Recreation
Design, permit delays stymie Lopez pool construction
Water use, operating cost still contentious issues for anticipated Lopez Island pool.
R2AK: North by Northwest
The annual wind- or human-powered — no engines — Race to Alaska is becoming a quintessential Northwest experience.
Lopez pool plan is making waves
An $8 million campaign to build a swimming pool on Lopez Island for its 2,800 residents has brought out donors, supporters—and opponents.
What’s life without a future?
What awaits us in the new year? Salish Current asked our readers and writers to take us there by sharing one thing they look forward to doing in 2022.
Community Voices / Is time running out? Streamflow trends in the Nooksack watershed
Given the high volume of rain and flooding during the past few weeks, it may seem strange to talk about water scarcity in the Nooksack River system. Although the watershed has ample water in the winter (often too much water), it holds too little in the summer to support healthy salmon. Complicating the water supply issue are the adverse effects of climate change.
Lummi Island’s original Willows Inn was a local-food hotspot — 100 years before ‘locavore’ was trending
Today’s Lummi Island in Whatcom County is home to permanent and vacationing residents, local businesses — and a historic resort known for more than 100 years as The Willows.
Little estuary to see big restoration investment
A small city park on Bellingham Bay will soon include a valuable asset for the local aquatic ecosystem, as the City of Bellingham identifies funding needed to establish an estuary at Little Squalicum Park.
Skaters, business, Port collaborate for Bellingham waterfront skate park
A local business owner and rag-tag group of skaters have cleaned up an abandoned parking lot under the Chestnut Street bridge on the Bellingham waterfront with the goal of establishing a skatepark, as the City and Port of Bellingham look at expanding the area’s current agreement to include that use.
‘Crazy’ high school sports seasons arrive … better late than never
High school athletics have finally returned in Whatcom County after being delayed through the first half of academic calendars by COVID-19 restrictions.
Rescue tug stationed in islands is best bet to avoid oil spills in San Juan – Gulf waters, study says
With increased vessel traffic around the San Juan Islands, some worry that the risk of oil spills may be rising as well. A new study makes the case that an emergency response tug stationed in the islands would be money well-spent.
Whale watch industry sits dockside during COVID-19 pandemic
Like much else in the time of COVID-19, searches for black-and-white orcas, speckled grays and humpbacks were interrupted in early March. Dozens of whale watching boats, from Vancouver Island to San Juan Island, from Everett to Edmonds, bob in place dockside.
Community Voices / Safe on a ‘plague’ ship in the time of COVID-19
Our once-in-a-lifetime, 50th anniversary world cruise was sunk by a coronavirus somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Nobody had COVID-19, but our vessel was treated like a plague ship nonetheless.
Virus versus visitors: San Juan residents weigh health risks of tourism amid pandemic
In the San Juan Islands, locals bank on a bustling tourism economy to generate business and provide wages, particularly during the sunny summer months. But with a growing pandemic, islanders, like others in small vacation destinations, are realizing fewer visitors might mean healthier locals.
Downtown Bellingham waterfront site sprouts new signs of life
After almost 20 years of frustration and stagnation, the first tender shoots of redevelopment have appeared amid the post-industrial desolation that Georgia-Pacific Corp. left behind on Bellingham’s downtown waterfront.