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The wave of the future rode traditions as old as the tides at the 20th Storming the Sound Conference in La Conner on Thursday. About 200 people, including environmental educators and representatives of ecology-related agencies and organizations from the North Puget Sound region, gathered at Maple Hall for the all-day event. They spilled into the Civic Garden Club, and La Conner United Methodist Church for class sessions. Presentations covered a wide range of marine environmental topics, with...
Research merged with imagination as scientists and artists gathered for a final time to consider the effects of their expressions about climate change as shown in their MoNA exhibits displayed during the past quarter. A panel of artists and scientists reflected on their collaborative work Saturday, during the last of three discussions about the Surge 2018 exhibit at the Museum of Northwest Art that was open since October. The goal of this Surge program, hosted by MoNA and the Skagit Climate...
It was a memorial service not to be forgotten. Just as the person whose life and legacy being honored at a filled Maple Hall on Saturday was unforgettable. The La Conner and Swinomish communities turned out en masse to pay final respects to beloved teacher and civic leader Dixie Otis, who passed suddenly Dec. 9, but not before making a lasting impact on many in her home town and beyond. The depth and breadth of that impact was highlighted in multiple eulogies delivered by those who knew Dixie...
A community hearing before the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation about the impact of the Navy on the historic buildings at Ebey’s Reserve is today at 5 p.m. at Coupeville High School Performing Arts Center, 501 S Main Street, Coupeville 98239. Writes Anacortes activist Mark Lundsten: “by simple implication, it is also on the Navy’s impact on humans and the environment. If old buildings are vulnerable to the jet noise, what about old people, or babies, or kids in classrooms or on a playground?” A rally to “Defend the Reserve” starts at 4...
Sean Skiles owns Pioneer Market, which has been a family run business for generations. Change and growth go with managing a store in a close-knit community. One change the Market fully supports is reducing waste and assisting community groups. The La Conner town council passed an ordinance banning single use plastic bags at retail stores in June. August 1st was the start date, with a waiver period of four months, making January the deadline. La Conner is the only town in Skagit County to ban single-use plastic bags. A small pebble tossed in a p...
Last weekend was more than full in La Conner: Friday the girls basketball teams were home against Anacortes, the Library was shaking the branches of its tiny trees raising money for the new building and a roomful of locals landed in the social hall of the Methodist Church to discuss the “plane truths” of the coming 36 Growler jets expansion at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. Saturday was even fuller, starting with La Conner Rotary’s Santa Breakfast of pancakes and photos and ending with Santa getting help from the town’s kids to light t...
Seventy-five miles south of the Skagit Valley, at the Bellevue Art Museum, glass sculptor Steve Klein is delivering a powerful message. At BAM’s Biennial 2018, “GLASSTASTIC,” a new, juried exhibition showing the work of 40 Pacific Northwest artists, Klein’s work sits proudly amongst the multiple installations. Klein, an internationally recognized glass artist, is digging in his heels. He has taken on our moral failings and his narration is loud and clear: we have allowed the abundance and bea...
Captain Paul Watson, co-founder of first Greenpeace and then the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in the 1970’s, was honored with the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award at the sixth annual Friday Harbor Film Festival’s opening night gala Oct. 26. The Award honors a person who has “made outstanding contributions to raising the general public’s awareness of important issues, either through his/her activism or as a filmmaker. It is presented in memory of Andrew V. McLaglen, a proficient, award-winning Hollywood film director and long-time residen...
Being a fast-talking politician isn’t usually thought of as an admirable trait. But it was an essential survival skill at a League of Women Voters Candidates Forum at Skagit PUD in Mount Vernon Oct. 22. Area legislative and judicial candidates were limited to a total of five minutes each in offering an introduction, responses to three questions, and a closing statement. The briskly-paced format was necessary to cover eight Nov. 6 ballot races plus allow time for U.S. Rep Rick Larsen (D-Arlington) and Brian Luke (I-Lynnwood) to speak at the e...
August 6, 1938 - October 2, 2018 Ron Ellis, a long-time resident of La Conner and the Eagles Nest community, passed away unexpectedly at the age of 80. He had been in declining health and was on his way to a doctor’s appointment when life left him. May his soul rest in peace. Ron was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Denbigh and Ethel Ellis. He resided in the Chicago area suburb of Hinsdale when, at the age of four, the family moved to Southern California, eventually settling in Laguna Beach near Los Angeles. Ron totally loved the beach e...
From oyster farming in Australia to wild horse racing in Mongolia and from pursing microscopic viruses in San Francisco to creating biochar in Hawaii, the Friday Harbor Film Festival’s 47 feature length and short documentaries offered enlightenment, entertainment and inspiration for everyone last weekend. The 1,200 people who filled five theaters over three days certainly found films that challenged them. Showings started 10 a.m. Friday. “Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World” first of two screenings was 1 p.m. It presented the shaping influ...
The Friday Harbor Film Festival depends on its volunteers and sponsors, but the two individuals who drive it are co-founding director Lynn Danaher and producer Karen Palmer. Each came up with the idea of a fall film festival for their adopted hometown independently. They put their heads and grant proposals together for the first film festival in 2013, fueled by hotel motel tax funding from San Juan County and the town of Friday Harbor. They have grown their vision into the sixth annual Friday...
