Portal:Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest Portal

P:PNW

The Pacific Northwest (PNW; French: Nord-Ouest Pacifique), sometimes referred to as Cascadia, is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common conception includes the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Some broader conceptions reach north into Alaska and Yukon, south into Northern California, and east into western Montana. Other conceptions may be limited to the coastal areas west of the Cascade and Coast mountains.

The Northwest Coast is the coastal region of the Pacific Northwest, and the Northwest Plateau (also commonly known as "the Interior" in British Columbia), is the inland region. The term "Pacific Northwest" should not be confused with the Northwest Territory (also known as the Great Northwest, a historical term in the United States) or the Northwest Territories of Canada. The region is sometimes referred to as Cascadia, which, depending on the borders, may or may not be the same thing as the Pacific Northwest.

The region's largest metropolitan areas are Greater Seattle, Washington, with 4 million people; Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, with 2.84 million people; and Greater Portland, Oregon, with 2.5 million people.

The culture of the Pacific Northwest is influenced by the Canada–United States border, which the United States and the United Kingdom established at a time when the region's inhabitants were composed mostly of indigenous peoples. Two sections of the border—one along the 49th parallel south of British Columbia and one between the Alaska Panhandle and northern British Columbia—have left a great impact on the region. According to Canadian historian Ken Coates, the border has not merely influenced the Pacific Northwest—rather, "the region's history and character have been determined by the boundary". (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

The leaky condo crisis, also known as the leaky condo syndrome and rotten condo crisis, is an ongoing construction, financial, and legal crisis in Canada. It primarily involves multi-unit condominium (or strata) buildings damaged by rainwater infiltration in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island regions of coastal British Columbia (B.C.). In B.C. alone an estimated $4 billion in damage has occurred to over 900 buildings and 31,000 individual housing units built between the late 1980s and early 2000s, establishing it as the most extensive and most costly reconstruction of housing stock in Canadian history.

Similar infiltration problems have been reported in highrise buildings and schools, as well as in other climatic zones in Ontario and Nova Scotia, in the United States, and New Zealand. Since the start of the crisis it has been commonplace to see occupied buildings draped in scaffolding and protective tarps as the problems were assessed and repaired. The crisis has caused, as a major public inquiry concluded: "a litany of horrific experiences, personal tragedies, and dashed dreams" endured by homeowners. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

Selected biography - show another

Ken Elton Kesey (/ˈkiːziː/; September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.

Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado, and grew up in Springfield, Oregon, graduating from the University of Oregon in 1957. He began writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1960 after completing a graduate fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University; the novel was an immediate commercial and critical success when published two years later. During this period, Kesey was used by the CIA without his knowledge in the Project MKULTRA involving hallucinogenic drugs (including mescaline and LSD), which was done to try to make people insane to put them under the control of interrogators. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

Largest cities of the Pacific Northwest

City	State/Province	Population	Metropolitan Area	Urban Area
Seattle	Washington	704,000^[1]	3,905,026^[2]	3,059,393^[3]
Portland	Oregon	658,347^[2]	2,753,168^[2]	1,849,898^[3]
Vancouver	British Columbia	631,486^[4]	2,737,698^[5]	2,264,823^[6]
Surrey	British Columbia	598,530^[4]	^{[n 1]}	^{[n 1]}
Burnaby	British Columbia	257,926^[4]	^{[n 1]}	^{[n 1]}
Boise	Idaho	226,570^[7]	691,423^[2]	349,684^[3]
Spokane	Washington	222,081^[1]	573,493 ^[8]^[9]	486,225^[3]
Richmond	British Columbia	216,046^[4]	^{[n 1]}	^{[n 1]}
Tacoma	Washington	198,397^[1]	^{[n 2]}	^{[n 2]}
Vancouver	Washington	175,673^[1]	^{[n 3]}	^{[n 3]}

