Preface

Why the Cascade Mountain Range?  And who is this Seaweed John character whose log is also being journaled on this ride.  I don’t have complete answers to either question. I am hoping as the journey unfolds to add to my knowledge and understanding.  

When asked by a reporter why he wanted to climb Mount Everest half a world away, George Mallory quipped over the rim of his cup of tea, “Because it’s there.”  I also drink tea and for the Cascade Mountain Range it is because it’s here and I’m here and this is my home.

As for Seaweed John, little is known about him with any certainty.  For starters even his existence as a real historical figure has been questioned, but current historians are fairly certain he was a real person who lived from ~ 1536 to 1602 and was born and died on the Greek island of Cefalonia.  But even those who believe he was a sailing captain and early explorer in the employ of the Spanish crown can find no evidence that he ever sailed into the inland sea of Anian (Puget Sound), which his log entry states he “discovered".

Our captain’s real name Ιωάννης Φωкάς is perhaps a bit much for most English readers to get their tongues around, so I have used the rough English transliteration of Seaweed John for his Iberian (perhaps Catalan) nome de mare of  Juan de Fuca, which is universally recognized in the Pacific Northwest. But then again it is the many geological features and forces both seen and unseen that bear his name throughout the Pacific Northwest that are my focus. So you are invited along to see what we can discover about the Cascade Mountain Range and the subduction of Seaweed John - the physical and metaphorical.