Inlander 05/08/2025 by The Inlander

MAY 8-14, 2025 | RECORDING LOCAL HISTORY FOR THE FUTURE

SAFER STREETS? SPOKANE GRAPPLES WITH TRAFFIC DEATHS PAGE 8 SPORTS UPDATE WINS FOR THE CHIEFS, ZAGS, ZEPHYR, VELOCITY PAGE 35

DUBAI CHOCOLATE WHERE TO FIND THE TRENDING SWEET TREAT PAGE 36

HOLDING the FORT

The 200th anniversary of Fort Colvile’s founding offers an opportunity to reflect on its broader historical legacy

By E.J. Iannelli

PAGE 22

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5 COMMENT 8 NEWS 16 CULTURE COVER STORY 22

FOOD SCREEN MUSIC EVENTS

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EDITOR’S NOTE

riving through my North Spokane neighborhood, a thought often crosses my mind. What did this place look like long before all the streets and houses and cars? What kinds of people and animals wandered beneath the towering pines eventually felled to make way for all this? It seems like a silly thought, and surely I can guess or find answers to these musings. Besides, as we know, on the grand scale of time, Spokane is not a very old city. For thousands of years before it, there were people inhabiting this land — a stretch so long it’s hard to fathom. A similar train of thought can also lead us back through history to 200 years ago, when the fur trade outpost FORT COLVILE was established near the sacred Indigenous fishing site of Kettle Falls. Though not much is left of the fort site today (in fact, it’s all submerged beneath Lake Roosevelt), the story of how it came to be and all the history that followed is complex, yet certainly worth exploring, as E.J. Iannelli does in this week’s cover story. — CHEY SCOTT, Editor

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SPOKANE • EASTERN WASHINGTON • NORTH IDAHO • INLANDER.COM 1227 WEST SUMMIT PARKWAY, SPOKANE, WA 99201 PHONE: 509-325-0634 | EMAIL: INFO@INLANDER.COM THE INLANDER is a locally owned, independent newspaper founded on Oct. 20, 1993. Please recycle THE INLANDER after you’re done with it. One copy free per person per week; extra copies are $1 each (call x226). For ADVERTISING information, email advertising@inlander.com. To have a SUBSCRIPTION mailed to you, call x210 ($78 per year). To find one of our more than 1,000 NEWSRACKS where you can pick up a paper free every Thursday, call x226 or email frankd@ inlander.com. THE INLANDER is a member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and is published at least twice per month. All contents of this newspaper are protected by United States copyright law. © 2025, Inland Publications, Inc.

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WHAT VIRAL FOOD TREND DO YOU WANT TO TRY? NICK BAKER

The frozen grape trend.

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EDITORIAL Chey Scott (x225) EDITOR

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Why? I love grapes, and it sounds like the idea of them being cold would be delicious. Also crunchy grapes are the best grapes, so if they’re frozen, I think that would make them taste even better.

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Matcha with honey. I’ve heard it’s really good from multiple friends who have tried it.

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JASON SCHILLINGER What is that? It’s a coffee shop close to campus, and it’s viral because so many students carry around their bright orange signature Bru cups, and it makes me want to try it.

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Among other changes coming out of Olympia, the new Division BRT extension of the City Line could allow more housing along its route when it’s completed in 2027. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Olympia Follows Spokane’s Lead Many of the innovations coming out of the Washington Legislature this year were first enacted in Spokane BY ANTHONY GILL

nless you’re a Bluesky addict like me, you probably don’t pay much attention to the Washington Legislature. Who could blame you? There are fewer journalists in Olympia every year, the session lasts only 60-100 days, and the issues seem almost quaint compared to those discussed (or avoided even though they should be discussed) in Congress. Well, the Legislature adjourned two weeks ago for the year, it was — despite a $15 billion budget hole that occupied much of legislators’ time — another banner year for laws aimed at boosting housing production. In fact, legislators passed a cornucopia of good urbanist bills of all kinds. And this time, instead of following national leaders like Austin and Minneapolis, it felt a bit like the state was following Spokane’s lead.

Case in point: The Legislature passed a bill abolishing costly parking mandates for cities with more than 30,000 people, mirroring many of Spokane’s recent actions. The state law will exempt small housing units, child care facilities, affordable housing and senior housing from parking mandates entirely, and will ensure that cities require no more than two parking stalls per 1,000 square feet of commercial space. While Spokane made parking optional for all uses over a year ago, these changes should help provide more flexibility over time in communities like Spokane Valley, which has notoriously complex and Kafka-esque parking rules (for example, “1 stall per staff on the largest shift” for animal processing facilities).

egislators also passed a unique transitoriented development bill that allows taller apartment and condo buildings near bus rapid-transit and rail corridors as long as a share of the units are affordable; helpfully, the state also

“…cities can now design and designate streets where pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicles share a portion or all of the same street.”

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And finally, HB 1515 will allow Spokane and Seattle to experiment with expanded alcohol service in Riverfront Park and Seattle Center, respectively. Intended to tie in to large “fan zones” that will be open during next year’s FIFA World Cup, the experience will be like that of the outdoor space adjacent to Brick West, which spills into the West End Plaza, a city-owned public space. The pilot runs through the end of 2027, so we may see other events beyond the World Cup (like Pavilion concerts) take advantage of these expanded allowances.

Anthony Gill is an economic development professional, Spokane native and writer of Spokane Rising, an urbanist blog about ways to make our city a better place to live.

NE A K SPO

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ow, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses in the Legislature this year — far from it. Budget woes forced difficult decisions to increase gas taxes and weight fees, even if a conversation about whether to continue expensive freeway expansion projects (yes, including the North Spokane Corridor) would have been worthwhile. And I’m afraid other tax and fee hikes will prove unpopular; for example, legislators raised Discover Pass rates 50%, and a raft of business tax increases spurred heated opposition (and some doomsaying) from chambers of commerce. But in spite of the large budget fixes required before sine die (adjournment), legislators still managed to fully fund record investments in affordable housing, ban excessive rent increases and even pass new gun violence prevention measures. To me, though, it’s the way some of the Legislature’s urban policies have evolved over the past several years that sticks out — on housing, transportation and the urban experience. As Spokane continues to lead the state on housing (including two back-to-back record years of new construction in 2023 and 2024), it seems like legislators are finally starting to notice, and maybe, just maybe, follow our lead. n

SEASON 48

provided a time-limited property tax exemption to help pay for the affordable units. While Spokane recently allowed more development near the City Line, this law could provide for substantial growth near the future Division BRT, which will extend about 10 miles from downtown to Mead; it’s planned to open in 2027. A new law called the Housing Accountability Act will hold jurisdictions to account when they fail to plan for adequate housing to meet their population’s needs. In those cases, cities could lose access to certain state infrastructure funds and would be required to approve housing projects if they provide a certain number of affordable units — even if they violate parts of the city’s zoning code. In other words, cities that fail to plan for enough new housing will lose some local control. This shouldn’t be an issue in Spokane, but I’ll be watching carefully over the next couple years as places like Spokane Valley and Liberty Lake are required to come into compliance. In a win for safe streets advocates, the Legislature passed a bill legalizing “shared streets.” That means cities can now design and designate streets where pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicles share a portion or all of the same street. On these streets, jaywalking laws and other rules don’t apply, and the maximum speed limit must be no more than 10 mph. Of course, only certain streets make sense for this (think Pike Place in Seattle), but I think it’s only a matter of time before a campaign takes root to make design changes and try one of these downtown (Wall Street?) or in a neighborhood area (like on Cincinnati Street in northeast Spokane).

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Charles Partlow crosses West Sunset Highway near South Lewis Street to get to a bus stop on the other side. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

PUBLIC SAFETY

Lethal Wheels Spokane unveils a new slate of traffic safety initiatives as fatal traffic collisions continue to rise BY ELIZA BILLINGHAM

even people have died in traffic collisions on Spokane city streets so far this year. Four incidents killed pedestrians. Only one of the incidents involved alcohol. At this rate, Spokane could easily exceed the number of traffic fatalities from past years by the end of 2025. Last year, 20 people died from traffic collisions inside Spokane city limits. The city had 12 fatal collisions in 2023, and 14 in 2022. Last year, community leader Janet Mann was killed in a hit-and-run accident while walking across the street at Browne Street and Main Avenue in downtown Spokane. Gary Burns, who later pleaded guilty to not staying at the scene, turned right onto Browne Street during a red light and didn’t see Mann until it was too late. Mann’s death sent new shockwaves of grief and frustration through the public and pedestrian safety activists. City officials, including Spokane City Council members Zack Zappone and Paul Dillon, have been championing traffic calming efforts to make things safer for years. At the beginning of this year, Mayor Lisa Brown added Jon Snyder to her cabinet as director of transportation and sustainability. In his role, Snyder analyzes the city’s traffic safety priorities and is spearheading policy changes to com-

8 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

bat growing numbers of fatal or serious collisions, which spiked during the pandemic and haven’t come back down. “We’re still trying to come down from this post-COVID problem where there’s just a lack of regard for safety and a lot of bad driver behavior,” Snyder says. “There’s a lot of stuff on the books [in Spokane] that says ‘Hey, we want this safer.’ Those priorities are all here. I’m just trying to actualize as much as possible for our communities.” In his first months on the job, Snyder has helped the mayor initiate a new slate of traffic safety initiatives that will be rolled out in coming months. At a press conference on April 16, city administrators unveiled a “no turn on red” sign on Post Street and Main Avenue that now prohibits vehicles from turning right onto Main while the light is red. “Janet Mann was killed in an intersection that allowed right turns on red, so that shines a bright light on that [issue],” Snyder says. On May 12, the City Council is scheduled to vote on an ordinance that could eventually prohibit more turns against a red light at high-use pedestrian crossings across downtown Spokane. At the April press conference, Police Chief Kevin Hall also announced that the Spokane Police Department will reinstate a traffic unit. The new Traffic Safety and

Education Unit will have four officers dedicated to enforcing traffic laws, while three more officers will be assigned to DUI enforcement and education. On May 19, the City Council is set to vote on an ordinance that would make it safer and more convenient to create “play streets.” The ordinance would make it easier to temporarily close streets for block parties and neighborhood events from June through Halloween. The ordinance isn’t just fun and games, Snyder says. “This whole idea that we can repurpose streets for other functions — whether it’s festivals or events or just your kid’s graduation party on the block in front of your house — really gets people thinking about streets as these multiuse facilities that are not just for vehicles getting from point A to point B,” he says. “To me, that has an indirect effect on safety.” Snyder is also working to finalize the Traffic Fatality Review Team, which will analyze every traffic fatality in Spokane. Professionals including city planners, first responders and social service providers would consider the engineering, environmental, vehicular or behavioral factors involved in each crash and make recommendations to eliminate risks for fatal or serious injury crashes. ...continued on page 10

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NEWS | PUBLIC SAFETY

FEB. 24 - 8:18 PM

A vehicle passes South Lewis Street on West Sunset Highway, where Spokane’s most recent traffic death occurred. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

“LETHAL WHEELS,” CONTINUED... The Inlander visited the locations of all seven 2025 traffic fatalities within Spokane city limits. We took note of infrastructure (or lack thereof) that could put pedestrians, drivers and passengers at risk. Here’s what we found. Note: We’ve only named the people involved if they’ve already been identified through public documents or previous reporting. We recreated crash scenes with information from court documents and the Washington State Patrol’s Collision Analysis Tool.

