Harlan Kredit was raised in Lynden, the epicenter of conservatism in the rural northwest corner of Washington State. Lawns were expected to be manicured, but lawn mowing on Sunday was forbidden. With 29 churches, many of which are Christian Reformed, Lynden is said to have one of the country’s highest per capita ratio of churches—one church per about every .09 …

In the long-ago summer of 1995, I visited the “community forest to be” in the foothills of the North Cascades with my 14-year-old daughter Kelsey. She sat leaning against an old tree in the ancient forest. “No one would ever dream of tearing down the ancient cathedrals in Europe,” she observed. “How could anyone even think about cutting down this …

Water is life. The watercourses that flow through the mountains, hills, and valleys of Cascadia nourish the land, support terrestrial populations (human and otherwise), and sustain the salmon that have been, literally, the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest since time immemorial. A network of sparkling tributaries feeds the branches of the Nooksack River, providing cool, clear water and offering refuge …

In the fall of 2005, I was given a 300+ year-old, 18-foot-long, red cedar log from a jumbled pile in the log yard of the Oeser Company in Bellingham,WA. A tag on the log indicated that it had been cut down by Georgia Pacific in 1982 at the base of the Twin Sisters Range in Whatcom County, WA. near the …