This is National Recovery Month, and National Sober Day is September 14, encouraging us to celebrate Sober Life and bring awareness to addiction. On Community Tides this month, hosts Chris Bricker and Siobhan Canty, President & CEO of Jefferson Community Foundation, welcome Brian Richardson, Program Manager for Port Townsend’s Recovery Cafe. He’s here to tell us about the history of the Recovery Cafe project and more about what it is. We talk about what recovery means on so many levels, and what goes on within those warm and welcoming walls.

September is just around the corner, when both Port Townsend and Chimacum School Districts launch into the 2023-24 school year. Siobhan Canty and Chris Bricker are honored to have two special guests for a conversation about all things educational, including lessons learned over the last few landmark years, and the exciting plans afoot for the upcoming school year, from synchronized District Calendars to post-pandemic curriculum adjustments. Both Dr. Scott Mauk joined the Chimacum school community, and Dr. Linda Rosenbury joined Port Townsend School District as Superintendents in 2021. Collaboratively, they continue to cultivate meaningful changes in our local academic and non-academic learning environments.

The village of Queets is located on the northwest corner of our Olympic Peninsula, just off Highway 10 on the Quinault Reservation near the mouth of the Queets River. The Queets people have lived in the Queets River watershed since time immemorial, and traveled up and down the river and coast until the imposition of the allotment system confined the Queets population to the current village location. Tribal Elder Jean Ramos has been following this year’s Tribal Canoe Journey in real time and place, along the Journey’s coastal route. She  calls us from the road to tell us all about this year’s event, which started with just a few Quinault and coastal tribal canoes in 1989 to a blossoming tribal participation from Oregon, Washington, Alaska, British Columbia’s and Canada’s First Nations, and even from our East Coast. Jean calls the final arrival of over 100 canoes to this year’s hosts, the Muckleshoot Tribe, “Epic!” The canoes will land with the tide at Fort Worden on July 25 for celebration and rest at the County Fairgrounds, before departing on July 26 as they head to their next tribal visit. Arrival to Muckleshoot is July 30, with Protocol from July 31 through August 5.

Our special guests today are two out of three childhood friends who grew up here in Port Townsend and have co-founded a tiny game company called 3 Much Fun. Their first project is in true Port Townsend fashion. They have allowed their creative imaginations and talents to flourish unabashedly. Dakota, Henry, and Daniel also represent Port Townsend’s youth who, instead of fleeing their home town for other parts, have returned here with gusto, to their roots, to become contributors to the craftsman and maker culture that makes Port Townsend  what it is. Co-hosts Chris Bricker and Siobhan Canty, President & CEO of Jefferson Community Foundation, speak with Dakota Sandoval-Gay and Henry Nolan. With collaborator Daniel McCurdy and illustrator Conor Nolan, they have created a world-building activity book that comes to life with the roll of a dye. It’s called Roll For Your Life.

This week, KPTZ’s Chris Bricker and co-host Siobhan Canty, President  & CEO of Jefferson Community Foundation, speak with Ellen Menshaw and Lori Bernstein, activists and organizers from Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action (PSARA). The passage of Medicare in 1965 was historic for covering the medical needs of seniors, but it also created conditions highly attractive for the providers of health care, who the government desperately wanted to accommodate. The arrangement resulted in the federal government surrendering the terms of the program and its costs to private health insurance companies, hospitals, and doctors, who would shape Medicare to maximize their profits at the expense of taxpayers – from 1965 until today. If the trajectory continues, Medicare faces an increasing likelihood of becoming insolvent in the next decade, and barring the passage of Universal Healthcare, privatization will be the result. Ellen and Lori provide us with background and more resources for education, a list of informative events coming up, and ways to get involved.

This summer Wilderbee Farm is hosting Poetry on the Salish Sea, monthly poetry readings in its Meadery Garden by sixteen poets from around the Olympic Peninsula and beyond. The series is free to the public, from May through October. The readings are sponsored by Wilderbee Farm, Imprint Book Store, the Port Townsend Arts Commission, and The Production Alliance. Kathryn Hunt is the series curator. She’s a writer and teacher, and makes her home on the Salish Coast.  She has three well received books of poetry and two chap books to her credit. Kathryn is joined by Alice Derry, author of six volumes of poetry, three chap books, and has thirty years of experience teaching at at Peninsula College where she curated the Foothills Poetry Series. She’s currently working with local tribal members on the Peninsula who are writing poetry.  Kathryn and Alice join us to tell us about poetry, the event, and its participants.

As a resident or visitor to our beautiful region, you may have witnessed offshore sea life in distress, and you may have had occasion to see some very capable individuals assisting these animals from entanglement in debris or from ship strikes, as well as assisting injured animals on or near the shore. Who are these folks? KPTZ’s Chris Bricker and co-host Siobhan Canty, President & CEO of Jefferson Community Foundation, speak with Casey Mclean, Veterinary Nurse and Executive Director of SR3, which stands for Sealife Response, Rehabilitation, and Research. If you believe a marine animal is in distress or injured, contact the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network at 1-866-767-6114.

North of the Chimacum crossroads you can find a beautifully designed multi-use park conceived for our Jefferson County Communities.  It’s called H.J. Carroll Park, and it’s just nine miles south of central Port Townsend, off of Rhody Drive (or State Route 19). A short road from the turn-off opens onto soccer fields, basketball courts, a pavilion, the amazing and innovative JUMP Playground, walking paths, and more…
But also within the bounds of the park, lies the Kul Kai Han Native Plant Demonstration Garden. It’s extensive, beautifully laid out, meditative, educational, and most of all, inspiring. It’s next to the Salmon Shelter where Chimacum Creek flows at the garden’s edge. Here to tell us all about it are Linda Landkammner, the the garden’s original designer and project coordinator, the Garden’s former Co-Director, Robin Nye.

The transportation beliefs we have, and the resulting policies, funding and ultimately, infrastructure, affect all aspects of civic life, including human and climate health, housing costs and availability, economic vitality, recreational opportunities, and community equity. Jefferson County and the City of Port Townsend are at a crossroad. The Transportation Lab, with Local 20/20, has planned a one-day conference, Moving in the Right Direction, to be held in Port Townsend on Friday, April 14.  Participants will explore best practices in transportation and hear about research-based policies that make it easier and safer for people to walk, bike and use transit.  Joining KPTZ’s Chris Bricker and co-host Siobhan Canty, President and CEO of Jefferson Community Foundation, are Dave Thielk, a life long advocate for active transportation modalities, and Scott Walker, a Port Townsend Resident for over four decades and founding member of the Transportation Lab.

The time around pregnancy and birth can be a mysterious and joyful time in a person’s life. Whether you are freshly pregnant, approaching the birth of your baby, or planning your future pregnancy – it’s always the right time to find the right care provider who can facilitate the process into parenthood in a respectful and supportive way. This week, KPTZ’s Chris Bricker and co-host Siobhan Canty, President & CEO of Jefferson Community Foundation, speak with Maya Horrocks, Licensed Midwife of Peninsula Midwives, about the skills, experience, knowledge and heart involved in Midwifery.