JAN. 12 - 9:34 AM

10 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

MARCH 2 - 7:52 PM JAN. 29 - 8:16 AM

ROWAN AVENUE AND PITTSBURG STREET - TWO VEHICLES On a clear morning in northeast Spokane, a 24-year-old driver ran a stop sign when she crossed Rowan Avenue on Pittsburg Street. An 84-year-old woman was driving with a 64-year-old passenger on Rowan Avenue when the two cars collided. The passenger later died at the hospital. This intersection is right between Whitman Elementary School and Magnolia Care, a 53-bed assisted living facility. Rowan Avenue has two broad lanes and the right of LO C AT I O N S O F way. On the afternoon of my visit, FATA L C O L L I S I O N S there are plenty of pedestrians, especially students, some of whom IN SPOKANE COUNTY are presumably Rogers High (OUTSIDE SPO KANE C I T Y L I M I T S ) T H I S Y E A R School students walking home after class. Nothing in this particular TSCHIRLEY ROAD (3300 block) area would bring attention to Jan. 5, vehicle vs. pedestrian intersections with side streets, the SPRAGUE AVENUE AND ARGONNE ROAD, way that sidewalk bumpouts or Jan. 6, two vehicles crosswalks could. STATE ROUTE 2 AND WOOD ROAD, Jan. 8, two vehicles HIGHWAY 2 NEAR ZIEGLER STREET, ALBERTA STREET NEAR HEROY AVENUE Jan. 23, vehicle vs. pedestrian - VEHICLE VS. PEDESTRIAN INTERSTATE 90 NEAR EVERGREEN ROAD, The temperature was right above Feb. 14, four vehicles and one pedestrian freezing when a 62-year-old man WHITE ROAD NEAR MEDICAL LAKE HIGHWAY, was driving at night on Alberta March 2, two vehicles Street. Douglas Martindale, 66, ROTCHFORD DRIVE NEAR GALWAY LANE, was walking on the road in dark March 7, one vehicle clothing. The driver accidentally IDAHO ROAD NEAR ROWAN AVENUE, hit Martindale, who later died in April 25, two vehicles the hospital. Police did not suspect

ADDISON STREET AND CENTRAL AVENUE - TWO VEHICLES On an overcast Sunday morning, 27-year-old Jack Labi was reportedly speeding south on Addison Street, an arterial (highcapacity street) in northeast Spokane. Official reports say Labi had two passengers in his midsize SUV and was driving under the influence of alcohol. A 58-year-old woman was driving a small sedan with a man in the passenger seat on Central Avenue, a residential side street. She was turning left onto Addison when the two cars collided. The person in the passenger’s seat of Labi’s car later died in the hospital, while the four other people involved in the crash were all injured. This intersection is at the northeast corner of a parking lot for Providence Holy Family Hospital. The area is heavily residential. Lidgerwood Elementary is four blocks south, and Garry Middle School is two blocks east. The stretch of Addison Street that goes past the elementary school is marked as a school zone. Otherwise, the speed limit on the arterial is 30 mph. On a recent sunny weekday afternoon, there’s a steady flow of cars along Addison. An unprotected bike lane is sandwiched between the vehicle lanes and street parking, but no one seems to be using it. Motor vehicles on Addison get the right of way (the side streets have stop signs), and cars are going various speeds on the long, straight stretch. To the naked eye, not everyone seems to be following the speed limit. There aren’t marked crosswalks for pedestrians, but at 3:30 pm, just as Garry Middle School gets out for the day, there aren’t any pedestrians in sight.

WHISTALKS WAY AND RANDOLPH ROAD - VEHICLE VS. PEDESTRIAN Zhilan Chen, 72, was struck and killed by the 31-year-old driver of a pickup truck at the intersection of Whistalks Way and Randolph Road in west Spokane. Chen died at the scene. Reports say she was walking out into the road from behind a parked vehicle when the truck hit her. There isn’t any street parking on Whistalks Way, but it’s possible that Chen was walking around a bus. Her death was ruled an accident, and there were no charges. Whistalks Way is a four-lane road with near-constant traffic around 11 am on a recent weekday. The intersection with Randolph Road is surrounded by apartment buildings and is at the edge of Spokane Falls Community College and the Mukogawa campus. There are bus stops at the intersection, but there are no benches, shelters, or crosswalks to draw attention — they’re only designated by a small bus stop sign on either side of the road, hard to see against trees and buildings.

FEB. 21 - 8:40 PM

the driver of being impaired and did not charge him. This area is right behind Glover Middle School and the Shadle Shopping Center. It’s not clear why Martindale was walking in the road instead of on the sidewalk, but the sidewalks on Alberta Street don’t have a green space or a strip of grass to separate pedestrians from cars. On a weekday morning visit, there are plenty of people, most elderly, walking between the shopping center and the nearby residential area. Many are carrying groceries from Safeway. Most walk on the edge of the sidewalk farthest from the street. One woman carrying large plastic bags waits to cross at Heroy Avenue. No cars stop to allow her to cross, and since there is a steady stream of cars, she waits almost a minute until the road is clear.

ADAMS STREET NEAR 22ND AVENUE - VEHICLE VS. PEDESTRIAN An 84-year-old woman was driving on Adams Street, a residential street that runs next to High Drive on the South Hill, in the dark. She hit a man who was walking on the road. He later died in the hospital. There are no street lights on the 2100 block of Adams Street where the incident occurred, and no sidewalks on this block either. On a recent weekday afternoon, cars are parked on either side of the street, and a young woman pushes a baby stroller along the road. It’s a very quiet street compared to the traffic on High Drive, and Adams is significantly separated from the high traffic road by a large swatch of grass and trees. At the intersection with 22nd Avenue, two basketball hoops face each other on the corner, and it looks like the road is used as an informal basketball court.

MARCH 28 - 3:35 PM

FRANCIS AVENUE AND MARKET STREET - TWO VEHICLES A 25-year-old motorcycle driver collided with another vehicle at this huge intersection in northeast Spokane. The motorcyclist died at the scene. Francis Avenue and Market Street each have five lanes at this intersection, so the area in the middle of the intersection is very wide. Plenty of trucks and other large vehicles are presumably coming from nearby U.S. Route 395. The area is heavily industrial and pretty congested, even during a visit before rush hour.

APRIL 24 - 9:17 PM

SUNSET BOULEVARD AND LEWIS STREET - VEHICLE VS. PEDESTRIAN Mary Shockley, 78, died in the dark on Sunset Boulevard next to the manufactured home community where she lived. She was accidentally hit by a 64-year-old driver. There is a bus stop next to Hilltop Manufactured Home Community. But if residents want to go toward Spokane instead of away from it, they have to cross to the other side of a five-lane highway with a 50 mph speed limit. There is no marked crosswalk, no flashing lights, no bus shelters and no reminders to drivers to look for pedestrians. On a recent weekday morning, a man and his dog run across the lanes while waving to oncoming drivers. A man wheels a pink baby stroller across two westbound lanes, then waits in the turn lane for the other two lanes of eastbound traffic to clear. Shockley is Spokane’s most recent traffic fatality, and a small memorial of balloons and prayers still hangs from Hilltop’s fence next to Sunset Boulevard. n elizab@inlander.com

NEWS | BRIEFS

Then, They Came For… Baumgartner declines to block ICE from detaining U.S. citizens. Plus, Spokane County gets $7.5 million for water treatment; and feds investigate WA gender policies BY INLANDER STAFF

n April 30, U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat representing Washington’s 7th Congressional District, put forward an amendment to a budget bill in the House Judiciary Committee that would have prevented funds given to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from being used to detain or deport a citizen. “Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, I hope we can all agree that U.S. citizens should never be detained by ICE or any agency conducting civil immigration enforcement,” Jayapal told fellow committee members. Jayapal cited examples like U.S. citizen Jose Hermosillo, 19, who was detained in Tucson for 10 days by immigration officials. In a press release, the Washington State Democratic Party chair, Shasti Conrad, criticized the no vote by Republican committee member Rep. Michael Baumgartner, who represents Washington’s 5th Congressional District. “Rep. Baumgartner’s inaction and fealty to this administration over his oath to uphold the Constitution is an affront to the hard-working people of Eastern Washington,” Conrad said. Baumgartner says he doesn’t think citizens should be detained, which is already illegal, and said this “was just a nuisance amendment meant to slow down the process.” (VICTOR CORRAL MARTINEZ)

PIPE DREAMS

In 2017, the Air Force discovered its firefighting foam had contaminated groundwater in Airway Heights with copious amounts of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS — toxins so persistent they’re nicknamed “forever chemicals.” For the past eight years, city and county administrators have been trying to figure out what to do. On April 29, Spokane County Commissioner Al French announced that the state awarded Spokane County a $7.5 million grant to install filtration systems in areas with the most PFAS contamination in the West Plains. Spokane County, the Spokane Regional Health District and the Washington Department of Ecology will work together to identify the hardest hit areas. The county’s original request to the Legislature was $18.5 million, but “it’s reassuring to know that even in a tight budget, the personal health of our citizens is a shared priority,” French said in a press release. French is still committed to finding a way to pipe water into the West Plains. (ELIZA BILLINGHAM)

MANDATED DISCRIMINATION?

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice announced an investigation into the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, alleging that the state agency’s gender-inclusive schools law is a violation of Title IX, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment. “Washington State appears to use its position of authority to coerce its districts into hiding ‘gender identity’ information from students’ parents and to adopt policies to covertly smuggle gender ideology into the classroom,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon states. Districts including the Mead School Board sent letters to the federal government complaining that state and federal policy on transgender students conflict. The districts argued that if they followed state law, they’d violate President Donald Trump’s “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” executive order and lose federal funding, or they’d lose state funding by following federal rules. “In this alarming attempt to infringe on the rights of our transgender and gender-expansive students, the Department is trying to co-opt laws enacted to protect students from discrimination and distort them into mandated discrimination,” Washington schools Superintendent Chris Reykdal states. (COLTON RASANEN) n

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NEWS | JUSTICE SYSTEM

Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown is leading several cases against the Trump administration.

Fighting Back

PHOTO COURTESY OF WA AG’S OFFICE

Washington’s attorney general is battling Trump’s executive orders through litigation BY VICTOR CORRAL MARTINEZ

ince taking office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump has signed 144 executive orders (and counting), many of which are already facing legal challenges alleging constitutional violations. Washington Attorney General Nick Brown and 22 fellow Democratic attorneys general from around the country are leading the charge, already filing 23 lawsuits to block what they call unconstitutional actions by the Trump administration. “We’re seeing a lot of threats, which [are] really fascist, frankly, and draconian in the way that they’re approaching it,” Brown says. Brown spent most of his career in the public sector, serving as an Army judge advocate general from 2003 to 2007. He then served as general counsel to former Gov. Jay Inslee from 2013 to 2017 and as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington from 2021 to 2023. Notable lawsuits Brown’s team is working on include efforts to protect birthright citizenship, block the defunding of AmeriCorps and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and prevent the defunding of National Institutes of Health grants.

BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

Washington state is no stranger to suing the Trump administration. Gov. Bob Ferguson sued the prior Trump administration 97 times when he was the state’s attorney general. Brown has continued that spirit, with over a dozen lawsuits filed. On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order challenging the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which says in its first sentence: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Trump’s executive order says the amendment does not extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States. On Jan. 21, Washington filed suit and later obtained a restraining order against the executive order. The complaint states that in 2022, there were 153,000 births

12 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

nationwide to two undocumented parents. In Washington, there were about 7,000 births to undocumented mothers, and about 4,000 births to two parents who lacked legal residency. The Washington Attorney General’s Office had prepared for the possibility of this executive order before Brown took office in January. That preparation made Washington a leader in the lawsuit, along with Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, and 19 states that joined later. The lawsuit is moving toward a hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court on May 15. “A lot of research has gone into some of the possible actions that the president might take, and birthright was certainly near the top of their list,” Brown says. “During the course of 2024, the office did a lot of work specifically on preparing a potential case, and working with experts to analyze the demographic impacts of a birthright citizenship order, writing draft complaints and declarations.” Brown says the birthright order violates the Constitution, and the president cannot issue such orders without a constitutional amendment, which requires a two-thirds vote in Congress and three-fourths of states to ratify it. It’s critical that Washington stand up for all its residents, regardless of their citizenship status, and this executive order is invalid, says Samuel Smith, legal aid director of Manzanita House. The nonprofit provides legal services for immigrants and refugees in Eastern Washington. “To stand by and do nothing while attempts are made to ignore the Constitution would be a failure of our system, a failure of the rule of law,” Smith writes by email. “I am proud of Washington state for taking action against these policies in the court of law — it is the right thing to do.”

