An election hangs in the balance, and with it the future of Northwest marine waters.

The final count from the recent provincial election in British Columbia is expected to be completed next week, with the Green party poised to hold the balance of power if a minority government is confirmed. The election was charged with concerns about a proposed expansion of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline. The Trans Mountain project and expanded capacity would mean a seven-fold increase in…

Surprising though it may be considering my current lack of sportiness, I spent the first half of my life as an athlete of sorts. I started playing soccer when I was in kindergarten, and for several years before I hung up my cleats, I played year-round, on indoor and outdoor teams. For much of that time, I also spent every winter weekend skiing, just one in a veritable army of ski-bus kids who descended on local mountains and managed to survive despite an almost total lack of adult…

Shortly before Christmas, Whatcom Events sent out a press release letting the media—and the public—know that registration for the perennially popular 44th annual Ski to Sea Race would commence on the second day of the new year.

Although that was welcome news to the racers and athletic supporters who make it a point to be a part of the 92-mile, eight-person relay race every May, what wasn’t so warmly received was the fact that organizers had decided to cull the cross-country ski…

I have three coffee cups I keep in constant rotation. One is a dark blue and dense, and was handcrafted by a ceramicist who obviously knew exactly what they were doing. The second has a hairline fracture in it, but the painted-on fir trees and snow on it are so lovely I can’t bear to ditch it. The third is white and delicate and decorated with gold filagree and flowers, and it’s difficult to believe I haven’t broken it yet.

I thought about these receptacles when I received notice…

Delci Syvertson is only 17, but she’s already been studying ballet for six years. At 18, Henry Winslow has a year more under his pointe shoes. But the two dancers have more than that in common. Both are high school seniors studying at Whatcom Community College through Running Start, as well as performers in the Portland Ballet’s Spring Concert happening May 26-27 at Portland State University. It’s understandable if you can’t make it to Oregon this weekend to see what the duo have…

We hear much of property rights and fourth-generation settlers in the Fourth Corner—but where and how were the rights to that property originally obtained? From the people who were here first, obviously. Treaties are the famous mechanism that made such transfers legal; a less obvious one is the scourge of slavery.

Washington was hotly competitive territory for slavers to expand their fading trade in the 19th century, and many Native peoples were enslaved. The women were taken as…

If you happen upon Kirsten and Christopher Shockey’s website, Ferment Works, the tagline “vegetable + salt + time = yum” might have readers believe the art of fermenting is an easy one.

The equation doesn’t lie.

“Fermenting vegetables into condiments is so simple that even if you think you can’t cook, you can ferment,” Kirsten says. “All you need is vegetables, salt, a bowl, a cutting board, a knife, a jar and a zip-style plastic bag to get started.”

In the Shockeys case, living…

It’s been painful in recent years to see Todd Solondz, the once-inspired director of Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness, making his characters so lowly and pathetic they no longer seem real. If Solondz had kept his empathy for life’s everyday losers but put aside his compulsion to punish them for it, he might have made a comedy of barbed humanity like Azazel Jacobs’ The Lovers.

It stars Debra Winger and Tracy Letts as Mary and Michael, a couple in their late 50s who have…

If you were to wend your way to RoozenGaarde, you would find field after field ablaze with the tulips for which the area is so famous. It is a carefully cultivated, wholly natural wonder of the world, and it draws thousands every year who make the pilgrimage to the Skagit Valley to take in the riot of color that has made the region famous. But the tulip fields, while certainly a sight unto themselves, are merely the gateway to a county that boasts a rich history of agriculture and art, and is inhabited by folks who proudly hew to a fiercely local lifestyle. With its distinct and disparate cities and towns, natural beauty from field to sea and the miles of scenic routes and backroads that link it all, there is much treasure to found in Skagit, if only you know where to look. What follows is that which you’ve deemed the region’s best, the places that have earned your votes and your love, the ones that exist right in your own bountiful backyard.

Best of Skagit compiled by Carey Ross, Amy Kepferle, Tim Johnson, Scott Pelton, and Trail Rat. Photos by Jessamyn Tuttle