Introducing Cascadia: The Best Place That Doesn't Exist (Yet)

Sorry about the total drought of posting- it can be blamed on a combination of things, from Marmotinis (like a regular Martini, but more endangered and expensive, and found only in the Bengal Lounge of the Empress Hotel, aka The One Place Where the Sun Has Never Set On The British Empire) to woodworking to house sitting.

But mostly, I blame Seattle. After nine months of being apart from my beloved ex-roommate Ivy McDougalhopper, we finally made plans to be in the same city. She lives in Minnesota, I live in BC, and so we ended up meeting, if not quite in the middle, then at least on her side of the border.

Seattle, of course, was lovely. Any city that offers honey-lavender and balsamic-strawberry ice cream (at Molly Moon's, in Capitol Hill) must be amazing. But it also felt strangely familiar. There were people in GoreTex, bicyclists, rainy weather, piers, fairly liberal politics... OH MY GOD, I had actually taken the wrong seaplane and ended up back in VANCOUVER.

Oh wait, no, the money is still uniformly and confusingly green. So many one dollar bills! I can't count them all! I must still be in Seattle. But it did feel a fair bit like BC. Then my coworker explained my confusion by introducing me to the fake country of Cascadia.

The Douglas Fir Flag, emblem of Cascadia. Likely to be pine-scented as well.

Cascadia is the union of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia into an independent nation. One assumes its main exports would be lumber, agricultural products, and flannel-wearing men. And, for a fake country, it has an awful lot of real support. It's shown up in a bunch of Sci-Fi books, but more endearingly the Cascadia Cup is contested between the city's respective soccer teams (the Whitecaps, Sounders and Timbers) and three breweries put the flag on their product.

Between the soccer and the local brew, it's clearly a movement with a particular audience. I imagine the ideal Cascadian citizen being Grant Lawrence, the scruffy Cowichan sweater fan and CBC broadcaster. His favourite beer is already Phillips Blue Buck, which comes emblazoned with the Doug flag, and I'm sure Cascadian Public Radio would find a place in its heart for this man.

And I'm just in love with this idea too. From now on, I'm a dual Canadian/Cascadian citizen. Rule, Cascadia! Cascadia, rule the coast!