Portal:Pacific Northwest

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The Pacific Northwest Portal

P:PNW

The Pacific Northwest (PNW), sometimes referred to as Cascadia, is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common conception includes the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, northern Idaho, and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Some broader conceptions reach north into Alaska and Yukon, south into northern California, and east into western Montana. Other conceptions may be limited to the coastal areas west of the Cascade and Coast mountains.

The Northwest Coast is the coastal region of the Pacific Northwest, and the Northwest Plateau (also commonly known as "the Interior" in British Columbia), is the inland region. The term "Pacific Northwest" should not be confused with the Northwest Territory (also known as the Great Northwest, a historical term in the United States) or the Northwest Territories of Canada. The region is sometimes referred to as Cascadia, which, depending on the borders, may or may not be the same thing as the Pacific Northwest.

The region's largest metropolitan areas are Greater Seattle, Washington, with 4 million people; Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, with 2.84 million people; and Greater Portland, Oregon, with 2.5 million people.

The culture of the Pacific Northwest is influenced by the Canada–United States border, which the United States and the United Kingdom established at a time when the region's inhabitants were composed mostly of indigenous peoples. Two sections of the border—one along the 49th parallel south of British Columbia and one between the Alaska Panhandle and northern British Columbia—have left a great impact on the region. According to Canadian historian Ken Coates, the border has not merely influenced the Pacific Northwest—rather, "the region's history and character have been determined by the boundary". (Full article...)

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Car 513 passing the new Sellwood Bridge in 2018

The Willamette Shore Trolley is a heritage railroad or heritage streetcar that operates along the west bank of the Willamette River between Portland and Lake Oswego in the U.S. state of Oregon. The right-of-way is owned by a group of local-area governments who purchased it in 1988 in order to preserve it for potential future rail transit. Streetcar excursion service began operating on a trial basis in 1987, lasting about three months, and regular operation on a long-term basis began in 1990. The Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society has been the line's operator since 1995.

The railroad offers passenger excursions using a historic or replica-historic trolley on a former Southern Pacific line previously known as the Jefferson Street branch. The line runs for 5.5 miles (9 km), including a passage through the 0.25-mile-long (0.4 km) Elk Rock Tunnel. The Lake Oswego terminal is downtown, alongside State Street (Oregon Route 43) just south of A Avenue. The location of the Portland terminal has varied over the years, but since fall 2003 it has been at SW Bancroft Street and Moody Avenue in the new high-density South Waterfront neighborhood under construction, a location that was only one block south of the Portland Streetcar terminus at SW Lowell Street and Moody Avenue after the latter's extension in 2007. However, all service on the Willamette Shore line was suspended in July 2010, when the line's only streetcar broke down. In early 2013, a lease was secured on a replacement streetcar, a Gomaco-built faux-Vintage Trolley, to enable a resumption of service on the southernmost portion of the line, and that section of the line reopened in August 2014. Service over the northern half of the line, to Bancroft Street in Portland, was restored on July 21, 2017, but has been suspended again since the end of 2019, awaiting trestle repair work, leaving only the line's southernmost section in operation for the time being. (Full article...)

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Farmer in 1938

Frances Elena Farmer (September 19, 1913 – August 1, 1970) was an American actress. She appeared in over a dozen feature films over the course of her career, though she garnered notoriety for sensationalized accounts of her life, especially her involuntary commitment to psychiatric hospitals and subsequent mental health struggles.

A native of Seattle, Washington, Farmer began acting in stage productions while a student at the University of Washington. After graduating, she began performing in stock theater before signing a film contract with Paramount Pictures on her 22nd birthday in September 1935. She made her film debut in the B film Too Many Parents (1936), followed by another B picture, Border Flight, before being given the lead role opposite Bing Crosby in the musical Western Rhythm on the Range (1936). Unhappy with the opportunities the studio gave her, Farmer returned to stock theater in 1937 before being cast in the original Broadway production of Clifford Odets's Golden Boy, staged by New York City's Group Theatre. She followed this with two Broadway productions directed by Elia Kazan in 1939, but a battle with depression and binge drinking caused her to drop out of a subsequent Ernest Hemingway stage adaptation. (Full article...)

