|! eature

Tyson Kelsall
Culture Editor | ote-culture@unbc.ca

here is a separatist movement building slowly in the Pacific
Northwest. Its speed reflects the pace of the people outside
of its metropolitan centers. It is not your typical movement,
based on the right and left political spectrum, nor is it necessarily
about protecting a certain culture. More so, it is about creating one. The
movement calls for a new sovereign state: Cascadia.

The map is not perfect yet. To some it stretches from Northern
California to the Alaskan Panhandle. For Cathasaigh 6 Corcrain, co-
editor of underground journal Autonomy Cascadia: A Journal of
Bioregional Decolonization, since Cascadia is based largely on ecological
designs, its borders would reflect that, more so than current political
ones. Corcrdin says that watersheds should dictate Cascadia’s region.
For example, he uses the Klamath River as the southern point.

Bioregionalism, as defined by Brandon Letsinger, founder of the Cascadian
Independence Project and manager of Cascadia Now’s web presence,

is “a way to reframe and rethink a lot of the boundaries and borders

on this region to better represent economic, political, social and
environmental realities.” Corcrdin, who traveled around theoretical
Cascadia when filming Occupied Cascadia, says that he also noticed

many similarities to communities around the region who shared

similar relationships with natural resources and surroundings. For
example, a logging community in rural Washington likely shares many
cultural characteristics as a logging community in rural northern British
Columbia. Letsinger says Cascadia is the birthplace of the idea of bioregionalism.

In 2004, there was the creation of the Cascadian Cup; an intense soccer
competition between the Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers and the
Vancouver Whitecaps. In 2011, the “Republic of Cascadia” made it onto a

Times Magazine list as number 8 of the Top 10 Aspiring Nations. Although it was
the first time that Cascadia reared its head in the mainstream media, the author
of that piece threw in that it “has little chance of ever becoming a reality.”

Cascadia’s flag, nicknamed the Doug Flag, depicts a Douglas fir over a typical horizontal,
tri-coloured flag. The three colours, blue, white, and green, represent the bioregion of
Cascadia. The blue is for our ocean, lakes, rivers and other bodies of water; the white for
our snow-capped mountain ranges and glaciers; and the green for our lush forests.

Letsinger saw growing support for Cascadia. He pointed to the lack of other alternatives
and general unhappiness when it comes to the Canadian and American federal
governments. He saw this largely due to the fact that Cascadia focuses on positives
and a new, untainted prospect. According to Letsinger, Cascadia Now is in direct
communication with 10-15,000 people and also acknowledges the many social
media groups with thousands of followers surrounding the idea of Cascadia.
Corcrain agrees, saying he himself has seen the idea of Cascadia grow since he
was first involved. He agrees that Cascadia comes without “ideological baggage’

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Some say Cascadia is a chance to break the old, traditional left-versus-right
spectrum. Letsinger argues that it is not a red-versus-blue issue, but one of
empowering communities. Is localizing the economy really a right or left
argument? Are many people in Cascadia really chasing corporatism as a political
ideology? Of course, mix in the Cascadian respect for the environment, and the .
political landscape starts to unfold. Letsinger points out transparency and real ff
democracy as important tenants to Cascadia; he said that the question then ‘
becomes “why are we not doing this?” when we consider the “dirty corruption” ks
and limited democracy currently in Canada and America. He said Cascadians are
further united by a love of place. So, is a sovereign but undefined Cascadia possible?

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