FEDERAL FUNDING CUTS

The Trump administration also faces multistate litigation from Washington and others over its funding cuts to AmeriCorps, the National Institutes of Health, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Brown says litigation is important to fight the illegal way the president is taking actions — Trump can’t cut

funding to programs that were funded and authorized by Congress. “My role is not to get into the policy debate, but to stop illegal conduct, whether that’s from the president or anybody else,” Brown says. “At the same time, the harms from those cuts are very real.” In late April, Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, gutted AmeriCorps program staff and slashed funding for AmeriCorps programs nationwide. AmeriCorps is the federal agency for national service and volunteerism, employing 200,000 Americans nationwide. Brown says the agency provides vital support for community organizations and individuals in underserved communities with vulnerable populations. The DOGE cuts resulted in at least 85% of AmeriCorps employees being put on leave and told they will be fired, and canceled $400 million in grants. In February, the National Institutes of Health, led by Trump appointee Jay Bhattacharya, announced $4 billion in spending cuts, claiming that $9 billion of $35 billion in grant funds went to overhead costs for research staff and other needs. According to a press release, the University of Washington received more than 1,220 NIH grants in fiscal year 2024, totaling over $648 million. Among other things, the grants funded trauma research for victims of sexual assault, prevention of chlamydia infections, and the impact of air pollution on Alzheimer’s disease. The university has already experienced a delay in more than $61 million of grant renewals, and expects to ultimately face even steeper cuts. On March 14, Trump signed an executive order proposing elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services and directing the Office of Management and Budget to reject funding requests from the agency, except for those necessary to wind it down. The order ended grants and contracts, and put 63 of the 75 employees on paid administrative leave. Staff were notified of an agency-wide reduction in force to take place in May. On May 2, Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request proposed eliminating the institute, which supports museums and libraries nationwide through grantmaking, research and policy development. Federal overreach requires a coordinated response to protect people’s rights and freedoms, says Vanessa Torres Hernandez, advocacy director of the ACLU of Washington. The ACLU is suing, along with early child care advocacy groups, to prevent cuts to the Head Start program. Since 1965, the program has provided free preschool services and child care to hundreds of thousands of low-income children. The lawsuit states that the program serves 14,300 children in Washington. “The work of state officials, including those in Attorney General Brown’s office, as well as advocacy organizations and legal aid groups are essential to building a firewall against the worst abuses of the federal administration,” Hernandez says via email. “We are grateful for the critical work Attorney General Brown and his office are doing to stand up to the president’s attempts to strip us of our fundamental rights.” Brown says the legal system is still working: Lawyers debate, judges issue rulings, and the federal government is mostly complying. Still, he says we’re tiptoeing around authoritarianism, and he urges people to be civically engaged. “For us as AGs, our cases are largely based on our ability to tell stories from the people that we serve,” Brown says. “So many of our lawsuits are based on our relationships with individuals and community partners, and I hope that people still continue to engage with our office.” n victorc@inlander.com

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Greg Forsyth, who was the director of capital projects at Spokane Public Schools, helped build Carla Peperzak Middle School.

Building a Lasting Legacy

ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

Family and friends remember Spokane Public Schools’ Greg Forsyth as a public servant dedicated to education BY COLTON RASANEN

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14 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

ast month, Spokane Public Schools lost one of its most dedicated public servants, Greg Forsyth, who died in his sleep on April 8 at the age of 64. Forsyth spent more than two decades with the district, first as a math teacher and later as capital projects director with hands in each construction project the district completed. Forsyth came from a family of educators so it’s no wonder he ended up in the same field. His

sister and both of their parents were teachers, and his daughter, Ali Daschbach, followed in those footsteps, too. However, his move into the school district’s administration was something no one could have expected decades ago. “My dad and I are the only Forsyths to approach the administrative side of education. But he always said he didn’t mean to do the administrative side, so his experience didn’t really count,” Daschbach, the assistant principal of University

High School, says with a chuckle. Forsyth’s journey to district administration began in 2003. That was when Mark Anderson, then the district’s associate superintendent, first met Forsyth in the Rogers High School cafeteria during a community meeting about modernizing the building. Then a math teacher at Rogers, Forsyth was deeply passionate about the project, Anderson says. “It was a very complicated project because we were building around students and staff, so we had to move classrooms and staff and kids during that construction’s two-year period, four or five times,” Anderson says. “We needed somebody to help us basically work with the staff and the student body, along with the contractor on all the logistics, so I selected Greg due to his passion.” After that project was over, Anderson asked Forsyth if he would be willing to do a similar job as the district modernized Shadle Park High School. Forsyth agreed, and once that project was done Anderson hired him as a project manager. In 2015, Anderson promoted Forsyth to capital projects director, and the two men continued to work together even after Anderson retired in 2021. In that role, Anderson says Forsyth was part of renovating or adding on to almost every school in the district, and worked on large projects like ONE Spokane Stadium, which opened in 2023. He was still working for the school district at the time of his death. On Saturday, May 10, a public memorial will be held in the stadium at 10 am to honor Forsyth’s life and legacy.

n both his professional and personal lives, Forsyth was a calm and positive person who cared deeply. To his children, he was the kind of dad who was always there when they needed him. When Daschbach was pregnant with her first child, she went into labor unexpectedly. When Forsyth got the call, he made it to a hospital across the state within hours. And when his daughter-in-law’s parents couldn’t make it to her wedding, he walked her down the aisle instead. “He was always just a very good calming presence. I suppose that was something that I really relied on him for,” his son, Ian Forsyth, says. “I remember this time in baseball when I finally got a hit after what felt like months, you know. And the first place I looked over was at my dad in the crowd, and he was jumping up and down. It was just cool to know that I had someone in my corner the whole time.” While Ian went into a sales career, Daschbach followed her father into education. “My dad gifted me with a lot of his skills in terms of how to present yourself well, how to speak to people, how to make people feel valued, how to make people feel cared for and important, and I really think that’s a lesson anyone could take away from him,” Daschbach says. “Everyone has a story for me, but they’re not stories of like, ‘Oh, I remember when your dad did this,’ they’re stories of like, ‘I remember when I was going through this really hard time, and your dad gave me a hug.’ His ability to make those deep personal connections with people was unmatched.” Nicholas Hamad, Spokane Parks & Recreation’s planning and development manager, began working with Greg Forsyth on building dog parks throughout Spokane around 2021. “We had spent time together through a half a dozen to a dozen public input meetings for dog parks, which could be incredibly visceral for people at times,” Hamad says. “Whether we were in a room full of passionate people that were either opposing or endorsing what we were doing, and he was always very even-keeled, well-managed, and he never got too emotional. “What’s really cool about Greg Forsyth is he did not care about receiving credit for anything,” Hamad continues. “I don’t know that my kids or their kids will ever know Greg’s name, but his fingerprints will be left all over this city, in parks and in public spaces and in stadiums and in schools.” n Gregory Forsyth: Celebration of Life • Sat, May 10 at 10 am • ONE Spokane Stadium • 501 W. Gardner Ave. • legacy.com/us/obituaries/spokesman/name/gregory-forsythobituary?id=58158072

MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 15

T Draw or be drawn at Heads Up Portrait Club. ERICK DOXEY PHOTOS

ARTS

Sketch Me If You Can

Spokane’s Heads Up Portrait Club wants to draw you, and invites everyone to do the same BY MADISON PEARSON 16 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

ypically, Terrain’s gallery space on North Monroe Street is filled with local art, patrons eager to appreciate the talent of our region’s artists and the artists in question. But every other Saturday, the gallery takes on a new form. It’s not so different from the space’s weekday offerings, but there’s a bit of a twist. As a self-described chronically punctual person, Jake Gillespie usually gets there well before 10 am. He sets up his Bluetooth speaker and organizes the art supplies he’s brought with him. Until moving to Spokane four years ago, Gillespie — an artist himself — had been attending small meetups called drink and draws in Denver, where artists got together for a few hours and drew portraits of one another in their respective mediums. After getting to know Terrain’s leadership power duo Ginger Ewing and Jackie Caro while volunteering at the various events the nonprofit puts on, he proposed using the gallery space as a place to host a portrait club of his own. They accepted. Since September 2024, the Heads Up Portrait Club has been going strong with nearly 20 local artists getting together every other Saturday to revel in the craft of portrait drawing. “You don’t have to be ‘quote unquote’ good at drawing to come to Heads Up,” Gil-

lespie says. “It’s intentionally designed to be free and completely accessible for everyone.”

illespie’s Bluetooth speaker projects the voice of Bryson Wallace, a host from Portland’s KMHD radio station, throughout the gallery. Wallace’s jazz radio show, Positive Vibrations, has become a staple at Heads Up Portrait Club meetings. As attendees start to funnel in and take their seats, the room fills with chatter, hugs between friends and palpable excitement. Nearly everyone in attendance is beaming from ear to ear, bopping along to Wallace’s smooth tunes and prepping their paper and pens for two hours of drawing. Each meeting features a series of portrait drawing sessions ranging from one to 20 minutes. Everyone in the group chooses another member to draw at random while also being drawn by others. Gillespie sets a timer for one minute, and the group begins their first portrait of the morning. “It doesn’t give you the time to intellectualize anything,” he says. “It’s action and reaction. The time restraints make it so you don’t have the luxury of hemming and hawing. You just have to draw it or don’t.” While the club isn’t anything close to an instructional class, Gillespie says he’s learned a lot and has watched other artists progress in

It’s all smiles inside Terrain Gallery. their artistic journeys by participating in Heads Up. “The limitations are helpful,” he says. “Learning to draw people in real life as they’re moving changes the perspective, it changes the shadows, the environment is never quite the same. So you can’t achieve perfection. I think a lot of artists, myself included, get bogged down by things like accuracy, and you can’t get caught up in that at Heads Up.” Each time the timer beeps, a cacophony of sighs and excited yelps fill the room as the artists turn toward each other to reveal their completed portraits.

o medium is discouraged at Heads Up as long as it stays relatively neat and tidy. There are portraits drawn in pencil on paper, with markers, on iPads, in notebooks and — in local artist Toby Keough’s case — with oil pastels on paper bags from Grocery Outlet. Some drawings are black and grey and extremely detailed, while others are strikingly monochromatic. For a bit of fun, some try to draw an entire portrait without looking down at their papers. There’s no right or wrong at Heads Up and with each artist drawing in their own unique style, every portrait is completely different and will never be drawn the same way again. Each person witnesses a one-of-a-kind moment, making every club meeting special. As time ticks on, the portraits get more and more detailed, and the reactions become heightened with people walking around taking photos of other people’s creations during breaks. Often, the person who was drawn will take a photo holding up the portrait of themselves — a compliment to the artist. The club has been going strong for over eight months, and Gillespie is beginning to broaden its horizons. In April, Heads Up set up shop in Neato Burrito and drew portraits of community members who bought food or supported the business in any way. “We’re starting to set up other things,” he says. “I want to start doing similar things to what we did at Neato out in the community.” He mentions wanting to try to make a positive impact with the club, and helping raise money for causes important to its members. “There are so many possibilities,” he says. “And so many benefits for our members and for the community.” Gillespie urges that you don’t have to be an artist in any way to attend Heads Up. Even if you go just for the good vibes, positive energy or the silky smooth voice of Bryson Wallace emanating throughout the gallery, you’ll be welcomed into the community with open arms and pencils at the ready. All they want is to draw smiles — literally. “We’re artists,” he says. “We just want to look at stuff at the end of the day. Come and draw!” n Heads Up Portrait Club • Every second and fourth Saturday from 10 am-noon • Free • Terrain Gallery • 628 N. Monroe St. • Instagram.com/headsupportraitclub

MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 17

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Joe Tomlinson’s “Shop Vac Filter Bags” series. YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS

Easy Come, Easy Joe Joseph R Tomlinson keeps drawing fun with pop surreal images on unconventional surfaces inspired by comics and other lowbrow art BY CARRIE SCOZZARO

