A beginner's guide to Cascadia

Recommended reading for Cascadian content

“Where are you from?” It’s an innocuous question for which I have scripted answers dependent on drill downs and follow ups. Canada leads to the West Coast, with the Toronto disclaimer. The West Coast leads to Vancouver, but not really, forcing me to try explain what and where Bella Coola is.

The answer I’d love to give, if it weren’t so confusing, is that I’m from Cascadia. The Cascadian landscape is such a distinct vibe that it feels like if a person could conjure any part of that coastline in their mind, they’d have a good enough idea of what home meant to me, what climate suits me, and what my people are like.

Cascadia is not a real place. It’s just a dream that rolls down between the sea and sky from southern Alaska through British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and part of Northern California. It is a distinct bioregion; a subduction zone on a mega thrust fault 1,000km long, filled with volcanoes and ghost forests, fog and salmon. More than 238 First Nations call Cascadia home, most recognizably the Chinook, Haida, Nootka, and Tlingit.

On either side of the 49th parallel, Cascadians share a lot in the way of sensibilities, concerns, and culture. Together, we await and prepare for The Big One; a Cascadia Megaquake for which we are overdue. Remnants of Chinook Wawa, the lingua franca long used to communicate and navigate the Salish Sea, linger on our tongues with words like potluck, sasquatch, chuck, siwash, tyee, and skookum. Skookum is my favourite.

Cascadia enjoys the occasional flare up of publicity and support, like when Elizabeth May suggested Cascadian separation in response to Trump’s rhetoric around the fifty-first state. But generally, we are subtle and unconcerned with any real form of self-determination.

But we do have a ‘self;’ a unique identity and cross-border collaboration. We have the Cascadia Cup. We have a flag. We have our music, our granola, and our style; our Cowichan sweaters and our cowboy hats. I’m told a few people actually mark Cascadia Day on May 18th, which is notably my birthday and the anniversary of the Mount St. Helen’s eruption.

I often joke that I have more in common with someone from Seattle or Portland than I do with a Torontonian or a Newfoundlander, except that it’s not really a joke. While my Canadian comrades and I will always have our tickle trunks and Much Music, there is a deep link that comes from being from a place where the fog hugs the trees and the grey sky blends into the murky ocean water.

But at the end of the day, Cascadia isn’t a real place. It’s an idea, a movement. Wild and free, defined by the waters flowing from the continental crest through the headwaters of the Pacific. It’s a dream of home. So instead, I just say I’m from Canada; on the west coast.

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Recommended reading, listening, and watching to get to know Cascadian culture

Read: The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless Coast

Starting with the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964, Bonnie Henderson does a brilliant job of writing a history of the geological discoveries, scientists, and research that indicates the imminence of a catastrophic tsunami on the Northwest Coast.

Beyond the fascinating research into the ghost forests along the coast, oral histories, and the acceptance of plate tectonics, I think this book makes you ask questions about what it does to a person’s psyche to know in the back of your head that death is imminent. My personal theory is that this is part of people on the coast are so laid back—we know that nothing is guaranteed. We know that Richmond will sink, and lahars will flow.

I think this has two major affects on us. Firstly, Cascadians have emergency kits, something I never knew a Torontonian to have on hand. Secondly, it means that we are a little more uptight about being laid back. We’re more inclined to prioritize play.

* You can read my short story imagining when the Big One hits BC, The Fault in Our Psyches, in the 2024 issues of the Clackamas Literary Review. Contact me if you’re having a hard time getting your hands on a copy.

Listen: My homesickness playlist

If you’ll disregard the odd song from an Ontario band, this playlist is largely dominated by incredible bands and artists from the Canadian part of Cascadia. Enjoy.