Governor Jay Inslee spoke directly to Washingtonians on Monday and announced he will sign a statewide order that requires everyone in the state to stay home. The order will last for two weeks and could be extended.

“The less time we spend in public, the more lives we will save,” Inslee said. 

Inslee ordered nonessential businesses to close and the state’s more than 7 million residents to stay home unless necessary in order to slow the spread of the novel coronavrirus,…

For the first time in 47 years the Baker-to-bay run won’t usher in summer.
Event organizers have cancelled thus year’s annual Ski to Sea relay race on Memorial Day.

“It is with great disappointment that we must announce that the 2020 Ski to Sea race is canceled due to the circumstances associated with the coronavirus,” Anna Rankin, Whatcom Events executive director, said. “The decision to interrupt this tradition of 46 years was difficult and painful. However, cancellation…

I was backpacking on the Olympic Coast last week (social distancing indeed) with two companions. The weather was stormy—howling wind and sideways rain—when we arrived at Kayostia Beach, near the Norwegian Memorial, 10 miles from the closest National Park trailhead.

We had the beach to ourselves.

We set about establishing a camp in the contorted trees, strung a tarp and coaxed a smoky fire to life beneath it. The evening was somewhat challenging, as we hunkered down on wet beach…

The night before an emergency declaration signed by Governor Jay Inslee went into effect temporarily shutting down bars and restaurants in Washington state and capping public gatherings at 50 people or less, my boyfriend and I made one last happy-hour stop at the Jalapenos restaurant on Holly Street in downtown Bellingham.

In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the wisest decision, but in an effort to keep the coronavirus at bay, we made sure to socially distance ourselves from other…

What a difference a day makes.

When Cascadia Weekly prepared to go to press on Tues., March 10 it was business as (almost) usual. An array of entertainment options had been collected, catalogued and set in print, and although concerns about COVID-19 had caused a few events to be canceled, the fact that no cases of the coronavirus had yet been discovered in Whatcom or Skagit counties meant the gigs of most theater and dance companies, bands and assorted performers were still intact.…

We live in the future now. Sure, maybe you thought it was 2020 not long ago, a time when people met for after-work drinks and wandered the streets in packs and had, you know, weddings and funerals in person with other people who were also in person, but that was then and this is now.

Back in 2020, we went to watch live music in actual music venues. We congregated with our friends, we drank, we danced, we sang along—it was a whole thing. An entire music scene was built around this…