Living Well in the

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18 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

arf bags. Styrofoam cups. Skateboard decks. Joseph R Tomlinson has drawn on many unconventional surfaces. Drink coasters, outlet covers, the undersides of drawers in countless hotels at which he’s stayed while traveling for his Department of Defense job. Tomlinson, who goes by Joe, considers all of them viable drawing supports — what artists call any surface upon which they draw. But Tomlinson, who’s been honing his graphic style of drawing for more than five decades, doesn’t consider himself an artist. “I’m an illustrator,” says Tomlinson, whose solo exhibition at Entropy Gallery in downtown Spokane opened on May 2 and continues through June 2. He titled the show with the three-dot symbol for an ellipsis, the blank space deliberately inserted into a sentence to indicate information has been left out and might be open to interpretation. “This show captures my current mood as I cringe after what I hear or read from various forms of media,” he writes in his statement accompanying the exhibition. “So there’ll be a lot of skulls, a lot of bombs, and a little bit of political stuff,” he says. There will also be a lot of pop surreal images, a whole bestiary — from naked mole rats to monkeys; from sheep to Sasquatch to a snail whose shell bears a flush of mushrooms. His graphic, mixed-media drawings feature two-legged creatures, too: fearsome figures amid hellish-looking landscapes and everyday humans, which might be

the scariest of all Tomlinson’s character renderings. Tomlinson says his work “has been influenced by comic books, graphic novels, album cover art, and posters, and things like that. Graffiti, whatever. That’s the stuff I like.”

s a youngster growing up in rural north central Pennsylvania, Tomlinson was rarely without a sketchbook in hand. When he wasn’t doing farmhand chores like baling hay, he was in the woods exploring but mainly sketching. He remembers a fondness for unconventional drawing surfaces even then. He’d find the pieces of decaying tree bark where the white mycelium or fungus had spread like blank canvas. “And you scratch into it, and the deeper you go the darker it gets,” says Tomlinson, who did wildlife scenes on the bark and sold them at a local sporting goods store. “That’s how I made extra cash in high school.” Another high school story reveals Tomlinson’s quietly rebellious side. He was tasked with doing pen-and-ink illustrations for the yearbook, yet when another student was credited with the artwork, Tomlinson clapped back, but furtively. “I put curse words in the bonfire [illustrations I did in the yearbook],” he says, and “half-naked women on the sports field.” When he finally attended a high school reunion 35 years later, he and his former classmates had a good laugh about the contraband artwork. Although he didn’t take art classes in high

school, he did in middle school, where his art teacher noticed Tomlinson had both an interest and ability in art. Unfortunately, when his teacher relocated him into the supply closet — ostensibly so Tomlinson could work without distraction of his peers — that sparked something in him. “It was the oddest thing,” he recalls. Rather than continue the drawing the way his teacher wanted, Tomlinson purposely turned it into a different drawing. And every time thereafter when the teacher suggested one direction, he did the opposite. “So I guess I was a little bit of a rebel at that age, too,” he recalls, noting that he also nurtured ideas about becoming a cartoonist. He was especially fond of the work by famous Marvel illustrator Stan Lee, co-creator of Spider-Man, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four and many other enduring characters. Instead, at age 17, Tomlinson did what many a young adult does when the world at large beckons: He joined the military. He asked if the government might utilize his art skills — didn’t the Air Force need images painted on its planes? — but was rebuffed. He did a tour in Korea, returned stateside, met his wife and started a family.

Tomlinson’s art is at Entropy throughout May. In 1989, Tomlinson relocated to Spokane with his family, becoming a survival instructor, which would inadvertently send his drawing regimen into a new direction as well. His new job meant traveling, which meant airplanes and hotels. On a return flight from Las Vegas, Tomlinson, realizing he’d forgotten his sketchbook, cast around for something on which to draw. After considering the aircraft safety card, he pulled out the airsick bag, better known as a barf bag. Perfect! Tomlinson grabbed the pens he always carried with him, popped in his earphones and drew his version of the comedian known as Carrot Top, whose performance he’d recently seen while in Las Vegas. He also included a message: “Do I make you sick?” he recalls, adding that he forgot the word “you.” “So I was like, ‘Do I make sick?’” For some reason, that made more sense than the correct version, he says, and the serendipity of the airsick bag seemed to fit also. From then on, Tomlinson sought out the narrow white paper bags to draw on. “So I’m borrowing barf bags from the other people, which of course is a conversation starter,” he says. “It’s an introvert’s way of communing with the world.” Sometimes while he was drawing, he’d feel eyes upon him, mostly friendly stares and polite inquiries from the flight crew, fellow passengers and especially little kids. And more often than not, he’d give his drawing away, happily. “I find joy in doing that kind of thing,” says Tomlinson, who also admits that not having to make a living from his drawings has been part of what continues to make it fun for him. n Joseph R Tomlinson: “…” • Open daily from 11 am-6 pm through June 2 • Entropy • 101 N. Stevens St. • Instagram: @EntropyGallerySpokane • 509-414-3226

MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 19

CULTURE | SPORTS

Spokane Sports Keep Scoring

The Chiefs’ WHL Championship quest, Gonzaga’s bizarre baseball season, Spokane’s soccer teams excel on the pitch BY SETH SOMMERFELD

CHIEFS OF THE ICE

After enduring years without a single playoff win, the Spokane Chiefs are on the precipice of championship glory once again. Last week Spokane’s beloved junior hockey team made a statement by capturing the Western Hockey League Western Conference title with a 4-0 series sweep against the Portland Winterhawks. It’s the first time the Chiefs have made the WHL Final since 2008. After finishing the season third in the conference with a 45-20-1-2 record, the boys from Spokane have ripped through the playoffs with a dazzling 12-3 record. The offense absolutely exploded in the Western Finals, as the team found the back of the net to the tune of 30 goals in just four games. That potent attack has been led all year by Andrew Cristall, who led the WHL in regular season points (132) and has been even more impressive in the postseason (37 points, including 20 goals, in just 15 games). Meanwhile, goalie Dawson Cowan continues to be the most reliable tender in the WHL, having been in net for every Chiefs victory in the playoffs. And in his first year at the helm for the Chiefs, veteran coach Brad Lauer continues to showcase why he’s considered one of the best junior hockey coaches in the game. The Chiefs now square off against the Medicine Hat Tigers (the top seed from the Eastern Conference) for the WHL’s top prize, the Ed Chynoweth Cup, and a spot in the Memorial Cup (junior hockey’s equivalent of a Champions League tournament). The Tigers have their own explosive offensive 1-2 punch via Gavin McKenna at left wing and center Oasiz Wiesblatt, and goalie Harrison Meneghin can rival Cowan between the pipes. By virtue of the Tigers’ superior regular season record, the title series kicks off with games in Medicine Hat on May 9 and 11, before shifting to Spokane for games

20 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

The Spokane Chiefs celebrate their series victory over the Winterhawks. KAI BROWN PHOTO three and four, May 13-14 at the Spokane Arena (with game five taking place in Spokane likely a few days later as long as the series isn’t a sweep). Tickets for those games are on sale now at spokanechiefs.com/playoffs. So far in their franchise history, the Chiefs have won the Ed Chynoweth Cup (and the Memorial Cup) every time they’ve made the WHL Final. Here’s hoping the third time remains the charm.

BIZZARO BULLDOG BASEBALL

It’s hard to recall a more befuddling baseball season than the one that the Zags are putting together in 2025. The team currently sits in second place in the West Coast Conference standings with a 13-5 record, a game out of first place. This despite starting the season’s nonconference slate 2-12 and being a .500 team overall (22-22), they’ve put themselves in decent position to win the conference championship, which would earn them an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament and a shot at making the College World Series. But to put it bluntly, GU has been terrible against everyone not playing in the WCC. Yet after posting that abysmal 2-12 record at the start of their nonconference slate, the Bulldogs flipped the script starting in midMarch. While they’re still only 9-17 outside the WCC, they’ve been winning the games that count against their West Coast rivals. There’s no real secret to the Zags’ sudden conference success apart from almost everyone playing better. The team’s season-long batting average and ERA sit at .265 and 5.51, but within conference those numbers greatly improved to .302 and 4.01. While there’s still work to do to make an improbable NCAA Tournament appearance,

Spokane seamheads have just three more chances to see this unique Gonzaga squad when they hit the diamond for a final three-game homestand this weekend against St. Mary’s (May 9-11).

STILL KICKING

The Spokane Zephyr don’t want their inaugural season to end. With three games left to play in the regular season, the city’s new women’s pro soccer squad is fighting for the final spot in the USL Super League playoffs. Goalie Hope Hisey has given the squad a strong presence in net, only allowing 17 goals over 18 games with 9 clean sheets (shutouts). Emina Ekić is the heart of the Zephyr offense, as the midfielder from Bosnia and Herzegovina has notched 8 goals and 6 assists (twice as many goals and three times as many assists as any of her teammates). The Zephyr currently sit at fourth in the USL table with a record of 10-8-7, but are tied in points with fifth place Brooklyn FC. Considering only the top four make the postseason, the final three games of the Zephyr season will be high drama — starting with this Saturday’s massive showdown against Brooklyn and concluding with a home finale versus Fort Lauderdale United FC on May 31 at ONE Spokane Stadium. On the men’s side of the pitch, the Spokane Velocity have started out their second season on the right foot. With a 4-1-2 record, the team currently sits in second place in the USL League One table and additionally notched an opening win in the USL Jägermeister Cup against Oakland Roots SC. Anuar Peláez and Luis Gil have led the offense with 4 and 3 goals respectively, while the goalie Carlos Merancio Valdez has been superb — not allowing more than one goal in any game since the opener. n

CULTURE | DIGEST

THE BUZZ BIN A FAMILIAR VOICE

The Bloomsday shirt is always a surprise at the race’s end. JON JONCKERS PHOTO

BLOSSOMING CREATIVITY Meet Leslie Douglas, the artist who crafted Bloomsday’s 2025 finisher shirt BY CHEY SCOTT

or many Bloomies, crossing the finish line of the annual 7.46-mile race isn’t just about beating last year’s time — it’s also about getting the prized finisher shirt. As the Monroe Street Bridge comes into view, thoughts running through participants’ minds may go something like this: What color will it be? What’s the design? I hope people looping back along the course to cheer us on don’t spoil the surprise… For decades, Bloomsday’s finisher T-shirt has been a strict secret until race day. Naturally, there’s a lot behind the scenes that goes into it all, starting not long after the race is over when the call for shirt design submissions opens for the following year. This year’s artwork for the road race’s 49th iteration was created by one of the Inlander’s graphic designers, Leslie Douglas. Encouraged to try crafting a winning composition by fellow Inlander designer and production team manager Ali Blackwood, Douglas says she barely finished her design (made in her free time) by the submission deadline last September. When she found out her artwork had been picked for 2025’s finisher shirt from among more than 100 submissions a few weeks later, she then had the arduous task of keeping it under wraps for months. “I was really inspired by the footprint left behind by running shoes, and how they all look different depending on the brand or the shoe style,” Douglas says. “And obviously I had to tie in the lilacs.” Created in Adobe Illustrator, her design features a sleek, stylized shoe print made up of a field of pale purple lilac blossoms and green leaves. “I feel like in the past, a lot of people like to focus on the falls and the bridge, or shapes of runners and the map,” she says. “I definitely wanted to do something that hadn’t been done before.” When a Bloomsday board member called to tell Douglas her design had been chosen, she says they mentioned how well it would coordinate with this

year’s off-white T-shirt color. Michael Kiter, Bloomsday’s board president, says the board’s dozen members meet early each fall to narrow the field and agree on a winner for the shirt design (designers also get a $1,000 cash prize). They consider a design’s overall composition, as well as how it might clash with or complement the T-shirt color, which has usually been decided by then. Another consideration is how unique or similar a design is to past years’ shirts. Kiter says he thinks “the straightforwardness” of Douglas’ design caught the board’s attention. “A handful of other designs that we looked at, one of them was similar to another shirt, but this one had a bit of uniqueness to it,” he says.

or Douglas, who’s a Spokane transplant but has family ties to the area, it’s an honor to have been chosen. “This is probably one of the most exciting projects I’ve done,” she says. “Obviously I’ve done some really cool stuff here at the Inlander, but knowing [thousands] of people are going to be wearing my T-shirt — even the fact that it’s a big secret and everybody’s finding out as they cross the finish line, and it’s like a really big deal, and being able to, when I cross the finish line, hear other people around me react — it’s so exciting. The secrecy of it all makes it even more exciting.” Douglas partook in the local spring tradition for the first time last year, and for this year’s race she was joined by more than a dozen family members excited to celebrate alongside her. Her parents and brother, as well as her boyfriend’s family, all traveled to Spokane to walk Bloomsday together alongside her extended family who live in the area. “We spend a lot of time designing stuff,” she says, reflecting on being a graphic designer by trade, “but it doesn’t really get hyped up like that, so I think it’s really cool that everyone’s paying attention to the design part.” n

