Join the 2dnw crew to visit with Jessie Twigg-Harris, the owner of SWALE, right on Main Street in downtown Palouse, Washington. Jessie curates a fantastic array of her own original screen-printed goods along with pottery, art, accessories, home products and more—all the work of local artisans. SWALE is a celebration of local culture, and committed to radical neighboring. Buy in-store or online.

Hear why Swale—a place of both fertility and utility—is a great name for Jessie’s shop, watch her producing her signature screen-printed shirts and pillows, learn how the community supported SWALE through the pandemic, and get a sense of all of the many local hands that have produced the goods sold at SWALE.

We hope you’ll enjoy meeting Jessie and getting a peek behind the scenes at SWALE as we did! Watch the video here.

Meet Jenny Parker and Paul Brandenstein at Wing Over Farm with the 2DNW team! On the outskirts of Moscow, Idaho, Wing Over Farm is a woman-owned, one-acre organic farm featuring an onsite farm store. Find Wing Over Farm at the Moscow Farmers Market, or buy produce direct.

Learn about Jenny’s love for tomatoes, meet Homer the farm dog, learn about Community Supported Agriculture, and tap into Jenny and Paul’s passion for growing clean, healthy food for themselves and their community.

We hope you’ll love visiting Harrison as much as we did! Watch the video here.

Through an ambitious volunteer-led project, the Colfax Arts Council is giving the eastern Washington town of Colfax a public-art makeover. At a community celebration on October 3, 2019, the town toasted four new public murals and an outdoor installation along the Concrete River featuring fish colorfully painted by school children and community residents.

Debby Stinson, the president of the Colfax Arts Council, described the project’s vision as public art that could attract visitors and also make the community feel good. “When you’re revitalizing a town and want people to know about it, if you create a wonderful backdrop for photos to be shared on social media the town gets more notice,” she said.

Established regional artists designed the murals with plenty of input from city officials, building owners and other stakeholders. The murals are on four downtown buildings:

• Spokane artistMelissa Cole painted a landscape of native flowers and bees with recycled glass mosaic elements on the Dusty Attic building.
• Pullman artistCori Dantini added whimsical wheat stalks, flowers and wildlife to the Bully For You building.
• Colfax painter and art teacher Henry Stinson painted  a pair of American Gothic-style robots with a pitchfork on the side of Fonk’s Coffee House.
• Spokane artist Yelena Yunin’s design features koi fish and lily pads at the Colfax City Pool facility.

The 3,744 hand-painted fish soon to be installed on the fence along the river have been painted by an untold number of established, aspiring, and occasional artists in school and at community fish-painting parties. When the installation is completed in the summer of 2020, Colfax (pop. 2,860) will realize Debby Stinson’s vision of having “more art than people.”

The project was so successful and brought together so much of the community that the Colfax Arts Council, which raised $32,000 and spearheaded this year’s effort, plans to apply for more grants to continue the projects next year.

When Stacia Morin founded Nez Perce Tourism in spring 2019, her vision was to provide exclusive opportunities for visitors to walk alongside the Nimiipuu people, learning their ancient and modern ways of life and embracing the spirit of their homelands. There is plenty of terrain to explore; You can start here, in the 2 Degrees Northwest region and explore endlessly across Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Montana and Wyoming.

Speaking to me on Zoom while welcoming customers to the Nez Perce Traditions gift shop in Lewiston, making preparations for a cultural education event, and overseeing a team processing 14 big boxes of new inventory, Stacia shows the grace under pressure that anyone would want in a travel guide. She figures there is time to sleep sometime in the future.

Along with her sisters, Ciarra and Sawaya Greene , Stacia is the backbone of a team of six core staff and 55 singers, drummers and dancers who work together to create unique cultural experiences.  Close collaboration with small communities, museums, farmers, and others are integral in offering what Stacia calls “an authentic experience of the people of the homeland you’re visiting.” The transformational experience, she says, is “real people and real culture. We can share the language with you, we can tell you the stories, we can show you the exact place where this historical event happened.”

