I have been living in Washington State for a majority of my life. I moved here from a young age as my dad’s work called for it. Ever since I have begrudgingly fallen in love with the region. At first with resistance to a new home but after a while I fell in love with the absolutely beautiful landscapes of our great bioregion of Cascadia. It is absolutely stunning. Mt. Rainier, Whistler, the San Juan Islands, Puget Sound, Olympic Peninsula, the Redwoods, Mt. Hood, the largest living organism of Fungi on Earth, Crater Lake, the beautiful glaciers off Alaskan coast, and the many evergreen forests spanning all the way from Northern California to Yukon Territory.

 The region is also host to many cultural influences. Such as being the epicenter of many major innovative companies (good or bad, as we share the likes of Amazon and Microsoft headquartered here). It’s an area of technological progress and social progress all working together,

We also have many culturally significant film and television that has been shot here such as The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982) shot outside Juneau and in Beautiful British Columbia, Twin Peaks (David Lynch, 1990-1993) shot in Snoqualmie, North Bend, and Fall City, Northern Exposure (Joshua Brand & John Falsey, 1990-1995) shot in Roslyn, Twilight (Stephenie Meyer, 2008-2011) shot in Portland and Vernonia, The X-Files S1-5 (Chris Carter, 1993-1997) shot in Vancouver BC, The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) shot in Mt. Hood and Glacier Park, Supernatural (Eric Krikpe, 2005-2020) shot in Vancouver BC. There are so many other influential pieces of media that have been shot in this region.

We were home to the grunge movement in the 90s which changed the face of music and culture as we know it. Cascadia being home to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Heart, Jimmie Hendrix, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Death Cab for Cutie, Fleet Foxes, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Modest Mouse, Kenny Loggins, Kenny G, Bring Crosby, the Decemberists, Sleater-Kinney, Everclear, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Japanese Breakfast, Blind Pilot, Elliot Smith, The Kingsmen, Portugal. The Man, The Dandy Warhols, Quarterflash, Kutless, Pink Martini, Neko Case, The New Pornographers, Black Mountain, Michael Bublé, Grimes, Carly Rae Jepson, et cetera.

My point being that Cascadia is a region of mass importance to the cultural zeitgeist and has always been and will always be. We must fight to protect it at all costs.

The bioregion is self sufficient and could more than make for independence with a strong economy to back it. Currently we are not vying for independence of this beautiful and diverse area, but rather protesting through this petition to declare it a protectorate of Canada and Denmark. We will take no legal action at the moment but rather make a statement by having more people sign this and take it to heart what the identity of Cascadia is and our contributions to the world have been, what beautiful nature we must protect. For now I propose Washington State, as it is where I currently reside, take part in this protest petition. We want the attention of the regime and its leaders like Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and J.D. Vance. We want our voices to be heard.

We here in Cascadia stand up for the people, we stand up for small businesses, we stand up for farmers, we stand up for the LGBTQ+, we stand up for black people, we stand up for the native/first nation peoples, we stand up for our government officials who keep things from collapsing, we stand up for our park rangers and the nature they protect, and we stand up for the nations who are invaded by a foreign power and our allies. We show by signing this petition that we are not going to stand by and take it as the regime takes away the inalienable rights from Americans. That if we don’t see any change anytime soon we will secede from the union and are seeking protection from Canada and Denmark, as a sign of solidarity for the threatening statements made by our government.

So although we won’t be taking any immediate action as we must stay for the time being to defend the American people, Cascadia will be one of the first states to declare our independence if enough support is seen if Trump manages to pass his “Insurrection Act” that would declare Martial Law. We must stay now and show our support for the people of the United States as a whole. This petition is a statement of who we are and we offer, and what we will take if we must leave.

Viva La Résistance!