A story of sea kayaking and science on the rugged coast of Alaska. Coming – Spring 2014.
Follow Us On Instagram
