Liberal Arts Blog — Washington (Part One): A Little Geography, Seattle, A Little History
Liberal Arts Blog — Sunday is the Joy of Humor, Food, Travel, Practical Life Tips, and Random Stuff Day
Today’s Topic: Washington (Part One): A Little Geography, Seattle, A Little History
This is the 38th post in a zigzagging cross-country tour of the United States. So far we’ve been to Biloxi, Mississippi, Mobile, Alabama, Asheville, North Carolina, St. Louis, Missouri, and Madison, Wisconsin. We’ve been to Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. More recently we’ve been to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, Georgia, Tennessee, Maryland, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Virginia, Rhode Island, Montana, and last week, Oregon.
Are you from Washington? Vancouver? Have you ever lived or worked in the region? What do you know about this economically vibrant, geographically diverse state that the rest of us would delight to learn?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
GEOGRAPHY: The Puget Sound, the Juan de Fuca Strait, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, Columbia and Snake Rivers
1. “The Puget Sound is the second largest estuary in the United States after the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia.”
2. “The Cascadia mega-region, which stretches from Portland, Oregon through Seattle into Vancouver, Canada is home to nearly 10 million people. It generates economic output of $600 billion, comparable to Switzerland, also placing it among the world’s top 25 nations.” Seattle’s metropolitan population is 4 million. Washington’s total population is 7.8 million.
3. Mount Rainier is both the most dangerous active volcano in the United States well as “the most topographically prominent peak in the contiguous United States.” It is visible from Seattle which is 50 miles to its north.
NB: The Cascade Mountains bisect the state into the Wet Side and the Dry Side — alternatively called, “Timberland” and “Wheatland.” Western Washington is home to the Olympia Mountains and temperate rainforests. Eastern Washington “includes large areas semiarid steppe and a few truly arid deserts in the rain shadow of the Cascades.” The Columbia River, which rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, forms most of Washington’s southern border with Oregon and has a drainage basin the size of France. ‘The river system hosts many species of anadromous fish, which migrate between freshwater habitats and the saline waters of the Pacific Ocean.
These fish — especially the salmon species — provided the core subsistence for native peoples.” The Snake is the principal tributary of the Columbia.
SEATTLE — northernmost major city in the US, 100 miles from the Canadian Border. between Puget Sound and Lake Washington
1. “Logging was Seattle’s first major industry, but by the late 19th century had become a commercial and shipbuilding center as a gateway to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush.”
2. “The city grew after World War II, partly due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a cener for its manufacturing of aircraft.”
3. Starbucks: “Our story begins in 1971 along the cobblestone streets of Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market. It was here that Starbucks opened its first story, offering fresh-roasted coffee beans, tea, and spices for our customer’s to take home. Our name was inspired by the classic tale, “Moby Dick,” evoking the seafaring tradition of the early coffee traders.”
NB: Microsoft moved from New Mexico to Washington in 1979 and moved to their campus in Redmond, 13 miles east of Seattle, in1986. Amazon was founded in Bellevue, Washington, across Lake Washington from Seattle in 1994.
FROM NATIVE TRIBES (archaeological evidence goes back to 13,000 BC) TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE (1811–1846) TO PART OF THE OREGON TERRITORY (1846) TO STATEHOOD (1889)
1. “One of the first populated areas in North America. Anthropologists estimate there were 125 distinct Northwest tribes and 50 languages and dialects in existence before the arrival of Euro-Americans in this region. Throughout the Puget Sound region, coastal tribes made use of the region’s abundant natural resources, subsisting primarily on salmon, halibut, shellfish, and whale.”
2. “Cedar was an important building material and was used by tribes to build both longhouses and large canoes. Clothing was also made from the bark of cedar trees. The Columbia River tribes became the richest of the Washington tribes through their control of Celilo Falls, historically the richest salmon fishing location in the Northwest.”
3. “The principal tribes of the coastal areas include the Chinook, Lummi, Quinault, Makah, Quileute, and Snohomish. The Plateau tribes include the Klickitat, Cavuse, Nez Perce, Okanogan, Palouse, Spokane, Wenatchee, and Yakama. . Today, Washington contains more than 20 Indian reservations, the largest of which is for the Yakama.”
NB: See below for location of Native American reservations
To be continued.
Washington (state) — Wikipedia
The Cascadia Megaregion: Facts and Figures — Cascadia Department of Bioregion
Seattle metropolitan area — Wikipedia
Strait of Juan de Fuca — Wikipedia
Olympia, Washington — Wikipedia
About Us: Starbucks Coffee Company
History of Washington (state) — Wikipedia
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Anything miscellaneous to share? Best trip you ever took in your life? Practical life tips? Random facts? Jokes?
Or, what is the best cartoon you have seen lately? or in the last 10 years? or the last 50?
Or what is your favorite holiday food? Main course? Dessert? Fondest food memories? Favorite foods to eat or prepare?
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or to cement in your mind a memory that might otherwise disappear. Or to think more deeply about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.
