Tag Archives: Cathy Grinstead

Positively Uncivilized                             By Rena Priest, Raven Chronicle Press, 2025 Studying the epigraph to 2021-2023 Washington poet laureate Rena Priest’s new essay collection, “Positively Uncivilized,” is a worthy endeavor. 19th-century journalist Ambrose Bierce expands the definition of “positive” to mean “mistaken at the top of one’s voice.” …

18 -20 mph winds and three to four foot swells met us as we paddled our kayaks out of Lund Harbor heading north. Waves sloshed over the boats, and, even though we had skirts and rain gear, they soaked us. Steering was next to impossible. Our intrepid group of seven was just beginning a trip to Desolation Sound with the …

Pacific Harvest: A Northwest Coast Foraging Guide                                                    By Jennifer Hahn, Mountaineers Books (2025) In “Pacific Harvest,” author Jennifer Hahn takes us on an eye-opening journey through Pacific Northwest ecosystems. A teacher of sustainable wild food …

When out on a trail, most of us look at the wilderness around us, absorbing the sights, sounds, and smells of the outdoors. Sure, we look at the trail because if we don’t, we’ll trip over a root before we know it. But how many of us look at the trail with “trail eyes”—that critical observation of the trail itself?  …

Teaching in the Rain: The Story of the North Cascades Institute, by John C. Miles. Chuckanut Editions, 2023   The North Cascades Institute has been a fixture of the northwest Washington landscape since 1986. In “Teaching in the Rain,” author John C. Miles tells its origin story, a story with so many moving parts it’s a wonder the Institute was …