On Sacred Ground

"On Sacred Ground" explores writings about the Northwest, the area that extends from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, and from the forty-ninth parallel to the Siskiyou Mountains. There is astonishing geographical diversity in this bioregion, and yet the entire Northwest shares a similarity of climate, flora, and fauna. For Nicholas O'Connell, the effects of nature on everyday Northwest life carry over to Northwest literature. Although Northwest writers address a number of subjects, the relationship between people and place proves the dominant one, and that has been true since the first tribes settled the region and began telling stories about it, thousands of years ago.Now, O'Connell asks, if there is a Northwest style in literature, then what is the common thread linking Chief Seattle to Theodore Roethke, Narcissa Whitman to Ursula K. Le Guin, Joaquin Miller to Ivan Doig, Marilynne Robinson to Jack London, Betty MacDonald to Gary Snyder? And if Northwest writers' primary subject is the relationship between people and place, then how does the Pacific Northwest's literature reflect this particular region?Tracing the history of Pacific Northwest literary works from Native American myths to the accounts of explorers and settlers, the effusions of the Romantics, the sharply etched stories of the Realists, the mystic visions of the Northwest School of poets, and the contemporary explosion of Northwest poetry and prose, O'Connell focuses on how the relationship between people and place has evolved, and he shows that the most important contribution of Northwest writers to American literature is their articulation of a more spiritual human relationship with landscape. Pacific Northwest writers and storytellers seek to understand and express their relationship with the nonhuman world, and they endeavour to see the Northwest not just as a source of material wealth but as a spiritual homeland, a place to lead a rich and fulfilling life within the whole context of creation. And just as the relationship between people and place serves as the unifying feature of Northwest literature, so also does literature possess a perhaps unique ability to transform a landscape into a sacred place. Nicholas O'Connell is the author of "At the Field's End: Interviews with 22 Pacific Northwest Writers". He is an instructor of creative writing at the University of Washington Extension.