'The Nation of Cascadia.' 'Big Local.' 'The Great Nearby.'
Those
are tags Washington-state writer David Brewster uses to describe the
vast region of mountains, evergreens and vibrant cities he fell in love
with decades ago when he began editing the once-legendary travel guide,
Best Places Northwest.
Brewster
has many motives for strengthening Cascadia
ns' ties, for creating a
richer regional identity among the people of Washington, Oregon and
B.C., who may be connected by our approaches to literature, lifestyle,
art, community involvement, music and personal freedom.
Another proposed flag for Cascadia
Highlighting
how the 14 million people of Cascadia share many cultural traits and
values would help the region become a "critical mass," Brewster said.
It would help us make an impact on the global scene.
"A stronger notion of Cascadia would give us more international clout."
Living
in the Pacific Northwest much of his life, Brewster is the former
editor-in-chief of Seattle Weekly magazine and founder of a
two-year-old online journal called Crosscut, which covers Cascadia in
part by linking readers to stories from the region's media.
"Many people [in Cascadia] ignore the regional as too parochial," Brewster said.
He
has valid concerns about what could be called the current
internationalization of Seattle. It's a worry to which residents of
multicultural, high-immigrant Vancouver can relate.
There are so
many people living in Seattle, Portland and Vancouver who come from
somewhere else (more than two out of five Metro Vancouver citizens were
born outside the country) that they may not be taking seriously where
they now live.
Instead, they're devoting their energy to their
foreign birthplaces, out-of-region business links or offshore travel
dreams. They're jetting off here, there and everywhere, creating
pollution. And they don't have much loyalty to Cascadia.
The
best way to counteract the downside of this kind of globalization is to
set down roots, develop a sense of place, find the universal in the
particular, whether it's Cascadian outdoors, cuisine, literature,
music, art or even language.
Most people don't recognize it, but
there are, for instance, more than a few linguists who believe there is
a distinct Cascadian dialect.
All Cascadians tend to avoid
American twang, prefer bucket over pail, pronounce caught and cot the
same way and know the meaning of the Chinook word saltchuck.
Thinking
of oneself as a resident of the broader region of Cascadia creates a
wider horizon of meaning, Brewster said. "It promotes an imaginative
oasis."
It can create a sense of distinctiveness
, not unlike the
well-known cultural identities associated with New England, Quebec,
Texas or the Maritimes.
Setting
aside that annoying international border, what do most British
Columbians, Oregonians and Washingtonians have in common, culturally?
Many
people say there is a subtle separatist streak running through
Cascadia, a feeling that our nation's capitals are far away in Ottawa
and Washington, D.C., and don't have a great deal of influence over us.
Many people move to Cascadia to get away from their political, family
and religious traditions.
Another common trait is a passion for outdoor recreation, from
hiking to windsurfing (symbolized by Vancouver's 2.6-million-member
Mountain Equipment Co-op, or MEC, and Seattle's equally expansive Recreational
Equipment Inc., or REI, now with 80 stores.)
Since the rise of Starbucks,
many have also talked of a pan-Cascadian love of strong coffee and
sidewalk cafes -- not to mention constant discussion of stubbornly high
real estate prices.
At the level of values, many have noted that
Cascadians lean to liberal-libertarian instincts, a do-your-own-thing
individualism, live-and-let-live attitudes and a sense that something
special, maybe a little utopian, is emerging here.
SFU
geography professor Warren Gill is one of those unusual Cascadians
whose parents were born in B.C., specifically the city of Vancouver.
He
has never had a home in any other city. Even though I've lived in
Toronto and southern California after being born in B.C., our
historical rootedness makes us both care about Cascadian culture.
As
Gill grew up, he says the 49th parallel remained easy to cross -- until
Sept. 11, 2001 -- and it was common to shoot south for a weekend. In
contrast, he said, "Canada seemed so far away."
Tied together by
logging, fishing and mining, and separated from the rest of North
America by towering mountains, Cascadia became isolated from the
mainstream of Canada.
"We evolved our own views of the world," Gill said.
We evolved our own culture.
Take
cuisine: Pacific Northwest chefs have become known for their flair at
integrating locally grown fruit, vegetables, meat and fish into dishes.
Whether
they're using hazelnuts, cranberries, salmon or clams, Gill said chefs
such as Vancouver's John Bishop and many others have for decades been
cooking up a Cascadian cuisine. Asian flavours also strongly
influence dishes in the Pacific Northwest.
Gill, a specialist on the music of Cascadia,
believes many bands coming out of Washington, Oregon and B.C. have
shared a regional "tough sound," like that associated with Seattle's
grunge (Kurt Cobain and Pearl Jam) and Vancouver's punk scenes (DOA and
Pointed Sticks) and, I might add, Jimi Hendrix (left).
"The music of
Cascadia is often rugged, like the geography," Gill said, speculating Cascadia's musical
distinctiveness may have something to do with the Pacific Northwest
having only a tiny population of black people. As a result, "Cascadia's
white youth did their interpretation of black music."
The second part of the Cascadia series in full.