We caught up with Harold Rhenisch at what seemed like a good halfway point between Seattle, WA and Vernon, BC, Harrison Hot Springs. After an excellent breakfast at Muddy Waters Café, our chat on Wednesday, December 4 happened at 11am and featured Harold reading a few poems from the new book, talking about why he identifies as Cascadian and how he sees nation states like the U.S. and Canada as “prisons.” We agreed to discuss Ezra Pound on another occasion. After the interview, Harold talked about his inspiration for using couplets:Sitting on the beach at the edge of the Pacific Ocean on the Olympic Peninsula, he heard the soft waves coming in and going out for about 15 minutes and then realized that was the model for his couplets, used in The Salmon Shanties.

My introduction:

The Cascadia bioregional movement got a shot in the arm this fall when Harold Rhenisch finally published his book “The Salmon Shanties: A Cascadian Song Cycle.” Loaded with references to places and events in Cascadia (& beyond) along with Chinook trade jargon and a deep love of the natural world, it is the culmination of at least a decade of work by this Vernon, BC poet. Sharon Thesen calls it “an astonishing book [that] rips the world open.”

Maps adapted by Trista Bassett and Harold Rhenisch from David McCloskey’s “Map of Cascadia” (2014), Cascadia.Institute.org with permission.

The second edition of McCloskey’s large map “Cascadia: A Great Green Land” (2023) is available from FeatheredStarProductions.com. Adapted here with permission.