I am obsessed with the Pacific Northwest

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Now, by the maps I have seen on Wikipedia, NW Montana is in the PNW.

Lately I have been reading everything relating to this region. Trying to learn everything about it's cities, such as Spokane, Seattle, Eugene, Medford, Portland, Tacoma, Bellingham, and Boise. I have been checking out books from my local library regarding different parts of this region. I even know arcane facts, such as the fact that there is a movement to make the Pacific Northwest independent of the the rest of the nation (the Cascadia Movement) or the rough political division that the Cascades cause between the liberal, Democratic coast, and the more conservative (of a libertarian nature) east of the divide. I can easily go to my school library here in NW Montana and get newspapers from Seattle and Spokane. Our news stations are out of Spokane. I am going to be moving to S. Idaho (the Boise area) next year to attend BSU next year.

I am currently reading books on Seattle, and hiking the Columbia Gorge. My dad wants to go visit the Columbia Gorge once I move to Idaho next year.

I literally think, eat, and breathe Pacific Northwest now. I don't know if it is wanting to go to a more populated part of the PNW to live a more nerdy life. I hear that the Seattle area is very tolerant of "Bill Gates"-type people, not only that, it is a city of bookworms apparently.

Am I mentally ill, or is this strange? Is it an Aspie perseveration.

Last edited by animeboy on 15 Sep 2008, 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh SPOKANE.




That is the best city ever because of Benny & Joon. You should move there. It's a affordable city.


I have been to the Columbia Gorge many times. We always had to go through it to get to Montana to see my grandparents.

No, not at all. It makes at least three of us. Spokane Girl (whose username speaks for itself) is somewhere out there, and I'm your friendly neighborhood Seattle nerd. Anyway, pleased to meet ya! Go Cascadia!

Seattle does totally rock in many ways, but you're right, the booky-ness is one of the big attractions for me. You can get lost in the stacks all day at Elliott Bay Books. (Although, they say Portland has the world's biggest bookstore, but I've never been there.) And they seem pretty tolerant of many types of alternative lifestyle. I feel way more at home there than I do in stuffy old rural Britain...

normally that's part in the Rocky Mountains region. If you use the Cascadia definition than parts of Montana IIRC are in tht watershed so



use the internet, I do
Hmm supposedly Seattle and Oregon are VERY interesting to go to.

oh yeah; where's Vancouver in there! Canada is part of Cascadia too!



I know of that movement, that and there's a LOT of Anarchists there, as well as a bunch of ALF/ELF cells operating out there (same with Northern California, San Franciso area, etc). That and Hempfest is in Seattle.

I remember some guy posted on Tor "God Bless the ELF and Cascadia" lol.

IIRC they have issues with Northern Californians, I don't know why though. that and a decent electronica 'scene' (to quote the common vernacular)
http://nwtekno.org/



IIRC the eastern parts of the state aren't libertarian but 'conservtive' as in rural midwest. Not sure. IIRC it's more of a city-rural area divide and the 'liberal' cities outbalance the 'conservative' rural areas by larger populations.

EDIT: you're more right, the religious right has a weaker influence in Cascadia



"It came from Redmond". Yes apparently Seattle is actually very friendly to people.



no it's not strange, ive looked up stuff on other cities and cities in geeneral, etc and im a hardcore star wars fan as you see from username and sig

Last edited by Warsie on 15 Sep 2008, 4:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

lol it's small


Population (April 1, 2008[1])
- City 204,400
- Density 3,387.0/sq mi (1,307.7/km²)
- Metro 459,000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokane,_Washington

It's the best city because Benny & Joon was filmed there. If it were filmed here in Portland, then Portland would be the best city.

okay. also I;m going to get that, I googled your location and found out about it hmm

Greetings from Portland, Oregon! They did film "Paranoid Park" here, the new Gus Van Sant film. I love this area. The Gorge is beautiful, but I always go hiking in the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness, less crowded, nice old growth riparian forests.

Wow, what a coincidence! Recently I've developed a fascination with Vancouver. When I was 16, I wanted to move from Chicago to Alaska but regrettably never did. I would like to move to the Pacific Northwest.

I want to leave the US for political reasons and the commercialism and greed is so unhealthy. I love nature and cooler climates too.

I think the Wikipedia entry is overly broad, though it may be technically accurate. Quite a few people only consider Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver to be part of it, and I've never actually heard anyone refer to Montana, Idaho, or any part of California as being in the PNW. It's also worth noting that it's not a "rough political division" at all - Portland and Seattle are possibly the most liberal places in the entire country. It's a mixed bag once you leave the limits of either city, but typically gets more conservative as you get further from them.

Eugene, Ashland, and parts of Medford are also considered fairly left-leaning, but people in Portland tend to treat them more like bastard cousins. We're glad that they're on our side, but not really interested.

If you're interested in the area, I'd say pick places to visit based on your sensibilities and go from there.

The bookstore that someone mentioned, btw, is Powell's Books. I don't know if it's the biggest in the world, but it takes up a city block and has a few stories of awesome, though that's only the downtown store. You can browse the entire inventory online, but it's not quite as awe-inspiring as actually going there and realizing that they offer maps of the store for a reason.

Yes it's an aspie trait, enjoy it, and if you can apply the knowledge, the better

BTW I think you'll get along well with CockneyRebel, she's obsesed with the london buses

I'm from anacortes, which connects the Islands in the puget sound to the mainland because we are the ferry hub.
The pacific northwest isn't a bad place to live, but I got sick of the rain so easily, which is way I go to college out of state.
The one sad thing about the pacific northwest is the high suicide rate. I personally had two of my friends commit suicide in the past two years.
Although skagit county is a beautiful place in the summertime.