Whether you join one of their organized tours, arrange a customized itinerary, or take their advice for an on-your-own sightseeing adventure, your experience could include white water rafting, dinner with the Nez Perce, Appaloosa horseback riding, traditional arts workshops, historical tours, wildlife encounters, and more. In 2021, Nez Perce Tourism was awarded the Best Cultural Heritage Experience by the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association.

Stacia and her family are deeply woven in and committed to the Nez Perce community — donating to local and cultural organizations, hiring veterans and, this year, committing to support more women-owned businesses. From a young age, Stacia says, “we were taught that what is important is not how much money you have in your bank account, it’s how much you give back to your community.”

Titooqanaawit – Live It!

Visit them in-person at Traditions Gift Shop: 800 Main Street Suite #4, Lewiston, ID 83501

Call (208) 790-8873 to inquire about tours.

Information:

Keep up with what’s new at the Nez Perce Traditions gift shop on Facebook or shop online

Learn more about Nez Perce Tourism’s services on the company’s website

Take a deep breath and join 2 Degrees Northwest and local wine enthusiast David Scott as they learn more about Rivaura Winery‘s long family history with manager Lane Hewett. Rivaura’s winery, tasting room and 26-acre estate vineyard are located at the confluence of the Clearwater River and the Potlatch River in Juliaetta, Idaho.

Watch the Rivaura Winery tour video.

Take a trip to Harrison, Idaho, with the 2DNW team! Harrison, which sits lakeside on the south end of Lake Coeur d’Alene, is the hub of the the popular Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes. We visit two local businesses:

Molly takes us on a tour of Cycle Haus Bikes and Brews, which offers  coffee bar, which bicycle rentals, service, and sales, along with delicious Doma coffee, craft beer & wine, and delectable food options.

Debbie Gregoire, co-owner of Kindred Spirits Arts, shows us around this artist-owned gift shop, stocked full of offerings from local artists and artisans.

We hope you’ll love visiting Harrison as much as we did! Watch the video here.

After retirement, David Benscoter turned the sleuthing skills he honed as a FBI and IRS Criminal Division agent toward tracking down apple varieties thought to have become extinct. His passion has taken him to old apple orchards, homesteads and open lands across eastern Washington, northern Idaho and into Montana.

Partnering with the Whitman County Historical Society, Benscoter and the all-volunteer team at the Lost Apple Project seek to identify and map apple trees and orchards planted before 1920, working with landowners to encourage the preservation of these heritage apple trees.

Just eight apple varieties account for 97% of the commercial harvest in Washington State, with several other boutique varieties found only in specialty stores or fruit stands and “club” varieties grown by select growers. In 1900, noted banker and horticulturist Edwin Hanford grew 145 apple varieties in his Palouse orchard alone. Historical records provide a roadmap for apple hunters who, guided by a list of apple varieties known to have been grown in the area and now considered extinct or lost, collect samples that are sent to experts at the Temperate Orchard Conservancy in Oregon for testing.

In 2021, the crew logged more than 1,000 volunteer hours and gathered 250 samples they sent for identification. About half were identified as known (and sometimes rare) heritage varieties. But more than a dozen rare or never seen apples are entering a new phase of testing. Beginning this year, each apple suspected of being a lost variety will be DNA tested and the results compared with a DNA database at Washington State University.

“Of course,” Benscoter says, “lost apples don’t have their DNA in any database so when the results of a test come back as ‘unknown’ that is often just the news we want to hear!”

The Lost Apple Project is working to return these lost varieties to the region by making scions (grafting wood) available on their Facebook page, and selling newly grafted lost apple trees in Spokane and Pullman.

Want to be part of returning more diversity to the apple crops of the Inland Empire? Contact David Benscoter directly each summer for scions and trees. Or make a tax-deductible donation through the Whitman County Historical Society. Each apple DNA test costs $120, and the Lost Apple Project hopes to test as many as 50 trees this year, on top of their normal expenses. Sponsor a DNA test, and you never know, the test you pay for may lead to another lost apple recovery!