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Largest cities of the Pacific Northwest

City	State/Province	Population	Metropolitan Area	Urban Area
Seattle	Washington	704,000^[1]	3,905,026^[2]	3,059,393^[3]
Portland	Oregon	658,347^[2]	2,753,168^[2]	1,849,898^[3]
Vancouver	British Columbia	631,486^[4]	2,737,698^[5]	2,264,823^[6]
Surrey	British Columbia	598,530^[4]	^{[n 1]}	^{[n 1]}
Burnaby	British Columbia	257,926^[4]	^{[n 1]}	^{[n 1]}
Boise	Idaho	226,570^[7]	691,423^[2]	349,684^[3]
Spokane	Washington	222,081^[1]	573,493 ^[8]^[9]	486,225^[3]
Richmond	British Columbia	216,046^[4]	^{[n 1]}	^{[n 1]}
Tacoma	Washington	198,397^[1]	^{[n 2]}	^{[n 2]}
Vancouver	Washington	175,673^[1]	^{[n 3]}	^{[n 3]}

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various Pacific Northwest-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1None of the multiple possible definitions of the Pacific Northwest is universally accepted. This map shows three possibilities: (1) The shaded area shows the historical Oregon Country. (2) The green line shows the Cascadia bioregion. (3) The labeled states and provinces include Washington, Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 2The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens (from Cascade Range)
Image 3A man in Portland, Oregon with Cascadian flag on International Workers' Day, 2012 (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 4Public transportation is used in the Pacific Northwest region. Vancouver's SkyTrain rapid transit system achieves daily ridership of over 500,000 passengers per day on weekdays and the overall transit ridership levels in the Metro Vancouver area rank third in North America per capita. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 5Lumen Field, home of Seattle Seahawks and Sounders FC (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 6The immense floods created channels that are presently dry, such as the Drumheller Channels (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 7Lassen Peak in the California Cascades. Southernmost volcano in the Cascade Range and part of Lassen Volcanic National Park (from Cascade Range)
Image 8The Boundary Trail section of the PNT in Horseshoe Basin, Pasayten Wilderness (from Pacific Northwest Trail)
Image 9Magnetic anomalies around the Juan de Fuca and Gorda Ridges, off the west coast of North America, color coded by age. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 10Map of the Anahim Volcanic Belt centers. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 11The Columbia River basalts cover portions of three states (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 12May 1915 Lassen Peak eruption column (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 13Mount St. Helens erupts on May 18, 1980 (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 14The Pacific Northwest from space (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 15The North Cascades are heavily eroded by glaciers (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 16A map of the Snake River Plain, showing its smooth topography (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 17Map of the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt centers. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 18Lava Butte, Oregon, erupted roughly 5000 years BCE (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 19The Pacific Northwest from outer space. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 20The Coquihalla River in the Canadian Cascades (from Cascade Range)
Image 21The Golden Hinde on Vancouver Island was formed by erosion carving into basalt. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 22U.S. Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes' 1841 Map of the Oregon Territory from "Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition". Philadelphia: 1845 (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 23West side view of Mount Shuksan in summer as seen from Artist Point in Washington (from Cascade Range)
Image 24Geology of the Cascade Range-related plate tectonics. (from Cascade Range)
Image 25The Cascades range (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 26Mount Hood is the tallest point in the U.S. state of Oregon. (from Cascade Range)
Image 27Map of "megacity", showing population density (shades of yellow/brown), highways (red), and major railways (black). Public land shown in shades of green. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 28The Coast Mountains are heavily eroded by glaciers, including Mount Waddington (far background, center). (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 29Oval-leaf blueberry on Mount Pilchuck (from Cascade Range)
Image 30The Columbia Gorge marks where the Columbia River splits the Cascade Range between the states of Washington and Oregon. (from Cascade Range)
Image 31Mount Edziza, a large shield volcano in northwestern British Columbia (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 32Image of the Juan de Fuca Plate that produced the magnitude 8.7–9.2 Cascadia earthquake in 1700. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 33HMS Discovery was the lead ship used by George Vancouver (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 34Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail overview map (from Pacific Northwest Trail)
Image 35Mountain goat on Wallaby Peak in the North Cascades (from Cascade Range)
Image 36State Route 302 after the Nisqually earthquake (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 37Pacific Northwest Trail at Blanchard Mountain in Washington (from Pacific Northwest Trail)

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... that women- and minority-owned businesses built the Frequent Express high-capacity bus line in Portland, Oregon?
... that the completion of Interstate 205 in Oregon was delayed to mitigate air and noise pollution for a jail that closed a few months later?
... that John C. Carson built the first sidewalk in Portland, Oregon?
... that after serving as President of the Oregon State Senate, Brady L. Adams founded BearFest in Grants Pass, Oregon, which featured playful fiberglass bear statues placed around the town?
... that a Washington state radio station turned to "professional bikini watchers"—military recruiters—to report on crowds at local beaches?
... that Cathy Whims has opened several restaurants in Portland, Oregon, including the Nostrana, which has been described as "Portland's capital of the Negroni"?