Tahlequah the mother orca is no longer carrying her dead calf.

“The ordeal of her carrying a dead calf for at least 17 days and 1,000 miles is now over,” Ken Balcomb, founding director of the Center for Whale Research, reported.

People around the world were moved as Tahlequah carried her dead baby, a female, day after day, in a seeming protest against her loss.

Tahlequah, also known as J35, is part of the critically endangered Southern Resident killer whale population. Balcomb…

On the fifth floor of the apartment where I grew up, my culinary horizons were broadened by a Korean family down the hall. By second grade, I could hold a bowl of rice to my mouth and shovel it in with chopsticks, thanks to the diligent coaching of Christina, Wendy, and Karen, who were about my age. The Park girls also taught me how to carefully pull noodles, one by one, from a bowl of high-end Japanese instant ramen.

Sometimes their parents doctored the ramen with the likes of…

If a playwright contacts you an hour before showtime to ask if you want to be her date to view the short play she penned the night before, say yes.

That was the case last Friday, when I joined iDiOM Theater stalwart Krissa Woiwod at the Sylvia Center for the Arts for a viewing of the 49th iteration of the 48 Hour Theater Festival—one of the offerings recently added on to an already ambitious summer lineup of shows.

Entering through the back door of the voluminous space, we passed…

Before it whisks you off on the sunniest, most extravagant Singaporean holiday imaginable, Crazy Rich Asians begins on a curiously dark and stormy night.

When Eleanor Young (a mesmerizing Michelle Yeoh) arrives dripping wet at an exclusive London hotel, the snob at the front desk declines her booking and advises her to stay elsewhere (“May I suggest Chinatown?”). He’s hopelessly unaware that he’s dealing with one of the world’s wealthiest families, or that the tables will…

As a reward for our most recent round of laborious trail improvements at his hard-rock mine in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, our supervisor invited Uncle Don and me to spend a “leisurely” weekend gold panning on his placer claim.

Although it was hardly the chartered saltwater fishing trip he had promised, we accepted his offer sight unseen and loaded our gear into his jalopy with considerable ardor.

The road to his “diggings” had accrued considerable flood damage…

Something Trish Harding told me nearly a decade ago resurfaced recently, and it explains a lot about why the prolific painter is so passionate about the Plein Air Paint Out (PAPO)—an event she’s been organizing every summer for the past 13 years that sees scores of artists taking to the streets of downtown Bellingham to ply their creative trade.

“I love to paint—and to see other artists paint—outside,” she said at the time. “You have to be totally in the moment, because in the…

Twenty-five years ago, Canadian serial killer Karla Homolka struck a plea deal with prosecutors in return for her testimony that her husband, Paul Bernardo, raped and murdered at least three minors in a series of grisly deaths that began with Homolka’s younger sister Tammy.

Convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to a mere 12 years in prison, Karla served her time and walked free in 2005, despite the fact that videotapes were discovered during the trial that clearly showed her…

Summer’s End Music + Arts Gathering is a pretty cool event. It marries music, art, dancing, giant board games and more together to create an experience that not only engages attendees, but also encourages attendees to engage with each other. It’s decidedly community-minded, but not preachy about it. It’s proudly local and looks to celebrate this region, its artistic bounty and its beauty. In short, there’s a lot to like about Summer’s End.

And yet, for the first two years of…

It’s tulip time, and the fields are alive with the light and color of spring. The word’s out, and this spectacular time in the Skagit Valley is no longer a secret.

But Skagit still holds a lot of secrets—mist-shrouded valleys, swollen and mighty rivers, and frosty high country thick with dark pines and devil’s club. And there are the hidey holes—the hamlets sprinkled along old forgotten highways, the winding sloughs and channels of the fertile delta, and the coast beyond—dotted with islands pungent from salt and rain. There are the bars and diners and coffeehouses, the playgrounds and trails. And there are the people who fill them, hearty and happy. And though our readers revealed some of these secrets, Skagit remains a treasure undiscovered.

Entries by Tim Johnson, Amy Kepferle, Carey Ross, Stephanie Young, and Trail Rat
Photos by Jessamyn Tuttle and Andy Porter