 Contact the Lost Apple Project: dbens23@gmail.com or lostappleproject@gmail.com  (509) 238-5150

Follow the project on Facebook

Read more and donate at the Whitman County Historical Society

The Benedictine sisters who settled near Cottonwood, Idaho, to establish the Monastery of St. Gertrude may not have imagined that, 110 years in the future, the Monastery would become a center of hospitality, art and culture for the region. Today’s sisters run a bed and breakfast, organize art workshops, make crafts for the gift shop, and operate a museum. And that’s just the beginning.

Something the pioneer sisters who settled here would have predicted is how inextricably tied to the land the Monastery community would be. That’s the way they built it from the beginning. Stories handed down depict a “do whatcha gotta do” attitude with sisters afoot in the forest looking for the cows, pinning up their habits to bring in the hay, and tending the orchard and gardens that sustained them. The Monastery was built in 1920 of blue porphyry stone quarried from the hill behind it, an enduring testament to the community’s intimate relationship with the land.

The little piece of land that promised stability to a growing band of sisters has grown to 1,400 acres overlooking Camas Prairie and the Bitterroot Mountains. Like their predecessors, today’s sisters can be found routinely in the forest, gardens, and orchards. Sister Carol Anne Wassmuth, a master forest steward, oversees management of 1,000 acres of ponderosa pine, fir, and larch enrolled in Idaho’s Forest Stewardship Program, and leads local students in hands-on forest education days. Sisters Carlotta Maria Fontes and Placida Wemhoff organize work in the garden and orchard, a collaborative effort that produces fresh produce for the community and guests. And virtually always, a sister or retreatant is likely to be ambling through the open grounds and woods near the Monastery in peaceful contemplation or joyful fellowship, appreciating the abundant wildflowers and wild birds.

Guests are welcome to individual and group retreats at the solar-powered, geothermal heated and cooled Spirit Center, and to the Inn at St. Gertrude where guests enjoy Monastery-made jam, bread, and desserts. The sisters share their tranquil, harmonious community with the public through concerts in the Chapel (which is on the National Register of Historic Places), art and writing workshops, art exhibitions, the annual Raspberry Festival, and other events.

The Historical Museum at St. Gertrude — which focuses on the rich heritage of the Monastery, Camas Prairie, Snake River, Salmon River, and surrounding areas — is in the final stages of a comprehensive, five-year remodel, and a gift shop and bookstore stocks items crafted by the sisters.

The community also welcomes artists-in-residence, is building a new co-housing program that will welcome lay women to live side-by-side with the sisters, and is exploring a variety of other ways to enable people to live Benedictine spirituality in their daily lives.

The sisters have done all of this with the grace of the Benedictine commitment to communal life and a commitment to the three core values of Healing Hospitality, Grateful Simplicity, and Creative Peacemaking. Sounds like a breath of fresh air, doesn’t it?

To do their part to stem the spread of COVID-19, the sisters […]

Julie Hartwig takes local realtor and lifelong resident Ashley Alred (and all of us!) on a video tour of the Dahmen Barn in Uniontown, Washington. The tour starts with the unique wheel fence that surrounds the barn. Julie manages the Artisans at the Dahmen Barn art gallery and gift shop, which features work by 125 local artists. See artisans at work in the ceramic wheel throwing room, explore artist studios, and catch a glimpse of a whole range of art from textiles to ceramics to jewelry to paintings. Learn more about how to shop local and take in shows by local artists at this thriving art haven.

Video & editing: Megan Mack

Artist Karen Rohn gives us a video tour of BlackBird at the Depot, in Potlatch, Idaho, where she showcases her own photography, art and poetic musings, and represents other local makers. Inside the historic WI&M Railway Depot, this gem of a shop shows off her love of vintage and funky finds and re-commerced clothing. A great place to shop for gifts, house goods and personal style items.

As a bonus, Karen takes us on a quick tour of the historic museum in the Depot, which offers a glimpse into Potlatch’s past as a company town, and shows us the great room, which is available for private events, music and parties.

Video & editing: Marci Miller