Sawdust Mountain

When I was a young, my family would hunt for mushrooms in the forests of the Cascade and Olympic Mountains. Some days we would spend afternoons along the shallows of a river watching salmon fight their way to spawning grounds upstream. These were the icons of the region: forest and salmon, pillars of Northwest identity. In returning to the Northwest, I found a wet and weathered region imbued with much history but uncertain future. "Sawdust Mountain" explores the complicated relationship between the region's landscape, the industries that rely upon natural recourses, and the communities they support.