The dense rainforests of the Oregon Coast Range, Washington's Olympic Peninsula, and British Columbia's Vancouver Island are an ideal habitat for western red cedar. The abundance of this conifer, along with its resistance to decay, softness, and ability to bend and fold, have made it one of the most important raw materials for Northwest Coast native art. In this episode, we explore the forests of the Pacific coast as well as the complex and evolving artistic style that grew up among them as we travel to the Olympic Peninsula and Vancouver Island.
The first forests we visit in this series are the lowland forests around the Salish Sea, home of Douglas firs, western hemlocks, and western...
On the far eastern edge of the Northwest, conifers encounter the region's most extreme conditions: biting cold and deep snow on the high peaks,...
In our very first episode, I introduce some of the stories about the natural world and how we understand it told by my home...
