Where We Call Home: Lands, Seas, and Skies of the Pacific Northwest
Reconnect with the natural world through essays that blend science and prose. In her debut work, Josephine Woolington turns back the clock to review the events that have challenged Pacific Northwest wildlife in an effort to provide a deeper sense of place. Only then can we imagine how these imperious effects might be overcome.
Join Woolington as she sheds light on the diverse species whose populations are slowly declining from the lands, seas, and skies of the Pacific Northwest. Only by acknowledging this truth can we understand that our impact on the Earth is deeper and far more significant than we ever imagined. Through interviews with local educators, Indigenous leaders, scientists, and artists from the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, the Haida Nation, the Yakama Nation, the Makah Tribe, and beyond, we are invited to decenter our singular perspective in favor of a more empathic, collective approach.
The flora and fauna of the Pacific Northwest are resilient. As they adapt to a world far removed from its wonders, we must realize our own interconnectedness to nature and to one another. Woolington colors the rich history of the Pacific Northwest within the eye of its beholder so that society can learn to live intentionally in the land that sustains us all. From the coastal tailed frog to the sandhill crane, the yellow-cedar to the camas flower, these stories reimagine what it means to live mindfully in the colorful region we call home.
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Josephine Woolington is a writer, musician, and educator. She previously worked at several newspapers in Oregon, where her work was read by both regional and national audiences via The Associated Press. During her time at The Register-Guard in Eugene, she received an award for best education coverage from the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association. In addition to journalism, she's a musician and music educator. She's toured nationally and internationally with different artists, and she writes, records, and performs her own music as well. She earned two bachelor's degrees from the University of Oregon in journalism and political science and received the school's highest award for excellence in journalism. Her artistic, mindful perspective and curiosity about all living things guide her creative endeavors. She lives in her hometown of Portland with her love and their fur child, Gladys the cat. Follow her musings on Instagram @josephine_antoinette_, and on Twitter @j_woolington.
Ramon Shiloh has volunteered at educationally focused nonprofit organizations for almost three decades. As a writer, artist, and instructor, he curates thoughtful insights, teaches analytic skills and applied knowledge, and distributes tools relative to the creative mediums of art, food sovereignty, writing, and spoken word. Shiloh focuses many of his efforts on supporting Indigenous children. He uses his knowledge of food, art, and culture to help Native youth develop a connection to good health and their histories, in our ever-changing world. Shiloh resides in Portland.
Josephine Woolington is a model of a particular kind of curiosity that is at root a form of love--love for the plants and animals and geography that together make up the place she occupies. Where We Call Home is an invitation to pay attention to and become intimate with the world beyond the self. And it is a welcome addition to the literature of the Pacific Northwest.
--Scott F. Parker, author of A Way Home: Oregon Essays and Being on the Oregon Coast
Written within the last couple of years, when many of us were feeling untethered--and reading it now, when we are suspecting we may never return to what we thought we knew, maybe not wanting to, seeking instead better ground--Where We Call Home is the reminder we need that nature doesn't let us down and, importantly, that we are of a place, and that matters. Full of delicate botanical and biological details and human stories trying to make sense of everything from camas to clouds, this collection of journalistic essays both connects and inspires. Whether our family has lived in the Pacific Northwest for generations or we just moved here, Josephine Woolington's writing gives voice to this land claiming us as one of its creatures, and in that embrace, may we feel a reciprocal protective urge. This place is special, and we are special to be a part of it.
-- Kristin Thiel, co-editor of Fire & Water: Stories from the Anthropocene
This book is about listening to the voices of plants, animals, Indigenous leaders, scientists, and artists to find and nourish something we all need: an enduring sense of place.
--Scott Freeman, author of Saving Tarboo Creek: One Family's Quest to Heal the Land
In a series of beautiful essays on the foraging western bumble bee, the stunning sandhill crane, the long-lived yellow-cedar, and more, Where We Call Home takes us on a journey to explore the natural histories of ten native species in the Pacific Northwest. It is a powerful meditation on the past, present, and possible future of this land, its inhabitants, and our own relationship with nature.
--Lauren E. Oakes, author of In Search of the Canary Tree: The Story of a Scientist, a Cypress, and a Changing World
Once she realizes that "it's radical to be rooted in a place," writer and educator Josephine Woolington embarks on a journey to learn about her home in the Northwest. Focusing on ten native species, she follows her journalist's curiosity, interweaving natural history with the cultural history she sets out consciously to learn. In her hands, what first looks like a random selection ranging from camas, sandhill cranes, and yellow-cedar to moss, bumble bees, and clouds becomes a window into the stories of the local tribes who've long stewarded their kin, the scientists who study them, and others who've learned how to pay attention. From an artist who attended to clouds in order to draw them to a whaling chief's moving account of how a gray whale hunt restored the Makah culture, her stories invite us to become as rooted, attentive, and respectful wherever we call home.
--Holly J. Hughes, author of Passings, a 2017 American Book Award winner
A deep dive into connections with the land and the life-forms that call the Pacific Northwest home. Fascinating. Sobering. Inspiring.
--Jane Billinghurst, co-author of Forest Walking: Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North America
Josephine Woolington leaves no stone unturned in these explorations of iconic Northwest lifeforms. She does not flinch in the face of degradation and future threats, she understands that tribal knowledge plays a crucial role in our larger story, and she offers a path forward based on meticulous attention. We should listen.
-- Jack Nisbet, author of >Sources of the River, The Collector, and Visible Bones
Josephine Woolington's first book is part natural history and part human history, offering unique insights that shed light on the threats facing some of the Pacific Northwest's most iconic species. Its lyrical language and delightful descriptions illuminate scientific and Native American perspectives, providing context for understanding where people fit into the natural world.
--Todd McLeish, author of Saving Narragansett Bay and Return of the Sea Otter
