Notes From the Northwest—It’s Twilight Time in Sequim

by Jim Washburn

I’ve been writing about Sequim, Washington practically ever since my parents moved there two decades ago. Sometimes it’s easier to see the changing face of America in a town with distinct borders, where you know where the town stops because you’re stepping in cow shit.

Majestic, snow-capped mountains stand both near and far to Sequim, giving you the feeling you’re in Middle Earth. To the north: Mordor. At least that’s what opponents of “socialized medicine” would have you think of Canada. Separating us from them are the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and yes, I juan de fuca mucha da tima. It’s just part of the Puget Sound you’ve heard so much of, home to both orca pods and U.S. nuclear submarines. I’ve seen both and each is thrilling in its own way, though you’d probably rather see an orca’s spout blow than a Trident’s.

All the expected changes have occurred over the years: expansion at the expense of forests and farmland; the death of the downtown after the big box stores moved in; most of Sequim’s unique character bulldozed to make way for the Big 5, Applebees, Home Depot and other places designed with that exciting “Christ, I should have stayed at home” look.

The police blotter, once full of whimsical accounts of stray llamas and the like, now abounds with meth culture fallout. It’s a matter of much local consternation that a study recently named the county jail as the third worst in the nation for sexual abuse. Impossible, cried the head sheriff, and he was backed up by a woman who’d been in the jail for three months on meth charges. She said she’d experienced no harassment in that time, but had overheard other female prisoners say they’d fabricated answers for the study because they were overcome with boredom, which may be a bigger problem than meth on the Olympic Peninsula.

The area has been resoundingly white for ages, Swedish farmers augmented by a couple of generations of retirees. The politics have run the gamut, from Birchers to Wobblies, but it always seemed like they were in friendly disagreement until recently.

 “Don’t blame me: I voted for the AMERICAN” was one pickup truck bumper sticker I saw. There’s a guy running for county commissioner, Republican Steve Boyer, who refers to his Democratic opponent John Austin as an “enviro-wacko.” He recently took a page from the Mayor Palin playbook by injecting an overarching wedge issue into local politics.

Olympic National Park holds one of America’s greatest rainforests, as well as a famous glacier that is deep in retreat. Preserving those grand wonders are what most peninsulans are worried about. Not Boyer. He’s worried about the UN’s Biosphere program, which shares information on ecologically unique and sensitive sites, and of which the park is a participant.

“I have concerns about why it seems like we have subordinated our sovereignty to an international body that makes its own rules,” he said, going on to raise dark questions about whether the UN would be controlling water allotments to local farmers.

They wouldn’t be. Had Boyer done five minutes of homework before he opened his mouth, he’d understand why the people the Peninsula Daily News reporter contacted for answers sounded flabbergasted.

A park spokeswoman, Barb Maynes, told the paper, “It's an honorary sort of distinction that basically recognizes the unique and world-class attributes of the resources here. There's no regulatory conditions or situations that are part of that program.”

So the UN won’t be diverting the region’s water supply from farms to spotted owl wading ponds anytime soon. But right-thinking folks from Birchers to Birthers know the UN is a shell for international socialism, and its tentacles can reach anywhere. So Boyer was also curious about the membership of some local municipalities in the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, an information-sharing assemblage of local governments around the world addressing sustainable development.

Hmmm, wondered real estate developer Boyer, “There is a link to all these things that makes me curious. I would like to know why all these guys are tied together and who's making the rules.” In other words, is some apparatchik in Geneva dictating the marching orders to local commissioners?

Close to it. Port Townsend—a participating city—has received, in total from the ICLEI, some carbon emissions-monitoring software and a newsletter, City Manager David Timmons told the paper. You can read the whole story here.

I mention this nonsense because similar scripts are being played out in hamlets across the nation: just simple, no-nonsense, angry-as-hell guys, backed with some folksy funding from the mega-billionaire Koch brothers, standing up to take America back from the Americans who outnumber and outvoted them.

Despite its divisions and overwhelmed quaintness, Sequim’s a fairly forward-looking little town. I’ve written before about the city’s affordable housing projects. A developer is looking to put in another 109 apartment units. The city is making the usual noises about density concerns, but the developer has a winning reason to be green-lighted: As part of the larger development he envisions, he’s trying to lure a Trader Joe’s to the site. According to polls, most locals would give up a kidney to get a Trader Joe’s.

Plus they need the low-income housing. The economy sucks on the peninsula. Retirees lost a lot of their living money when the stock market imploded. Lumber work has dried up; milling moved overseas; not much is moving in and out of the ports. Once a hardtack little town, Sequim is trying to repurpose itself as the lavender capitol of the U.S. It is also one of many burgs along Highway 101 trying to cash in as a gateway to Forks, the town two hours distant made famous by the Twilight series. It’s a far cry from lumberjacks and flapjacks.

The places that seem to be doing the best, to my eye, are the ones that are trying to create an actual future. An example of that is the Alder Wood Bistro. Recently opened, it’s in a house that used to hold the town’s oddest restaurant, the Eclipse Café. That was a restaurant owned by an elderly couple who would shut the place down for weeks at a time to travel the world to wherever a good eclipse was expected, meaning you pretty much had to consult an almanac to eat there. It is also the only Asian restaurant I’ve eaten in where it wasn’t unusual for them to run out of rice.

The Alder Wood Bistro is also owned by a couple, and they make astonishingly good food emphasizing local, organic, sustainable, free-ranging foods. They do all sorts of events and information sharing, from little guides at their counter on sustainable seafood to special dinner nights. I also like that they’d close on one of their busiest days to hold a staff wedding there.

Cool little places doing the right thing, and supporting other people doing the same: maybe that’s the new small-town America. People can make a difference there. That’s a compelling reason to live in a small town, at least until John Mellencamp dies there and starts to draw flies.

Comments

Comments closed.

Copyright © 2012 Four Story Inc.         Home         Staff         Privacy         Contact