A New Field Guide Capitalizes on Our Treasures
"Cascadia Field Guide" takes a unique approach to appreciating nature
The Beings of Cascadia—well, one hundred twenty-eight of them—are brought to life in a new field guide that is probably unlike any such book you’ve held. Cascadia Field Guide, out recently from Mountaineers Books, focuses the view of our region through the lenses of art, ecology and poetry.
Each Being (using that term instead of “species” and honoring each with capitalization hint at the book’s singular approach) is provided a description and then a creative musing, mostly in poetry, and is conjured into art.
These short pieces are grouped into stand-alone chapters on each of thirteen regional ecosystems where we visit or live: Tidewater Glacier, Muskeg, Salish Sea, Coastal Urban Woods, Temperate Rainforest, Urban Shore, Pine Forest, Eastern Rivers, Shrub-Steppe, Montane, Loowit-Mount St. Helens, Willamette Valley and Outer Coast. Though each is afforded a compact snapshot, the overall effect is a tapestry.
Browsing the book is a bit like hiking with a naturalist, where you’re near enough to hear commentary on nature’s secrets, studied into memory by someone who has really been paying attention, looking closely and caring deeply. What you’ll learn in this book will provide entertaining discussion for your own walks with friends.
Unusual analogies also abound. Look up and marvel that, the editors tell us, a single Western Redcedar “can make a canoe sixty feet long (about the length of a bowling lane).” And in the accompanying poem by B.C. writer Bren Simmers, what are left behind from these Beings of the Coastal Urban Woods, are “notched stumps the size of hot tubs”.
Pause and glance down at Lungwort lichen: “seafoam green on top and ivory underneath with distinctive melon-colored bumps and a netted texture of ridges.” This Being of the Temperate Rainforest has “palm-sized ‘leaves’ and a “leathery, almost spongy” surface. I will remember and say its name. And I now know that it is sensitive to air pollution, and so is losing its habitat. “If you find yourself standing near Lungwort, breathe deep,” coaches the book. “This is good, clean air.”
Do you read poetry? The book offers an essential, accessible reason: connection to nature. The poems feel more readily gleaned due to each Being’s introductory prose and art; all elements work together into, you could say, a communications ecosystem.
You will read wonderful poets, well-known folks like Colleen J. McElroy and Theodore Roethke, and newer stars like Rena Priest and Claudia Castro-Luna. But pay attention too to names you do not know, rays of light through deep woods.
The stories, lore and language of Cascadia’s indigenous people are plentiful in this book, as it honors the places of the first peoples, who know this world on a deeper level than any who’ve come after. You will learn Native names for the plants and animals along with their common and taxonomic names, and it feels as though each designation is equally important, although there is only one of the three that most of us will ever use. Knowing, and naming, the Beings from all perspectives seems essential.
The book’s Humans tackle towering subjects, like the Alpine Larch, which the editors call “this golden candle flame of a tree” and one of the editors, poet CMarie Fuhrman, brings to life in a poem inspired by the words of Chief Seattle. The piece embodies the book’s unique approach: encouraging a different look at nature, embracing Native lore and considering our culture.
Prophecy
The White Man will never be alone.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people,
For the dead are not powerless
--Chief Seattle
Coyote knows what she is doing.
Transmigrating souls
of the real people
into Larch. You must know too,
because every autumn
Larch celebrate their abundance
with potlatch
And give away their summer gold.
When you see
the bare limbs and spine
you will also see the real people,
to which Coyote taught
that survival comes
in shades of brown.
After pondering that, take a closer look at Copepod, a tiny crustacean, a zooplankton, that lives in the Urban Shore ecosystem. Consider this excerpt from the poem “Dear Copepod” by Spokanite Kathryn Smith:
— “My tears make the shape
of your body. Could you live there, in my salt?
Already, you feed on what I shed—microplastics,
exhaled carbon. You know the carelessness of
my kind. I’m sorry. I thought maybe you
could teach me how to cope…”
Already, my Field Guide to Cascadia is getting Deer-eared. The cover’s French flaps bulge a bit from being used as bookmarks, the front one pushing the cover open, inviting me to browse. The other day a few pages became stuck together from the tears of a Douglas-Fir that cascaded onto the page when a gust of Wind blew Rain through its branches. And now I find myself capitalizing Wind and Rain.
Note: This review first appeared in the Washington Park Arboretum Bulletin.
I have a good friend who lives in Ellensburg, WA. I think this will be one of her Christmas presents! Thanks for the info!
What a wonderful read this must be in its entirety. There is always so much more to everything. Would make a great gift.