Dispatch from Portland, Oregon
Text, photographs and web design by Erik Gauger

From the plane, I could see that long chain of solitary spires, an uneven line of volcanos which trace the route of an active fault line. The Three Sisters, then smaller cones, the heavenly Willamette Valley, and finally, Mount Hood and St. Helens and Rainier, shrouded by distance.

Even at nine at night, the green-green of Cascadia was visible through the dark, and those solitary massifs were as visible as day. Our plane flew along the Columbia River, and the air was clear so that I could see fires being lit on the sandy shores of islands, canoes and sailboats at bay, and men still casting in the shallows. Cascadia is the name given to the Pacific Northwest: western Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, by a growing, but quite small number of Americans and Canadians who believe...the Pacific Northwest ought to be its own country.

It is said that if Quebec were to secede, British Columbia would no longer have a tie - a need - to be a part of Canada. Many British Columbians, in fact, feel closer in culture to Seattle and Portland than they do to their own country. Several separatist movements now exist on both sides of the border, with one goal in mind: the Independent Country of Cascadia.

Although now this may all seem bizarre, it is telling of the strong feelings of the Pacific Northwest - a sense of geographical and cultural uniqueness. This attitude is prevalent even among more ordinary folks than the 'Cascadia Separatists'. Components of this regional pride can be wonderful and rich, or dark and xenophobic. All this may seem ironic in Portland, for the city is the end of the Oregon Trail. Of Lewis and Clark and the far end of the search for union in North America.

The city of Portland is of striking architecture. It is like how you would imagine San Francisco from the Bay Bridge, only when you enter Portland, the streets are clean, the facades ornate, the awned cafes are bustling, and the marble fronts are brilliant.

Some complain that Portland's urban planning is interventionist. The urban planning is a long-held effort to maintain what is old, and good, about the Pacific Northwest, while creating a kind of modern community - something the rest of the country has been losing for a century. All sorts of people fall into this spell. They believe in the idea; regardless of whether they are part of Portland's stereotyped tech-hippies, or the much broader base of ordinary Portlanders, hidden in the woodwork.

Next

1 2 3 4 5 6