Welcome to Drenched: Field Notes from the Watersheds of the Salish Sea
This blog is a place for us to express the love we have for the Salish Sea and all its spectacular and beleaguered watersheds. This site is our exploration of science, adventure, connection, and wild living things in this region. Before anything else, I’d like to communicate my honest respect and acknowledgment of the Peoples who have stewarded the land and water of the Salish Sea for many generations before my European ancestors ever came here. I’m grateful to the folks from these nations who are leading much of the work to protect our water and our futures in this era of extreme danger. The map, linked here http://www.burkemuseum.org/static/misc/coast_salish_art_map.pdf, shows the language territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. If our volcanoes or earthquakes ever shake us off our feet, it is on their unceded territories that we will be kneeling. Through studying this map, you can catch a glimpse of the complexity and variety in our regional home and how essential water is to its makeup.
These pages are the work of three women: Jamie Schultz, Laurel Baum, and myself, Mallory Clarke. We’ve launched this website because all three of us are deeply inspired by ecosystems on, and west of, the Cascade Range and the other coastal mountain ranges. I particularly cherish the portions that hold the water, in part because of the wet sand and mud around the edges. That’s where we readily find the stories of mammals, birds, and amphibians written in tracks and markings. The love of wildlife tracking links the three of us.
We three respond to the natural world in our very different ways. Mallory writes. Laurel paints and photographs. Jamie studies. It’s our hope that you will find something of use here. Every two weeks new content will be posted. Let us know what stirs you in these pages. It’s likely we will respond.
Thank you for showing up,
Mallory Clarke
May 10, 2019
