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Scene from Leavenworth WA
Photo Credit: Portland Timbers.
Cascadia Stack is here to fill you in.
Take some time this 4-day weekend to celebrate the balance of humanity and our beautiful Cascadia bioregion. It's about regeneration. Cascadia Day is the anniversary of the My. St. Helens volcano eruption in 1980 in southwest Washington state.
This excerpt is from the website of The Army Corps of Engineers:
On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens—a volcano in Washington State located 96 miles south of Seattle and 50 miles northeast of Portland, Oregon—erupted violently. The ice-capped mountain had been recently stirring, sending up large plumes of ash and steam in March and shaking the ground repeatedly throughout the spring. Finally, on the morning of May 18, a significant earthquake collapsed a magma bulge on the mountain’s north side, sending an enormous avalanche of rock, trees, and glacial ice down the slopes. A massive explosion followed that flattened everything for miles in all directions and led to large mud flows. For hours the volcano spewed tons of ash into the air. The eruption and its aftermath killed fifty-seven people and countless wildlife and destroyed houses, bridges, railways, highways, and crops.
What did we learn? Upon reflection, 43 years later.... Apart from the geological aspect, from a resilience perspective, Dr. Peter Frenzen , it's "one of the most biologically diverse and productive ecosystems in the Northwest.”
The Portland Monthly wrote,
"St. Helens’s recovery started with the arrival of seeds within the first five years; then plants began to sprout within 10–15 years. Today, unlike many other blast zones around the world, St. Helens even boasts small trees and shrubs in many places".
“It’s covered in wildflowers and absolutely teeming with life,” Frenzen says. The resilience lesson is that despite a natural calamity, we can come back.
For us humans, if we prepare ourselves, we too can practice resilience. So, this weekend, it's time to replace your GoBag's winter preps with hot weather essentials and refresh your emergency water supply.
Please check out my SHOPIFY store for Cascadia merch. Thanks, it helps the startup costs for this social enterprise company. CascadiaStack.com
