Seattle is a city in the Puget Sound ecoregion.
Our seasons and natural rhythms in the Seattle region are truly unique in the world.
Nestled as we are in the valley between impressive mountains in the West (the Olympics) and impressive mountains in the East (the Cascades), and with all our air moderated both by the breath of the biggest ocean on Earth (the Pacific) and our own little inland sea (Puget Sound), there is no other ecosystem like ours.
We are drenched with rain because of those mountains, and surrounded by water besides. We are cold, dark, and rainy in winter, and dry and temperate in summer.
This place manages somehow to be both deeply fertile and deeply inhospitable to people in many ways.
Our marine biota is like nowhere else, our primeval cold rainforests are like nowhere else too, and those two worlds of water and forest are joined by the bodies of salmon which form a nutritive current between them.
Samish 13 Moons: A PNW Seasonal Round
Part of the reason settlers in this region feel so separate from seasons is loss of knowledge about local Indigenous seasonal rhythms as part of colonial erasure.
The Samish Indian Nation put together this incredible StoryMap about the 13-moon Samish seasonal cycle. I’ll be referring to this and other Seasonal Rounds throughout the project—please check it out!
Seasons of Seattle 