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various Pacific Northwest-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The Columbia Gorge marks where the Columbia River splits the Cascade Range between the states of Washington and Oregon. (from Cascade Range)
Image 2The Coast Mountains are heavily eroded by glaciers, including Mount Waddington (far background, center). (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 3A man in Portland, Oregon with Cascadian flag on International Workers' Day, 2012 (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 4Lassen Peak in the California Cascades. Southernmost volcano in the Cascade Range and part of Lassen Volcanic National Park (from Cascade Range)
Image 5Map of the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt centers. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 6Pacific Northwest Trail at Blanchard Mountain in Washington (from Pacific Northwest Trail)
Image 7The immense floods created channels that are presently dry, such as the Drumheller Channels (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 8The Golden Hinde on Vancouver Island was formed by erosion carving into basalt. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 9Lumen Field, home of Seattle Seahawks and Sounders FC (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 10Notable volcanoes in the US portion of the Cascades (from Cascade Range)
Image 11Map of the Anahim Volcanic Belt centers. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 12Geology of the Cascade Range-related plate tectonics. (from Cascade Range)
Image 13The North Cascades are heavily eroded by glaciers (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 14May 1915 Lassen Peak eruption column (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 15HMS Discovery was the lead ship used by George Vancouver (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 16Lava Butte, Oregon, erupted roughly 5000 years BCE (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 17Magnetic anomalies around the Juan de Fuca and Gorda Ridges, off the west coast of North America, color coded by age. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 18A map of the Snake River Plain, showing its smooth topography (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 19The Cascades range (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 20The Pacific Northwest from space (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 21None of the multiple possible definitions of the Pacific Northwest is universally accepted. This map shows three possibilities: (1) The shaded area shows the historical Oregon Country. (2) The green line shows the Cascadia bioregion. (3) The labeled states and provinces include Washington, Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 22Map of "megacity", showing population density (shades of yellow/brown), highways (red), and major railways (black). Public land shown in shades of green. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 23The Coquihalla River in the Canadian Cascades (from Cascade Range)
Image 24The Columbia River basalts cover portions of three states (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 25West side view of Mount Shuksan in summer as seen from Artist Point in Washington (from Cascade Range)
Image 26Image of the Juan de Fuca Plate that produced the magnitude 8.7–9.2 Cascadia earthquake in 1700. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 27Oval-leaf blueberry on Mount Pilchuck (from Cascade Range)
Image 28U.S. Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes' 1841 Map of the Oregon Territory from "Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition". Philadelphia: 1845 (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 29The Pacific Northwest from outer space. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 30The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens (from Cascade Range)
Image 31Mount Hood is the tallest point in the U.S. state of Oregon. (from Cascade Range)
Image 32The Boundary Trail section of the PNT in Horseshoe Basin, Pasayten Wilderness (from Pacific Northwest Trail)
Image 33Public transportation is used in the Pacific Northwest region. Vancouver's SkyTrain rapid transit system achieves daily ridership of over 500,000 passengers per day on weekdays and the overall transit ridership levels in the Metro Vancouver area rank third in North America per capita. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 34Mountain goat on Wallaby Peak in the North Cascades (from Cascade Range)
Image 35Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail overview map (from Pacific Northwest Trail)
Image 36State Route 302 after the Nisqually earthquake (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 37Mount St. Helens erupts on May 18, 1980 (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 38Mount Edziza, a large shield volcano in northwestern British Columbia (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)

Did you know - load new batch

... that LaVonne Griffin-Valade, the Oregon Secretary of State, has published four crime fiction novels?
... that a Washington state radio station turned to "professional bikini watchers"—military recruiters—to report on crowds at local beaches?
... that in 1858, when 400 Black Americans experiencing discrimination in California resettled on Vancouver Island, clergyman Edward Cridge integrated Christ Church to welcome them?
... that Oregon state senator William Kuykendall was a physician who founded the first hospital in Eugene, Oregon?
... that in 1943, it took the Oregon State Senate 45 ballots to elect William H. Steiwer as president of the senate over fellow Republican Dorothy McCullough Lee?
... that the closest modern fern relatives to Dennstaedtia christophelii of the Pacific Northwest are tropical species from South America?