You’ve seen E.J. Iannelli’s byline in the Inlander for over a decade, as he’s covered local theater, classical music and anything else he can get his multifaceted hands on. Well, now you’ll be able to tune into his musings weekly on his new podcast, A Line Around Your Thoughts. Each episode centers on conversations with local artists, writers, musicians and creatives from our region — and with Iannelli at the helm, the episodes are bound to be full of thoughtful questions and interesting answers. The first episode with Troy Nickerson and Chris Jensen of the local independent theater company Theater on the Verge can be found wherever you stream your podcasts now, or head to alaytpodcast. com. (MADISON PEARSON)

TO THE MOON

Spokane Public Schools sixth grader Lilah Coyan was recently named a national finalist in NASA’s Power to Explore Challenge. The essay competition asks K-12 students to research the agency’s radioisotope power systems, which are used to power exploration in the most remote parts of space. Students are then asked to choose one of the many moons in our solar system and imagine their own unique exploration mission using that power. Out of more than 2,000 entries, Coyan’s essay dreaming up a rover on Jupiter’s second-largest moon, Callisto, was one of nine selected for the finals. Coyan and the other finalists — four of them from Washington — next get the opportunity to meet with a NASA engineer or scientist to talk about their essays and ask them any questions they might have about space exploration. Winners were announced May 7. (COLTON RASANEN)

THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST

Noteworthy new music arriving in stores and online on May 9. MARK PRITCHARD & THOM YORKE, TALL TALES Ever wonder what The Postal Service would’ve sounded like with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke writing and singing instead of Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard? This collaborative album with electronic producer Mark Pritchard essentially answers that musical question. SLEEP TOKEN, EVEN IN ARCADIA The mysterious masked alternative metal band continues its rapid ascent to the top of the heavy rock world with its fourth LP. I’M WITH HER, WILD AND CLEAR AND BLUE The folks supergroup of Sara Watkins, Aoife O’Donovan and Sarah Jarosz finally follows up its acclaimed 2018 debut album, See You Around, with 11 more tender-hearted tracks. (SETH SOMMERFELD)

MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 21

HISTORY

In Search

of Fort

Colvile

The few traces that were left of Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Colvile have been underwater for most of the past 80 years. What’s the interest in them now?

BY E.J. IANNELLI

f you were to set off looking for Fort Colvile, you’d be unlikely to find it. Occasionally, for a brief period in late spring when Lake Roosevelt is drawn down to accommodate the impending snowmelt, you might be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the fort’s faint footprint. During the rest of the year, the former grounds of the trading hub sit on the bottom of the horseshoe-shaped inlet known as Singer’s Bay near the town of Kettle Falls. With some generosity of imagination, latter-day curiosity seekers and history enthusiasts can still stand along the water’s edge and pretend that darker patches of current are a sign of something significant below. But the only reliable evidence of Fort Colvile’s erstwhile whereabouts is a stone monument that was erected near the former site by the Washington State Historical Society in 1932. Even then, reliable is a debatable term. Less than a decade after it was placed, the marker was relocated to higher ground on an adjacent bluff next to St. Paul’s Mission. Not long after that, in the early 1940s, the soon-to-be completed Grand Coulee Dam impounded the Columbia River, flooding 21,000 acres of animal habitats, entire towns, centuries-old fishing spots and sacred grounds, all of them topographical casualties of the resulting manmade lake. Given the relative obscurity of Fort Colvile’s now submerged ruins, an obvious question arises: Why would anyone want to go looking for it in the first place? With the help of individuals and groups from around the region, Kettle Falls-based historian Joe Barreca is hoping to provide a variety of answers to that. For the fort’s bicentennial this year, he’s loosely organizing separate local events into a monthslong observation and retrospective. The cornerstone events include the annual Northwest Fur Trade Historians encampment and the grand reopening of the Kettle Falls Historical ...continued on page 26

22 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

The remains of the Hudson Bay Company’s outpost known as Fort Colvile, established 200 years ago in 1825, lies somewhere deep beneath the waters of Lake Roosevelt. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 23

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See You Next Year! MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 25

HISTORY

ABOVE: Artist Shaun Deller’s watercolor painting depicts a “Columbia boat” being loaded with bales of fur to be shipped out from Fort Colvile. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

LEFT: The Fort Colvile historical marker outside the Kettle Falls Historical Center. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

“IN SEARCH OF FORT COLVILE,” CONTINUED... Center (May 17-18), the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation’s Salmon Ceremony (June 20), the Kettle Falls Historical Center’s Native Culture Weekend (June 21-22) and a themed summit at the Mistequa Hotel in Chewelah featuring leading area historians (Oct. 18). Although many of these events aren’t directly linked to the bicentennial, Barreca says that the 200th anniversary of Fort Colvile’s founding serves as “a good time to dispel a few misconceptions about the fort and the fur trade.” As he recently explained in an article he wrote for The Silverado Express: “The arrival of European culture and capitalism is not considered a good thing by Native Americans in light of what followed. It was highly destructive to the animals and the land. It brought rules, religion, law enforcement, Western diseases and cures that they didn’t have. This is not a celebration. It is a commemoration, a time to learn by reflecting on our common history.”

NOT EXACTLY A FORT, NOT EXACTLY COLVILLE

Barreca has good reason for wanting to clear up some parts of the historical record. In just name alone, Fort Colvile is a source of potential misconceptions. Note the spelling of Colvile with a total of two l’s, which deviates from the three l’s found in most regional spellings of the name. Yet all of these Colvilles — whether you’re talking towns, forts, rivers or national forests — have a common namesake in Andrew Colvile, the Scottish-born governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company from 1852 until his death in 1856. (Not even the Washington State Historical Society was immune to this confusion. Their 1932 site marker incorrectly reads “Colville.”) Furthermore, despite its military-sounding designation, Fort Colvile wasn’t a barracks or munitions store — unlike, say, the similarly named Fort Colville,

26 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

This is not a celebration. It is a commemoration, a time to learn by reflecting on our common history.

which was a semi-contemporary U.S. Army post located about 14 miles away. The trading post’s naming simply followed the convention that the Hudson’s Bay Company used for many of its other locations in the region, such as Fort Okanogan and Fort Vancouver. Construction on the trading post began in summer 1825, four years after the omnipresent Hudson’s Bay Company — already 155 years old by that point — had bought out its regional rival, the North West Company, giving Hudson’s Bay a near monopoly on the North American fur trade. The Hudson Bay Company’s governor of Canada at the time, George Simpson, visited the Inland Northwest to assess its networks and infrastructure. “Simpson saw that at Kettle Falls, there was a nice flat that a trading post could be built upon. He met with the salmon chief and got an agreement that the Hudson’s Bay Company could build a trading post there at Kettle Falls,” says Mark Weadick, president of the Northwest

Fur Trade Historians. “The salmon chief specified, though, that the company could not develop or participate or compete with the tribes in obtaining the salmon. And so Fort Colvile opened up a new fur trade territory in the Upper Columbia, which included the Kootenai River, the Kettle River and on into what is Canada today,” he continues. Hudon’s Bay Company honored the salmon chief’s stipulation, not least because the company was more concerned with economics than colonization. And the international trade around furs was far more profitable than fish. In exchange for a single rifle, the Hudson’s Bay Company could potentially bring in double-digit beaver pelts that each commanded a cash markup of several hundred percent when sold to the factory. Beaver fur in particular is both waterproof and insulating. Those qualities had made it a sought-after material for high-end fashionable attire as well as military uniforms. “A Western 10X beaver fur felt hat today will run you about $1,000,” Weadick explains. The 10X refers to the quality of the felt used in making the hat. “The beaver fur felt hats back in the day were expensive. They were often referred to as gentlemen’s top hats, and beaver fur felt hats could be passed down from father to son if they were taken care of,” he says. “So, relatively speaking, the price [of these hats] would compare to today’s dollar amount.” According to data Weadick provided, the Hudson’s Bay records for 1830 show that trappers operating in the Upper Columbia and Western Montana regions brought 7,565 pelts to Fort Colvile. Around 2,900 of these were beaver furs, augmented by muskrat, mink, bear, marten, otter and other varieties. However, Fort Colvile didn’t deal exclusively in animal pelts. As a trading post, it moved other goods as well, though often in exchange for furs. In 1827, barely two years after its founding, 670 pounds of gunpowder, 700 pounds of tobacco, 1,344 lead balls and 60 guns passed through Fort Colvile, not to mention sundry beads, knives, blankets and kettles. The flat expanse around the fort also offered plenty of arable land for farming. At its peak, Fort Colvile would cultivate 340 acres with crops like potatoes, corn, oats, barley and wheat. Those harvests helped

LEFT: Men from the Spokane Tribe, photographed at Fort Colvile in 1861 by the British North American Boundary Commission.

Hooray for EWU MUSIC PROGRAM PRESENTS

Hollywood! A view from the bluff of Hudson Bay Company’s Fort Colvile trading outpost in 1860, about a decade before it was abandoned. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PHOT0S

supply a company-owned grist mill at nearby Meyers Falls. The White Mud Farm, located about 10 miles to the east, reared beef and milk cows as well as pigs, horses and chickens. This agricultural and livestock aspect of Fort Colvile was so significant that the Washington State Historical Society marker calls it out over any mention of the fur trade. Its plinth proclaims, “Here began trade farming, milling and stock raising in Stevens County.”

A TALE OF TWO DAVIDS

Despite the perspective reflected on that monument, the founding of Fort Colvile in 1825 isn’t necessarily a starting point on any particular timeline. Instead, it’s more like an entry point into a much larger story of human activity that extends 200 years forward to the present day and over 9,000 years into the past. In fact, Fort Colvile doesn’t even mark the beginning of Euro-American fur trading in the region. That distinction is generally granted to David Thompson, the first known white person to navigate the full length of the Columbia River, which became a major transcontinental thoroughfare for traders and explorers of all kinds. Thompson himself was a fur trader, explorer and cartographer working for the North West Company, and it was on their behalf that he set out in 1807 to survey the Canadian Rockies in search of rich sources of pelts and viable waterways to transport them. Waterborne transport involved two fundamental considerations: the conduit and the craft. It wasn’t enough to have a waterway that connected two points. The traders also needed a safe and efficient means of navigating that waterway. “When David Thompson came through, it’s well known that he was inspired by all the canoemaking cultures along his pathway,” explains Shawn Brigman, a Spokane tribal member, Sinixt descendant and artisan who has not only studied historical canoes but also developed a modern variant, the Salishan sturgeon nose canoe. “And so when he made it to Kettle Falls, he

wanted to design his own boat, but he designed his own boat based on all the methods that he had previously learned from different Indigenous groups. People kind of leave that part out.” The inland canoe that Thompson developed became known as the Columbia boat, over 100 of which would be produced at Fort Colvile. Artist and historical reenactor Shaun Deller captured this style of boat in a watercolor painting that Barreca has selected for the bicentennial poster. “What [the voyageurs] needed was a boat that was lightweight. When you had to portage it around rapids and such, you could have all the men who were the paddlers of the boat lift the canoe up and carry it a distance and put it back in the water. And yet you could carry a lot of weight in it,” Deller explains. He estimates that each canoe could hold up to 4,000 pounds. Deller’s painting depicts not just the sturdy lap-sided canoe but the people who used it. In the upper left are figures who represent a clerk and chief factor — the “higher-paid company men” dressed in “fancier European clothing of the time,” he says. At the painting’s bottom right are two resting voyageurs, a word that describes the French and mixed-race traders who came westward to haul the furs and bales of trade goods across vast and treacherous expanses of wilderness. Above them, a third and fourth voyageur are engaged in the laborious activity of carrying the heavy bales to the canoe for loading. During his series of expeditions, Thompson oversaw the establishment of the trading post that would become known as Spokane House at the confluence of the Spokane and Little Spokane Rivers in 1810. In many ways, Spokane House could be considered a precursor to Fort Colvile. The posts’ stories are linked through figures like Jacques Raphael Finlay, a skilled multiracial trapper and scout. Finlay — better known by his nickname, Jaco — was one of the North West Company men who traveled alongside and sometimes ahead of Thompson. Spokane-based historian and ...continued on next page

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HISTORY

“IN SEARCH OF FORT COLVILE,” CONTINUED...

