The Northern L ght

The Northern Light is published weekly by Point Roberts Press Inc.

Locally owned and managed, the company also publishes the All Point Bulletin, covering Point Roberts, Mount Baker Experience, covering the Mt. Baker foothills area, Pacific Coast Weddings annual guide, and the summer recreation guide Waterside as well as maps and other publications. Point Roberts Press Inc. is a member of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association, Chambers of Commerce of Bellingham/ Whatcom County, Birch Bay, Blaine and Point Roberts and the Bellingham/ Whatcom County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors.

Letters Policy

The Northern Light welcomes letters to the editor. Please include name, address and daytime telephone number for verification. Letters are limited to 350 words and may be edited or rejected for reasons of legality, length and good taste. The letters to the editor column is primarily intended to allow readers to voice their opinions on local issues of general interest to local readers. A fresh viewpoint will increase the likelihood of publication. Thank-you letters are limited to five individuals or groups. Writers should avoid personal invective. Unsigned letters will not be accepted for publication. Requests for withholding names will be considered on an individual basis. Consumer complaints should be submitted directly to the business in question or the local chamber of commerce. Only one letter per month from an individual correspondent will be published. Email letters to letters@thenorthernlight.com.

Publisher & Managing Editor Patrick Grubb publisher@pointrobertspress.com

Co-publisher & Advertising Director

Louise Mugar lmugar@pointrobertspress.com

Editor Grace McCarthy grace@pointrobertspress.com

Reporter Ian Haupt ian@pointrobertspress.com

Creative Services

Doug De Visser, Ruth Lauman production@pointrobertspress.com

Office Manager

Jeanie Luna info@pointrobertspress.com

Advertising Sales Molly Ernst, Gary Lee sales@pointrobertspress.com

General Editorial Inquiries editor@pointrobertspress.com

Contributors In This Issue

Doug Dahl

Jonathan Hall

Renee Diaz

The Northern Light 225 Marine Drive, Suite 200, Blaine, WA 98230

Tel: 360/332-1777

Vol XXVIII, No 33

Circulation: 10,500 copies

Circulation Independently verified by:

Next issue: Feb. 9

Ads due: Feb. 3

Although hard to imagine, about 16,000 years ago a glacial ice sheet one-mile thick covered the Blaine and Birch Bay area. This ice was part of an extension of Cordilleran Ice sheet that covered present-day southern Alaska and parts of western Canada The extension is called the Puget lobe, and at the peak of its advancement it covered all of Puget Sound and extended as far south as the Olympia and Centralia area.

When the ice sheet melted and receded about 11,500 years ago, glacial processes had dramatically altered the land surface around Blaine and elsewhere. Many of the features you see when driving around the region are a direct result of these processes of scouring, deposition and erosion.

For example, if you drive east along Grandview Road between the Cherry Point Refinery and Interstate 5, you climb up and down a large hill that affords great views of surrounding areas. This raised landscape feature is a glacial moraine consisting of the Grandview Moraine and the Holman Hill Moraine. Such moraines are formed when the end of a glacier remains in one place for a relatively long time. Gravel and rock carried in the glacier is deposited at the glacier’s end, forming a moraine.

Even the large white rock sitting along the shore of the city of White Rock, just north of Blaine, has a glacial history. It was plucked by the moving ice from some other location and deposited at its current position thousands of years ago.

Jonathan Hall resides in Birch Bay. He is a retired biologist who has worked in many regions of the U.S. while employed with the New York state, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, several environmental consulting firms, and the Tulalip Tribes of Washington.