Sailboats on Puget Sound

Despite the bustling metropolis built along its shores, the Salish Sea remains a wild place, with quiet nooks and crannies where otters play and sailboats ply the gentle ocean waters of Puget Sound. Anchored in serene bays, or drifting down swirling channels of life infused tidal flow, one may well think that the age of sail never truly left this corner of the world.

 

Sounds of Silence in the Pacific Northwest Forest

Take a moment to listen to the silence of the quiet forest, the rush of a distant river, the call of a Pacific Forest Wren, and the tumbling jubilant of a singing woodland brook. The forests of the Pacific Northwest offer a serene escape for the ears and mind.

Swimming with Poisonous Rough Skinned Newts

Below the waters of even the most murky of woodland ponds dwell one of the worlds most poisonous animals, the Rough Skinned Newt. These Pacific Northwest amphibians have knobbly backs, bright orange bellies, and excrete a poison 10,000 times more toxic than cyanide that is similar to that of the infamous Japanese Puffer Fish or Poison Dart Frogs. So long as you are not so dimwitted as to swallow one, the Rough Skinned Newt is a fascinating and innocuous creature to observe.