A writer reflects on natural cycles of absence and abundance, loss and love.
Eric Wagner
Posted inMay 1, 2020: Lives on Lockdown
The threat below Mount St. Helens
Forty years after the mountain’s eruption, officials struggle to balance research and risk.
Posted inMarch 6, 2017: Uncomfortable Corners
Backpacking the blast zone
At Mount St. Helens, they never say ‘recovery.’
Posted inOctober 26, 2015: Clean Energy's Dirty Secret
Washington welcomes wolves back — across deep political divides
The state’s emphasis on non-lethal control is saving livestock and wolves, but rural residents are still leery.
Posted inArticles
Don’t drink the water
Portland’s fluoridation battle shows how tricky it is to integrate science into debates that have as much to do with values as policy.
Posted inAugust 18, 2014: Alaska's Uncertain Food Future
Fear the falcon
A man and his raptors take on Washington’s dump scavengers.
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Duwamish sludge, from source to sink
A little over three miles from the mouth of the Lower Duwamish Waterway (once known as the Duwamish River), there is a small piece of property wreathed with chain-link fence and signs that warn in various languages of various threats to life and limb. This is Terminal 117, or T-117, former home of roofing material […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
The great Flathead fish fiasco
State and tribes disagree over how to tackle an exotic species’ takeover of a Montana lake.
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
Location matters in the war on lake trout
Lake trout aren’t just found in low-elevation lakes with large recreational fisheries, like Montana’s Flathead Lake. For more than two decades, they have thrived in the crystalline, icy waters of Yellowstone Lake, in the heart of Yellowstone National Park. Biologists believe someone introduced lake trout to Yellowstone Lake back in the 1980s. Since then, the […]
Posted inJune 10, 2013: Paradise at a Price
Arctic ship logs help scientists reconstruct climatic history
May they whose Lot this Log to keepBe worthy of the Task completeAnd never leave a sentence outWhich should occur the voyage about — Inscription on the cover of a 19th century ship’s logbook The morning of April 19, 1875, dawned cool and foggy in San Francisco Harbor. Aboard the United States Coast and Geodetic […]
Posted inMay 27, 2013: Haywired
War Bird: An essay on robot hummingbirds
Probably he was bigAs mosses, and little lizards, they say were once big.Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster.— D.H. Lawrence, “Humming Bird” The other day, a friend of mine sent along a story he thought I’d enjoy. It described how some engineers had developed a robot they called the Nano-Hummingbird. Barely 3 inches long […]
Posted inApril 15, 2013: Sacrificial Land
Are whale watchers taking a toll on Puget Sound’s orcas?
Some orcas won’t tolerate being tagged, but a few, Candice Emmons says, are willing to play ball — like K33, who on a gray September day is swimming high and slow in Puget Sound. Emmons, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration biologist, angles her boat at the big male, who almost seems to like the […]
Posted inNovember 26, 2012: Casting for Common Ground
Seattle-based artist paints portraits of a melting world
We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice. — John Berger, Ways of Seeing Maria Coryell-Martin wants us to dance the horizon. We are in the Seattle Art Museum’s sculpture park, beneath a hunk of orange steel (The Eagle, by Alexander Calder), but she is looking past the art, […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
In search of camas, a Native American food staple
Skull Island sits in Massacre Bay, in Washington’s San Juan archipelago. Here, in 1858, Haida raiders killed a band of Coast Salish and left the bones behind. I can think of other, perhaps more cheery spots to look for flowers, but Madrona Murphy’s enthusiasm is unstanched. “Look!” she calls as our boat nudges against shore. […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
Historic plant cultivation in Northwest native tribes
The idea that the Coast Salish and other Northwest Native Americans cultivated plants was disputed until relatively recently. Famed anthropologist Franz Boas and his disciples argued that Native Americans didn’t need to cultivate plants thanks to abundant salmon runs; they could subsist on wild forage instead. According to Doug Deur, an anthropologist at Portland State […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Save a chimney, save a swift
Doesn’t look like it’s going to be a great night,” Larry Schwitters says, sitting in his car outside the Old Selleck Schoolhouse, about 40 miles southeast of Seattle. It’s nearly sunset, the sky is cloudless and warm. “It’s too nice for swifts,” he grouses. “If there were going to be a lot of them, they’d […]
Posted inApril 30, 2012: A Mexican rancher struggles to shift from cattle to conservation
Balancing fish and farms on a Washington estuary
In late summer last year, a small but enthusiastic crowd gathered in northwest Washington to witness the rebirth of a waterway — the result of years of negotiation, compromise and patience. Those present heard about the project’s importance, not only for Pacific salmon, but also for the local community’s livelihood. It sounds a lot like […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2011: A Burning Problem
Cruising the ocean, counting seabirds
The lone-flier screams, resistlessly urges the heart to the whale-way over the stretch of the seas.–“The Seafarer,” an Old English poem, author unknown At 120 feet wide and 951 feet long, the MS Golden Princess is nearly as big as an aircraft carrier. At 109,000 gross tons, she weighs more than one. She has 15 […]
Posted inNovember 8, 2010: Dr. No
The windhover
Wildlife biologist Travis Booms tracks remote Alaska gyrfalcons
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
The marten chronicles
Framing the wrong guy isn’t always a bad thing