Joe Barreca, president of the Heritage Network, stands next to “The Sharpening Stone,” used by Indigenous people to sharpen their tools for salmon fishing at Kettle Falls.

naturalist Jack Nisbet has written extensively on Finlay’s almost ubiquitous presence throughout the region in various essays as well as his 2003 book Visible Bones. “Thompson is important because he’s the first written description we have,” Nisbet says. “But damn near everybody that worked for him stayed and married somebody from the tribes. And then they were here 15 years down the road when [David] Douglas arrived.” Douglas was a Scottish botanist who, much like Andrew Colvile, continues to be memorialized by the liberal application of his surname to other things, most notably the Douglas fir and the Douglas squirrel. At just age 25, he came to the area in the spring of 1825 on a mission from the Royal Horticultural Society of London to identify and collect plants — and in particular their seeds — throughout the Pacific Northwest. “Douglas,” Nisbet explains, “is the first white man who’s not on a fur trade payroll to show up there and start doing systematic natural history.” The fur trading posts provided Douglas with a local base of operations for his scientific forays. In 1826, Douglas visited Spokane House, which, owing to the merger, had recently changed hands from the North West Company to Hudson’s Bay. It had also been supplanted by the newly founded Fort Colvile, a decision that was based on George Simpson’s grumbling assessment that Spokane House was, at 60 miles’ distance, simply too far from the convenient arterial of the Columbia River. At Spokane House, Douglas met its founder, Jaco Finlay, who offered him a warm welcome but wasn’t in the position to be a lavish host. As Douglas recorded in his journal, Finlay and his family had been subsisting on camas bulbs and “a species of black Lichen which grows on the Pines” for several weeks. Ever curious, and perhaps out of a sense of politeness, Douglas jotted down the recipe for the roasted lichen cakes. When Douglas returned from a trip along the Spo-

28 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

kane River later that afternoon, he found that “Mr. Finlay had obligingly put my gun in good order, for which I presented him with a pound of tobacco, being the only article I had to give.” Back at Fort Colvile, Douglas had a similar ally and resource in the Irish farmer John Work, who was in charge of constructing the burgeoning trading post. Nisbet describes Work as “a really essential figure” in both the early development of Fort Colvile and in Douglas’ efforts to collect and preserve seeds for transport back to England. Work apparently had an excellent knowledge of native plants. When his two-year excursion came to an end, Douglas described his departure from Fort Vancouver bound for England on March 20, 1827: “I walked the whole distance to Fort Colvile, on the Kettle Falls, which occupied twenty-five days, not one of which passed without presenting to my notice something of interest, either in Botany or Zoology. The beautiful Erythronium grandiflorum [yellow avalanche lily] and Claytonia lanceolata [western spring beauty] were in full bloom among the snow.” Much like Thompson, Douglas caused a butterfly effect with ripples extending halfway across the globe. The clarkias, lupines and penstemons that would become quintessential features of English gardens can be traced back to his expeditions.

A TRADING HUB SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL

As pivotal as David Thompson may have been for the Euro-American fur trade and explorers like David Douglas, “he’s just a blip on the screen if you’re any of the tribal fishermen,” Nisbet says. When Thompson and his crew paddled into Kettle Falls on June 19, 1811, they would have been arriving close to the start of an annual salmon and steelhead

harvest that was presided over by the salmon chief. The archaeologist and historian David H. Chance described the ceremony in his oft-cited book People of the Falls: “The fishing at the falls began in late June, just after the First Salmon dances, which at Kettle Falls happened to coincide with the summer solstice. At the very beginning of the season just one man speared fish, and the first of the catch was boiled with heated rocks in a natural ‘kettle’ in the bedrock. Everyone present received a morsel.” Paul Kane was a contemporary Irish-Canadian artist who captured these fishing scenes in sketches and oil paintings when he visited Fort Colvile in 1847. Kane also created both oil and watercolor portraits of the Colville salmon chief. “No one is allowed to catch fish without his permission,” Kane wrote in his firsthand account of his journeys, Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America. “His large fishing basket or trap is put down a month before anyone is allowed to fish for themselves. [...] The chief distributes the fish thus taken during the season amongst his people, everyone, even to the smallest child, getting an equal share.” In the same passage, Kane noted that, after the salmon run commenced, the fish “continue to arrive in almost incredible numbers[;] in fact, there is one continuous body of them, more resembling a flock of birds than anything else in their extraordinary leap up the falls.” The salmon ceremony and the typically bountiful fishing season that followed it drew as many as 5,000 representatives from tribes that spread across a 200-mile radius around the falls. And, like any large gathering, it had served as an opportunity to exchange ideas as well as goods for centuries prior to Thompson’s arrival. Items traded among the tribes included camas root bulbs, shells, beads and, of course, animal hides. It’s the memory of this ritual and intertribal convention that that the Confederated Colville Tribes honor

its a The annual Sinixt Canoe Journey from Revelstoke, British Columbia, to Kettle Falls culminates in the Salmon Ceremony, this year on June 20. PHOTO COURTESY SHELLY BOYD with the annual Sx̌ ʷnítkʷ Salmon Ceremony. This year, it takes place on June 20. Before the first present-day Salmon Ceremony in 2016, the last time the area tribes had gathered at Kettle Falls was over 75 years earlier and under much more despondent circumstances. The “Ceremony of Tears” in 1940 mourned the Grand Coulee Dam’s devastating impact on salmon runs and consequently the Indigenous way of life. “We call Kettle Falls Sx̌ ʷnítkʷ,” explains Shelly Boyd, a member of Sinixt/Arrow Lake band of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. “It’s pretty distinctive — not just a landmark but a place of general cultural importance to do this.” As a co-founder of the Inchelium Language and Culture Association and longtime tribal advocate, Boyd has been a driving force behind the Salmon Ceremony and the Sinixt Canoe Journey that precedes it. This summer, which also happens to mark the 10-year anniversary of the event, the paddlers will launch from the Sinixt ancestral lands in Revelstoke, British Columbia, on June 11 and make their way to Kettle Falls over the next 10 days. “There’s two levels of importance for us,” Boyd says of the journey. “One is because Sinixt people were declared extinct in Canada. This is a journey that amplifies our voice and presence in our traditional territory. We are still here. Púti kwu aláʔ. And the other is to amplify the voice of salmon who need that cold, clear water of their homeland as well. The spawning ground in the north is what made the whole Columbia River such a special and important place for salmon.” The event is also an opportunity for what Shawn Brigman calls “cultural recovery.” Over the years, a variety of traditional Native American vessels have been used in the journey, including dugout canoes carved from single cedar logs as well as the ancient bark sturgeon-nosed canoes. The latter have a distinctive angled shape that, as their name suggests, borrows from the natural stylings of the sturgeon to make them more manageable in wind. They measure around 16 feet long, 28 inches wide, and weigh only about 35 pounds. One key contribution of the fur trade was the incorporation of canvas into the canoe’s construction. Brigman’s Salishan sturgeon nose canoe, which he created in 2013, has also been a part of the journey. To build it, he drew on his knowledge of native ethnobotany as well as Greek art and architecture. “I put in what I call Salishan refinements where you do a little tweak here and there to make it pleasing to the eyes,” he says. “For example, when I design the nose of the canoe, I like to give it the same curvature as the digging stick,” the tool used for harvesting camas root or bitterroot. The Canoe Journey and Salmon Ceremony could therefore be seen as a melding of tradition and innovation that creates a sense of continuity across generations, even in the face of profound change. It speaks to a point that Boyd’s mother often emphasized about resiliency. “We’re not here because our ancestors suffered,” she says. “We’re here because our ancestors were strong.” ...continued on next page

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MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 29

HISTORY

LEFT: Irish-Canadian artist Paul Kane’s 1847 oil painting of Kettle Falls depicts the sacred tribal fishing spot before Lake Roosevelt submerged the falls’ basalt formations under water in the 1940s due to the opening of Grand Coulee Dam. ABOVE: Kane’s portrait from the same time period of the Colville Salmon Chief. BOTH IMAGES COURTESY OF ROM (ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM), TORONTO, CANADA. ©ROM

“IN SEARCH OF FORT COLVILE,” CONTINUED... HISTORY IS CYCLICAL

When Arnie Marchand was first approached about taking part in a bicentennial celebration of Fort Colvile, the Okanagan historian and member of the Colville Confederated Tribes took issue with the word choice. “I said, ‘You want us, the Indians, to celebrate our demise?’” To Marchand, Hudson’s Bay Company posts like Fort Okanagan and Fort Colvile were the reason why the region’s beaver population had been hunted close to extinction. They introduced an extractive, exploitative, myopic form of commerce that was anathema to Native ways of life. They represented the first regional incursion of a non-Indigenous presence that would eventually overrun everything. The forts were, in his eyes, “the beginning of the end.” The bitter culmination was the period that Marchand ruefully refers to as “A.D. — after the dam.” “We were salmon people. Our whole reason for living, the whole base of our culture, our tradition, was the salmon. And that,” he says, “was just eliminated” as the Grand Coulee neared completion in 1940. When the waters of the Columbia River rose to form Lake Roosevelt, the ancient salmon runs vanished and the roar of Kettle Falls ceased. Marchand nevertheless agreed to serve as an adviser to the bicentennial event and encourage tribal participation, provided it was framed as something less jubilant than a celebration. He’ll also be personally taking part in the October summit, which will feature, in Joe Barreca’s words, “an all-star cast of historians, both Native and white.” Historian Jack Nisbet will be the keynote speaker. For Barreca especially, the simple act of people coming together to talk, to learn and to share their individual or cultural perspectives is what matters about the bicentennial. “All you can hope to accomplish here is to get people aware that this was a cultural watershed, a tipping point, or whatever you want to call it. There’s a lot to know and understand, and there’s a lot of people and things about it

30 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

that are swirling around our current existence,” he says. one of his handmade canoes, which naturally survived the And there is also the message that gestures in the flooding. present can transcend the contentions and injustices “This is kind of abstract and metaphorical, but what of the past. After a burst pipe flooded the Kettle Falls I think is beautiful about all of this is that things happen Historical Center with water for weeks on end in early in cycles. When David Thompson came through, when 2023, the community rallied to show its support for the Fort Colvile was there, there was contact between the Inorganization and its mission of digenous people and the non-Indigenous preserving the area’s unique people,” Brigman says. FORT COLVILE history. “Ten years ago, when we started the BICENTENNIAL EVENTS canoe journey, there was contact between “Everything was deMay 17-18: Fur Trade Encampment and Grand stroyed. And when I say what you might call primitive skills peoReopening of the Kettle Falls Historical Center that, I mean everything. Two ple, fur trade reenactors and Indigenous June 20: Salmon Ceremony (annual event), of our murals, our tule mat people. Now for the bicentennial, it’s the parking at Kettle Falls Historical Center teepee, our canvas teepees and same thing. That’s kind of cool.” June 21-22: Native Culture Weekend, all of our sculptures of our The Kettle Falls Historical Center is Kettle Falls Historical Center Native American people, all of already on track to enjoy a much longer Oct. 18: Fort Colvile Summit, 10 am-3 pm, that was destroyed. Everylife than Fort Colvile. Once the fur trade Mistequa Hotel, Chewelah thing had to be taken out, began its decline in the 1840s, it was only More information: theheritagenetwork.org right down to the concrete a matter of time before Hudson’s Bay slab and the studs and the abandoned it, which it did on June 8, cinder block walls,” says Jan Beardsley, the Kettle Falls 1871. Within six years, its last chief factor, Angus McDonHistorical Society’s treasurer. ald, had abandoned it as well, leaving the rotting, dilapi“So we just put our hearts out to the community, and dated structures and the land to his son Donald to farm. In our community stepped up with lots of small donations 1910, the site burned down in its entirety. and it all added up. They kept us going for the two years, At the same time, Fort Colvile’s 46 years of operation paying the monthly bills and everything. That’s how we offer a window into a period of history as tumultuous as got the building up and running again.” our own. On May 17 and 18, as the fur trade reenactors recre“During those 46 years, America went to war,” Barreate a period-accurate scene outside, Beardsley and her ca explains. “The Civil War happened. The line between fellow members will celebrate — and here the word is Canada and the United States happened. The changes appropriate — the Kettle Falls Historical Center’s grand from horseback and steamboats and railroads happened.” reopening. The freshly restored 41-year-old building will And there is an irony, perhaps satisfying, in the idea that feature new displays, restored murals and a revamped Fort Colvile precipitated its own end. Its existence might not gift shop. The Confederated Colville Tribes also donated have directly championed white settlement and hydroelecnew large-format paintings by the late Michael Paul, tric infrastructure, yet it was undoubtedly a step on the whose seasonal murals had decorated several walls. road to those events, and they’re the reason its remains are For the occasion, Brigman has also created an authenunderwater today. But just because Fort Colvile is hard to tic tule mat longhouse in the building. It will complement find doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go searching for it. n

Forest bathing:

An Rx to fortify health I

n the future, your doctor may write a prescription stating, “Go for a forest bath, and call me in the morning.”