I almost moved to Boise, and I have a fascination with Seattle.

Well, do you yourself live in Oregon, Washington, or British Columbia?

From the sense I am getting. I do think that the part of Montana to the west of the continental divide is part of the Pacific Northwest. Also Idaho is in the Northwest.

I understand the political differences between the Eastern and Western portions of Washington and Oregon Sate
Here are some of the maps I refer to:

http://www.amaps.com/PACIFICNWdetail.htm
http://www.gonorthwest.com/Visitor/abou ... ctions.htm
http://www.nwmaps.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest

Why, then, do we in Northwest Montana, get 90 percent of our TV stations out of Spokane, WA, if we are not culturally part of the Pacific Northwest?

Why, then, can I go into the school library and read newspapers from Seattle and Spokane?

Why, then, if the Pacific Northwest is Oregon, Washington, and BC alone, do we in NW Montana, depend on Spokane (I mean travelling on I-90) for any kind of excitement?

Why is a class on "the Geography of the Pacific Northwest" at my local college, in NW Montana?

Why is it, that most people take the Amtrak "Empire Builder" from Whitefish to both Spokane and Seattle, and not to Billings or Bozeman if we are not part of the Pacific Northwest?

Why is it, aside from country and rap music, that the most popular form of music in my area is Indie music, a form of music popular in Seattle and Portland?

Why is medical marijuana legal here in Montana, as it is in Washington and Oregon, if we are not part of the Pacific Northwest?

Why is it that both Idaho and Montana, are very dependent on the timber, mining, and agricultural industries? As is most of the Pacific Northwest east of the Cascades?

Why is it that we are very politically independent and have a view of how life should be less based on religiosity, even in the conservative east of the Pacific Northwest?

Why is it that we are affected by the energy prices and are connected to the energy infrastructure of Washington and Oregon, as is Idaho, if we are not part of the Pacific Northwest? Why is it we live off of the energy of the Pacific Northwest?

Why do we have an aluminum plant in my hometown (Columbia Falls, MT), a mainstay of metal manufacture in the Pacific Northwest, if we are not part of the Pacific Northwest? Also we have an airplane components factory here that supplies Boeing, also a Northwest industrial mainstay.

Why does southwestern Idaho have a tech base, much like suburban Portland and Seattle?

Why is it Western Montana (up to Glacier National Park and the Continental Divide at Logan Pass) and Southern Idaho are affected by pacific storm systems?

Why is it that most tourists that come here are from Washington or Idaho or Oregon? I have seen no tourists from the south or the Northeast or the southwest here. We hardly even get anyone from Wyoming here.

Why is it that most books and tourist guidebooks, other than those directly relating to Montana, at my local library are from the Pacific Northwest or are even published here?

Why is it that the river systems here are connected to the columbia watershed?
http://www.cfwep.org/Water_Science/index.htm?
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/coas ... a_dams.gif
http://www.nemw.org/images/columbia%20map.gif
http://gis.washington.edu/esrm250/lesso ... _basin.gif

Why is it that all that separates me from some of my friends in Spokane is 100 miles to I-90 and then 90 miles across the Idaho Panhandle?

Why is it that most people I have know or have overheard talking or have read about here in Montana or in Idaho have families in Washington and Oregon? Why is it many of my friends live in Oregon and some go to college in Seattle, Washington if we are not part of the Pacific Northwest?

Finally, why is it that on Google Maps, that I can go to a shot of the northwest and get all of the major population centres in both the Northwestern US and Canada and Montana and Idaho into a single shot?

Why is it that both Boise, Idaho (and nearly all of Idaho) and Northwest Montana is in the Pacific Northwest Bureau of Reclamation region?

Why is it that Idaho is in the Region X (along with Oregon and Washington, excluding to my detriment, Montana) of the Standard Federal Regions, if we are not part of the Pacific Northwest?

Northern Idaho is in Pacific Time, and we are close to that.

We are under the quintessential Pacific Northwest Province of Canada, British Columbia.

We have tribes in my area whose domain stretched from here to the northern cascades.

When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, I heard the ash in this area was horrible. That would not happen if we were not in the vicinity of Mt. St. Helens

The closest anime convention to here and the one that the few people who are anime fans go to is Sakura-con in Seattle.

The numerous fandom clubs that exist for the Pacific Northwest include Montana and Idaho in their jurisdiction.

If you cannot rebut me to any good level of satisfaction, then Idaho and Montana are in the Pacific Northwest.

You sure are obsessed. It's very cute how you ask so many questions. I'm not flirting, but it's making me laugh because it is an endearing quality.

Born and raised in Portland, though I've briefly lived in both San Francisco and Sacramento, and continue to live here. On my Mom's side, my grandparents, a cousin and his wife, and my aunt (who runs the public library) and uncle (who teaches at Northwest Nazarene College) live in Nampa, Idaho. Another cousin and his wife live in Seattle, and I get up there as often as I can. Pretty much everyone else is still in the Portland area.

To reiterate, I said the Wikipedia article is technically correct, but based on living here for the better part of 28 years, my experience has been that nobody is as all-inclusive as the article would indicate when referring to the states that are included as part of the region.

I'll be honest, I started to go through your individual points, but many of them are more than a little ridiculous, reaching, and irrelevant. "Idaho is Pacific Time, and we're close to that." Are you for real?

That said, calm down. I wasn't pissing on your state, but relating the general perception here, part of which happens to be that Montana isn't part of the PNW.