Trump? Recently the Skagit Valley Herald had two letters to the editor urging people to vote Republican. The writers have that right, but I assume that they are over 50, have no spouse, no children, and no grandchildren. Why assume that? As explained in the recent UN report on climate, without immediate action to reduce climate destroying emissions by 45 percent in the next 20 to 25 years we face a planet that is going to be ever more uncomfortable in which to exist. Many areas will not have the water or food, and for portions of the year will...
Science is hard to understand and even when people know the facts, they don’t act, explains Skagit County Science Consortium Director Carol MacIlroy. Her Seattle house is on an earthquake fault, yet she has not reinforced it. “Climate change has created a lot on anxiety in the public, with all this information but people don’t know what to do about it,” she says. Art might offer an entry in. Thus “Surge,” opening at the Museum of Northwest Art Sat. at 10 a.m. From “a sense of curiosity” fr...
Sy Montgomery took this call on her friend’s cell phone in a car somewhere in the San Francisco Bay area. She is on a book tour promoting “How to Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals,” her twenty-first. Her favorite animal is Thurber, her border collie “with a big stripe down his face like a lightning bolt down in front of his nose and a blind eye,” she says. Why? “He has taught me that no matter how hopeless things look there could be a miracle around the corner,” she said. Montgom...
In response to Doug Cole’s request for reasons to support the charter process, I give the following example. Several years ago, my neighbors were told by a local farmer that he was clearing land next door to park farm equipment on high ground in case of a flood. But instead of occasional storage, 100s of 10,000-gallon vats filled with brine and pickles were brought onto the property permanently – bringing noise from forklifts and semis operating through the night and year. We’re used to normal farm activity on the roads and in the fie...
Diaper Need is defined as the lack of a sufficient supply of diapers to keep a baby clean, dry and healthy. Diaper Need, a consequence of poverty, is not well known or understood. However, the National Diaper Bank Network, the foremost national authority on Diaper Need, is continuously seeking to paint a clearer picture, including the difficult barriers and tradeoffs families in need face daily. Unless someone has a child or grandchildren, they may not know diapers are expensive: Diapers cost 80-100 dollars a month per child. And, babies use a...
Get ready to pack your bags – literally! The Town Council ban of plastic bags in stores takes effect today. Reusable and paper bags are about to become a common sight in La Conner. Shoppers at Pioneer Market will no longer have their goodies placed in a typical plastic bag. Sean Skiles, owner of the Morris Street market, said, “We are not opposed to doing our part in keeping things safe, clean and green in La Conner.” Although it is required for all La Conner stores to stop using plastic bags, Pioneer Market has an extension of up to fou...
In a unanimous vote, Town Council passed an ordinance banning plastic bags at retail stores at its June 12 meeting. Beginning August 1, “No retail establishment in the Town, or any of its employees, managers or owners, shall provide a disposable plastic carryout bag to any customer” the ordinance reads. There are exceptions; named are a variety of bags used for holding small items, nuts and bolts, flowers and plants, frozen foods, meat, fish, unwrapped prepared foods or packaged multiples of bags for a variety of wastes. The Council’s exten...
Joseph Rossano’s multi-part installation at FORUM Arts in downtown La Conner centers on the urgent need not just to preserve the Earth’s natural resources, but to accept our oneness with those resources. Rossano has been dedicated to ecological conservancy for decades, and as America’s political winds shift ominously away from these concerns, the artist’s project grows all the more urgent and ambitious. The exhibition title, “The Hunted: Reflection of the Hunter,” amounts to a pointed mer...
Greg Robinson, a former director of the Museum of Northwest Art, offered a different kind of homecoming last Saturday: He opened MoNA’s “Robert McCauley: American Fiction” with a 45-minute slide lecture to an appreciative audience of about 50 people, most of them getting a different view of MoNA: they had just attended the annual membership meeting. McCauley, the son of generations of Mount Vernon loggers, accompanied his dad into the woods. Born in 1946, he “grew up watching forests fall. T...
It was a Chamber of Commerce kind of day both outside and inside Maple Hall on March 15. A special 90-minute evening business forum there, coordinated by Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Heather Carter, capped a sunny near-spring day in La Conner. The event served multiple purposes. It introduced new Town Administrator Scott Thomas to local merchants and business owners, allowed Mayor Ramon Hayes to outline future municipal budget goals and offered those attending to take part in a free-flowing question-and-answer session. “I think it w...
The Skagit County Board of Commissioners last week dismissed arguments made by environmental organizations and upheld a key permit for the Tesoro (recently renamed Andeavor) Anacortes Refinery to export new petrochemicals. The permit is one of several the refinery needs before it can complete the proposed project to export raw xylenes to markets in Asia. Xylenes are a petrochemical used in manufacturing plastics, films and related products. “Despite significant public concerns raised about the project, the board opted not to consider whether t...
“American Fiction” opens at the Museum of Northwest Art Saturday with a 1 p.m. presentation on artist Robert McCauley’s work by Greg Robinson followed by a 2 p.m. reception. McCauley will attend. Robinson, chief curator at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, says “McCauley’s work visually places him in the Northwest, although most of his life was spent teaching in Illinois. His main theme – the ethics of conquest is universal and, unfortunately, timeless. His exquisite paintings and assemblage works, his engagement with diverse v...
On an unusually sunny Saturday March 10 at the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Swinomish Police Department’s Community Service Officer Brian Geer was spreading some sunshine of his own. Officer Geer stationed himself and waited alongside a locking strong box, at the SITC’s outdoor basketball court on the corner of First Street and Snee Oosh Road. He was there to kick off a new SPD “Prescription Drug Take Back Program” designed to collect and store unwanted or expired prescription medicat...