The concept of “forest bathing” originated in Japan in the 1980s as an antidote to modern stress and technology. It’s called shinrinyoku and focuses on immersing your senses in nature. It’s now become an evidence-based treatment, whether inhaling a pine forest’s scent, listening to birdsong in a city park, or feeling pebbles beneath your feet at an alpine lake. “Spending time in nature has a demonstrated benefit for our health in many ways,” says Dr. David Ward, a family practice physician at Kaiser Permanente in Spokane. Benefits include boosting immunity, mood, and attention, lowering blood pressure and pulse rate, and reducing stress, anxiety and depression. Researchers offer varied hypotheses, ranging from managing the stress hormone cortisol to natural tree oils decreasing inflammation or lending antimicrobial powers. To try forest bathing, “Take time to visit a park, trail, beach, desert or meadow,” Ward says. “We’re lucky in Spokane to have so many parks and forest areas nearby,” he says, and spring is the perfect time to hear the sound of bird calls and spot blooming flowers. Research has shown that urban green spaces offer the same benefits as rural forests.

Ward suggests turning off your phone to increase mindfulness while taking deep breaths. “Walk at an easy pace, finding peace in your surroundings,” he says. “Some people go barefoot to ‘ground’ themselves. Personally, when my feet are on sand, grass or lake pebbles, a wonderful thing happens naturally.” As always, be aware of your surroundings, move at a safe pace and don’t push it if you haven’t ventured out much over the winter, he notes. Wear shoes that maintain your trail balance on unstable terrain, apply sunscreen, and bring water. Stop if you feel faint and bring a friend for safety if you wish. “Even 20 minutes per day could improve your physical and mental health if you can get outside for a few minutes to breathe, detach, and be mindful,” Ward says. Try not to see it as another chore but as an opportunity to connect with loved ones. Children in particular may benefit from an after-school playdate at a park — studies show that forest bathing or outdoor time can improve attention, including for those with ADHD. If a hike isn’t possible due to health or accessibility, see if you can find a driver for natural views from a car window. Ward says hospital patients with views of a natural outdoor world recovered more quickly and needed less pain medication.

“Most of us in Spokane are only a walk or short drive from great access to amazing trails,” Ward says — including leafy Manito Park, Riverside State Park, Spokane River Centennial State Park Trail, or Spokane’s own Nishinomiya Tsutakawa Japanese Garden. At Spokane Public Library and the Spokane County Library District, you can even “check out” a Discover Pass for a week’s free parking access at Washington State Parks.

“We spend so much time in medicine preventing and treating disease,” he says. Forest bathing offers health-improving prevention and treatment, courtesy of the Earth’s healing powers.

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MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 31

MIFLAVOUR

When Ella and Maximus Piskun, the owners of miFLAVOUR, a modern French bakery on East Sprague Avenue, got an influx of customer requests last year for Dubai chocolate, they were hesitant. “But then we got so many requests that we’re like, ‘OK, let’s dive into this and figure out how we can make it and how we can make it really good,’” says Ella Piskun.

MiFLAVOUR’s Dubai strawberry cups. YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS

Shelling Out TRENDS

Find viral Dubai chocolate-inspired treats at these four Spokane-area businesses BY DORA SCOTT

ith a crisp snap, a thick chocolate bar drizzled in gold and green is broken in half. Creamy pistachio filling oozes out as ASMR social media influencer Maria Vehera dives in for a bite. While perhaps not the most visually appealing and despite some critics likening the green filling to grass, the shredded and roasted phyllo dough, also known as kataifi, mixed into the pistachio cream emits hungerstirring crunches. The TikTok video posted on Dec. 18, 2023, has since racked up nearly 7 million views, helping ignite a worldwide “Dubai chocolate” trend and resulting

32 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

pistachio shortage. The filled chocolate bar was invented by Fix Dessert Chocolatier in Dubai in 2021, inspired by founder Sarah Hamouda’s pregnancy cravings for cocoa but with a nostalgic Middle Eastern twist. With the original sold only in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, large chocolate companies like Lindt and small businesses alike have created imitations or specials inspired by the trend — many with a hefty price tag. So if you’ve been itching to sample this buzzy sweet, try these four Spokane businesses.

The couple first tried recreating the chocolate bars, which proved challenging. “They just kept splitting, breaking, just a bunch of stuff was going on, so we finally finalized the recipe, and now it’s been great,” Piskun says. Yet the handmade pistachio cream filling kept leaking into the chocolate shell, so bakery staff decided to import the filling from Italy and finally found success. Since launching last Christmas, miFLAVOUR’s Dubai chocolate bars ($35) have been hard to keep on shelves since. “Pretty much anything that’s coming into the U.S. is getting sold right away, like before it even gets to the U.S., so the shortage is crazy,” Piskun says of the pistachio cream. The bakery buys phyllo dough from a local Middle Eastern market, Mariam International Foods, then roasts it, adds a bit of tahini and mixes the cream in-house to achieve a satisfying crunch. MiFLAVOUR also dove deeper into the trend with two special pop-ups in March and April selling Dubai strawberry cups ($17). Made to order, a 16-ounce cup is loaded with layers of fresh strawberries, warm white or milk chocolate, and pistachio cream filling. The price might cause sticker shock but comes from the cost of high-quality ingredients. “Ingredients really matter to us, so we want to give customers the best experience, and that’s why our products are more expensive,” Piskun says. Customers don’t seem deterred. She notes that they only expected to sell about 500 cups during the first popup, yet sold about 1,500 in one weekend. Don’t feel too dejected if you missed the last one, because Piskun says the cups will return to the menu permanently, starting May 12. “I know sometimes people think, ‘Oh it’s just a trend, who cares?’ But it really helps small businesses,” Piskun says. “As a local bakery, we get to jump on it and gain more customers with it and put our own twist on it and have fun with it.”

FOOD | TO-GO BOX

Parched?

SWEET MAMA’S

Dishing out specialty strawberry cups, Sweet Mama’s opened as a pop-up vendor in April 2024, and naturally jumped onto the Dubai strawberry cup trend. “We saw it first on social media, and we’re like, ‘Wow! That looks kind of interesting. It’s kind of in line with what we’re doing,’ and so we really just wanted to offer it to Spokane,” says Jessica Lakeru, who co-owns the business with Nicole Bosman. Though it was difficult to replicate, after some trial and error, Sweet Mama’s was able to nail down a recipe. Their 16-ounce cups ($16) include fresh strawberries, melted Belgian chocolate, pistachio cream with the crunchy kataifi, and roasted pistachio chunks to top it off. Lakeru says the high demand for ingredients in Dubai chocolate has created scarcity. “We import all of our ingredients, so we import our cream, we import our kataifi, so finding those channels that are still able to provide that has been difficult in the recent months,” Lakeru says. “But we are just stocking up the best that we can to still be able to provide this treat for the local people here in Spokane.” Find Sweet Mama’s at the Kendall Yards Night Market (opening Wed, May 21), Spokane Pride (June 14), Hoopfest (June 28-29) and the Kootenai County Fair (Aug. 15-24).

KETO SWEETIE

If you have dietary restrictions or don’t have a super sweet tooth, don’t worry — you can still enjoy the Dubai chocolate craze. Keto Sweetie, a commissary bakery in Deer Park, has crafted some dietary-friendly versions. Co-owner Kristi Evenson started baking with her daughter, Angel, from home in 2020 during the pandemic, making donuts that quickly became a popular keto treat. “We are a 100% gluten-free bakery. We are sugar-free, glutenfree, low carb, and also our donuts are dairy-free. So we cover a lot of dietary restrictions,” Evenson says. Keto Sweetie has recently offered strawberry Dubai chocolate cheesecake, Dubai chocolate pistachio cupcakes, and currently offers Dubai chocolate brownie bars ($12). The brownie base (with a dairy-free option) is smothered with a pistachio topping as well as chocolate ganache. At first, Evenson sourced her pistachio butter, but when one delivery ran late she decided to make it herself, and it turned out even better. “With the keto group and the diabetic group, they want to be involved in this kind of thing, too, and they get looked over and left out,” Evenson says. “We’ve come up with a little niche that we can help people.”

LEBANON DELI & GROCERY STORE

Stepping into this Middle Eastern market at North Division’s Y, spices perfume the air, Arabian music plays on a small radio and imported products line the shelves. Here, Yazan “Yaz” Al Azrai, who operates the family business, dishes out shawarma, gyros, hummus, baklava, and other Middle Eastern delicacies. He’s lately constantly blending Dubai chocolate milkshakes ($15). Al Azrai started making his Dubai chocolate bars ($13) last October. At first, he made the pistachio cream by hand, but he now buys it to save time. While many necessary ingredients aren’t too difficult to find, he says it’s hard to find products that are high quality. “It was crazy, crazy. I didn’t expect that it was going to be like this,” he says about the crowds that have flocked to buy the chocolate. Al Azrai decided to get creative and make a milkshake version of the treat, releasing it as a limited special on March 8. It’s since become a permanent menu item. Pistachio cream, vanilla ice cream, and milk are blended together, poured over a layer of the pistachio-kataifi mixture, and topped with cream, Dubai chocolate chunks, and edible gold glitter for a presentation that’s almost too beautiful to eat. “The eyes eat first, especially with the food,” Al Azrai says. n

Some sip-tacular newsy tidbits from the Spokane beverage scene: new cafes, award-winning drinks and more BY DORA SCOTT

n your next morning commute or for a study session, consider stopping by Tay Tay’s Cafe at 507 S. Howard St. on the southern edge of downtown Spokane, which opened on March 19. Named after owner Taylor Edwards’ childhood nickname, Tay Tay’s occupies a spot previously home to the Meeting House cafe, which closed in October (it’s still operating in South Perry). The location’s turnkey state attracted Edwards, a first-time business owner who added personal touches to the space. A pet portrait wall is open for patrons’ contributions, and Edwards’ baby portrait rests on a shelf, alongside other quirky Easter eggs for people to find. Having worked in the food industry for over 15 years, Edwards pays close attention to offering quality drinks and food options. “We bake everything in house: the bread, the scones, the cookies. Make all the dressings for the salads, all the hummus, all the pesto, anything that we can make, all the syrup for our coffee. Pretty much anything that we can make from scratch, we do,” he says. The current baked goods selection includes cheddar and green onion scones, double chocolate chip cookies, and snickerdoodles, however, Edwards says the menu will change and expand seasonally. If you want something a little more substantial, order one of the sandwiches — like the breakfast sandwich ($8) with egg, cheese, sausage or bacon, and tomato jam on a house-made biscuit — or a salad, great for an on-the-go lunch. Tay Tay’s works with Spokane-based Anvil Coffee roasters, using its Sweater Weather blend for espresso and Straight Drippin’ for drip coffee. “Because we’re two blocks from the hospital we get a lot of health care folk, and that’s been really positive and nice,” Edwards says. “I think that they’re pretty grateful that we’re here.”

