Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry

Edited by Elizabeth Bradfield, CMarie Fuhrman and Derek Sheffield Mountaineers Books

My great-grandfather told my mother that it was important to know the names of plants and animals so you could properly greet them and introduce yourself. Our connection to the natural world should be personal.

Inviting us to “observe, smell, listen, dream, share stories, research, imagine,” Cascadia Field Guide offers a way to learn about but also connect with the natural world, to make it personal.

Unlike traditional field guides that help the reader identify plants and animals, Cascadia aims to offer readers “a way to ethically engage the heart” by including poetry and art alongside ecological information.

In the entry for the American Dipper, you will learn that the Yupik name for the swimming songbird means roughly “little bird that looks like smoke.” They can dive to 25 feet and walk along the streambed holding onto rocks with their toes. A poem by Gary Snyder celebrates this “trout-of-the-air.” In the illustration by Justin Gibbens, Dipper pierces the water.

Using the definition of the Sightline Institute, the editors define Cascadia as “the watersheds of rivers that flow into the Pacific Ocean through America’s temperate rainforest zone,” stretching from Southeast Alaska to Northern California’s Eel River. They have divided the region into 13 connected bioregions, or communities. Moving through these communities from north to south they introduce the reader to 128 plant and animal beings that call Cascadia home. Each being is paired with a poem from a wide-ranging selection of poets, old and new, regional and iconic. Each community is paired with an artist that creates an illustration for each being featured in that community.

The stories that accompany each entry honor the beings they introduce to the reader, capitalizing their names and using pronouns. The ecology presented combines science with the traditional knowledge of First Peoples, emphasizing the connections between habitats and the human.

The tone is that of a friend, guiding you to meet Ochre Star in their tide pool. See those little spines? They are actually little pincers that toss off algae hitching a ride. When they take you to meet Devil’s Club, you will learn from Tlingit elder Helen Watkins that the berries are useful for combatting lice and making hair shiny.

When I head out to explore the mountains and beaches of my home, I carry books and tools so I can learn about the plants and animals I meet, and introduce myself, have a chat, maybe a nibble. This is a volume that should live in a pack, alongside binoculars, a hand lens and a notebook. Read a poem to a forest, rest your lunch on the pages while you watch foraging birds, enjoy a drawing of skunk cabbage and give it a sniff. And introduce yourself!