MORE BEVERAGE NEWS

Replacing Cole’s Cafe inside Eastern Washington University’s downtown Catalyst Building, Bella’s Cafe & Cocktails opened in late January. Stop by to get your daily dose of caffeine with the cafe’s coffee options or to relax while sipping on a craft cocktail. Bella’s food menu includes quick options like sandwiches and paninis, but also offers bowls, pizza and more. For more information, follow on Instagram @bellascafecocktails. Whether you’re a novice or longtime winelover, the Spokane Winery Association’s new Sip Spokane Passport should be on your radar. The $50 booklet is full of discounts, experiences and other special offers from winery association members, worth over $300.

“We’re hoping that the Sip Spokane Passport will introduce customers to new business while also letting them explore businesses they’ve known and loved for years,” says Alex Bridenbaugh, the winery association’s interim executive director in a press release. To buy the pass or learn more, visit spokanewineries.com. Another big win for the local wine scene: Liberty Lake Wine Cellars took home 13 medals for its 2022 vintage at the 20th Annual Seattle Wine Awards last month.

Liberty Lake Wine Cellars’ hardware. COURTESY PHOTO “We always try to find ways to improve and are not afraid of changing how we do things,” winemaker and co-owner Mark Lathrop says in a press release. “That has led to us being one of the first wineries in the American market to use particular yeast strains and barrels. We now know some of the changes have paid off, although you wait three or four years to find out when you are making wine.” To try this award-winning vintage yourself, visit Liberty Lake Wine Cellars’ tasting room at 23110 E. Knox Ave., and head to libertylakewinecellars.com for more info. The local beer scene also has cause to celebrate as No-Li Brewhouse’s Wrecking Ball Imperial Stout landed a gold medal at the 2025 World Beer Cup. The stout is recognized for its espresso, dark chocolate and roasted caramel notes, standing out amid 8,375 beer entries from 49 countries. “For our community, this is about more than a medal,” says No-Li owner John Bryant in a press release. “It’s about Spokane. It’s about a belief that our No-Li brewery team and our fellow Spokane craft brewers are making some of the best beers around the globe. It’s about showing the world that truly exceptional beer is being brewed right here in Spokane.” n

MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 33

ALSO OPENING CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD

A small town’s clown mascot starts killing local teens in this slasher flick. Rated R

SHADOW FORCE

Two former special agents who unceremoniously left the top secret Shadow Force to start a family after falling in love (Kerry Washington, Omar Sy) must now fight back against that same organization as it tries to track them down. Rated R

WATCH THE SKIES

This Swedish sci-fi film about a girl searching for her father who she believes was abducted by aliens controversially becomes an English language film via AI editing of the images to sync up with the dub. (Because some of us are apparently too dumb to read subtitles!) Rated PG-13

WORDS OF WAR

This biographical drama tells the story of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist who exposed the horrors of the Second Chechen War, thereby making herself a target for Vladimir Putin’s regime. Rated R

There’s a throwback sense of comfortable ease to Poker Face’s sophmore season.

TV REVIEW

Murder, She Rasped

goes viral, and Giancarlo Esposito as an uncommonly diligent undertaker. In addition to Perlman, Simon Helberg returns as FBI agent Luca Clark, who made a couple of appearances in the first season and does his best to help Charlie out of especially tricky situations. Steve Buscemi (via voiceover) and Patti Harrison have recurring roles later in the season as friendly strangers who reach out to Charlie. While it wouldn’t make sense for Charlie to build up a team of associates, it’s nice to see her connect with people who survive to appear in another episode. Lyonne captures Charlie’s restlessness even when she Charlie still travels to a new location in nearly every isn’t under constant threat of mob assassination, but her episode, meeting new people and invariably getting introspection never gets in the way of the individual cases. involved in their often murderous business. Poker Face sticks The 10 episodes available for review (out of 12 total) don’t to its “howcatchem” formula: each episode beginning with take any detours into Charlie’s past, but the finale may a cold open that lays out the details of the case of the week, reveal more about her motivations and back story, just as before Charlie comes in to bring the murderer to justice. the first season did. The small moments of communion beThe mystery is not in discovering whodunit, but in seeing tween Charlie and someone who understands her already how Charlie corners the culprit, thanks to her uncanny, convey enough about both her need for human connection infallible ability to tell when someone is lying. and her wariness of people who may let her down. Charlie may have started out as a That’s what keeps Poker Face grounded even wary crime-solver, but she’s a people POKER FACE as it engages in various flights of fancy, with person who can’t let go when someone Johnson and his fellow writers and directors Created by Rian Johnson she cares about has been hurt. Part of embarking on entertaining cinematic experiStarring Natasha Lyonne the charm of Poker Face is watching the ments. This is a show clearly made by cinephiles, Streaming on Peacock opening act and wondering how Charlie and it’s often at its best when exploring cinematic will fit into the story — which character will be the one she themes, whether via a murder on a location shoot at a fubefriends and steps up to defend? Lyonne convincingly neral home or a disastrous retail heist planned by a movie portrays the bond that Charlie feels with those people, no nerd who’s seen Heat one too many times. matter how temporary. “I actually have conducted a shocking number of these It helps that Poker Face has Johnson’s clout as a major ad hoc interrogations,” Charlie tells one of Erivo’s quintufilmmaker (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Knives Out movplets in the season premiere, but her enthusiasm and openies) to attract a dizzying lineup of all-star guest players, ness make each investigation feel vital. Even when she’s all of whom put their full effort into even the smallest solving the murder of a class gerbil — facing off against a roles. Some of the highlights of the new season include sociopathic 8-year-old in the season’s funniest episode — Cynthia Erivo as identical quintuplet former child actors, Charlie treats the situation with care and dedication. That’s Kumail Nanjiani as an alligator-taming Florida cop who what makes for a great — and enduring — TV detective. n

Natasha Lyonne returns as human lie detector Charlie Cale in the entertaining second season of Poker Face BY JOSH BELL

n its first season, the Peacock series Poker Face offered a refreshing change of pace by reviving the classic murder-mystery procedural format in the era of bloated serialized prestige TV. Creator Rian Johnson eschewed extended story arcs for an episodic approach reminiscent of beloved vintage shows like Columbo and Murder, She Wrote, with Natasha Lyonne starring as reluctant amateur detective Charlie Cale. Charlie only had to solve 10 cases in the first season, though, while her predecessors would take on dozens. So the slightly expanded second season of Poker Face has to prove that she can match up to the likes of Thomas Magnum or Jim Rockford as it adds to her caseload. There’s a reassuring familiarity to watching characters like that put their skills to use in a similar way each time, and Poker Face’s new season provides the exact same sort of comfort. Charlie’s nomadic lifestyle was motivated by fear in the first season, as she was pursued across the country by mob enforcer Cliff LeGrand (Benjamin Bratt) following a dispute with his bosses. The first season ended with Charlie getting Cliff off her back, only to be targeted by an even more powerful mobster, Beatrix Hasp (Rhea Perlman). Although Beatrix shows up early in the new season, the creators are less reliant on the ongoing subplot of Charlie’s narrow escape from danger, and that gives her adventures a more relaxed, hopeful quality.

34 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

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ON SWIFT HORSES Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones               

Josh Hartnett bring a fun level of crazy to Fight or Flight.

Plane Crazy

itself. The single location never feels limiting, though, and periodic interludes at Katherine’s clandestine headquarters allow for welcome breathers. Hartnett knows exactly what kind of movie he’s in, and he gives Lucas a sleazy charm that takes advantage of his status as a former teen idol now easing into middle age. He acquits himself admirably fighting against B-movie action mainstays like Marko Zaror, cently seen in the Brad Pitt action movie Bulwhile retaining Lucas’ unbalanced mental let Train, and director James Madigan makes state. He also never overplays the comedy, the most of it here, pitting Lucas against a even with the escalating ridiculousness, and variety of crazed adversaries, all while he is the screenplay by Brooks McLaren and D.J. at least slightly inebriated. Cotrona doesn’t rely too heavily on cutesy Lucas’ only ally is flight attendant Isha quips. “OK, sure, why the f— not?” Lucas (Charithra Chandran), whose own secret responds when presented with the latest in agenda temporarily lines up with Lucas’ a series of absurd revelations about what’s interests. Lucas and Isha make for an happening on the plane, and the movie takes appealing mismatched team in the classic the same anything-goes attitude. buddy-cop mode, while Katherine issues The occasional attempts urgent demands from at social commentary are less FIGHT OR FLIGHT successful, especially the explaher command center and Rated R deals with her frustrating nations about what led both Directed by James Madigan subordinates. The story Lucas and the Ghost to their Starring Josh Hartnett, kicks into gear once Lucas current respective positions. Charithra Chandran, Katee Sackhoff A movie like Fight or Flight and Isha lay out their true motivations to each other, doesn’t need to make meanalthough that leaves Katherine sidelined for ingful statements about global injustice or long stretches of time. corporate greed, and the efforts at sincerity Despite some entertaining (if fairly come across as disingenuous. Luckily, there’s obvious) twists, the story is really just a rarely much time for sentimentality before framework for the over-the-top action, which another deranged maniac starts attacking. includes cranial impalements by wine glass The filmmakers appear to be having so and fire-suppression sprinkler, a clarinetmuch fun with the nonstop mayhem that playing assassin with a blade hidden in they forget to craft an ending, and Fight or his instrument, and numerous deaths by Flight wraps up more like a TV pilot than a chainsaw. Madigan, a veteran visual effects feature film. Still, that’s forgivable enough artist and second-unit director making his given that another bonkers adventure for debut feature, stages inventive and economiLucas Reyes seems like a solid prospect. Let cal action almost entirely within the plane the Hartnaissance continue. n

Fight or Flight revels in appealingly absurd action BY JOSH BELL

e seem to be in a full-on Hartnaissance. It started with Josh Hartnett’s sly performance in M. Night Shyamalan’s campy thriller Trap, now continues with the goofy action comedy Fight or Flight. This time around, Hartnett throws himself (often literally) into the role of disgraced former Secret Service agent Lucas Reyes, who’s given the opportunity to return from exile when his former colleague Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff) taps him to capture an international cyberterrorist known as the Ghost on a flight from Bangkok to San Francisco. Katherine is also Lucas’ ex-girlfriend, and she only calls on him because her nebulously defined agency has lost its entire Bangkok team while tracking the Ghost. He’s the only asset close enough to make it onto the flight in time, so she rouses him from the bar where he’s day drinking and promises him a clean slate if he’ll bring her the mysterious fugitive alive. What Katherine doesn’t know right away is that the Ghost’s location has been leaked online, so the flight is also full of representatives from every corrupt government and criminal organization that the expert hacker has ever wronged, along with contract killers trying to collect the bounty on the Ghost’s head. It’s a variation on a formula most re-

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MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 35

Full Color Dream crosses the Cascades for some INW gigs. COURTESY PHOTO

INDIE ROCK

Technicolor Dream Notes Indie rock band Full Color Dream has a Bellingham soul BY SETH SOMMERFELD

ere the cities of Spokane and Bellingham to hold metaphorical hands across the Cascadian divide and stare deeply into each others’ eyes, they might whisper these words in a simultaneously hushed coo… “We’re not so different, you and I.” Sure, Spokane’s a few times bigger, but they’re more

36 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

spiritually similar than many might think. Both cities are afterthoughts behind Seattle when most outsiders think of Washington state. Both are surrounded by plenty of natural beauty. Both are known for their universities. Both also share aspects of their music identities. Each has a small collection of primary venues including an allages spot (in Bellingham: Wild Buffalo, The Shakedown

and Blue Room). And for each, hardcore punk and metal make up the most reliable local scenes. A bit of that slightly familiar Bellingham audio flavor can be tasted this week when indie rock band Full Color Dream swings through the Inland Northwest for shows at The Big Dipper and Mikey’s Gyros in Moscow. The band led by singer-songwriter Cullen Webster boasts a

big open-air, guitar-driven, slightly eclectic sound (inspired by bands like Spoon and Silversun Pickups) that’s somewhat reminiscent of deeper cut, Midwest indie-post rock bands like Pele and Aloha. And while he knows folks don’t view Bellingham as a cultural mecca, Webster finds plenty of energy to draw from his hometown scene. “Bellingham has pretty much always had a really vibrant scene,” Webster says. “We’ve got [Western Washington University] here, and so there’s a lot of young people making bands. And those bands kind of cycle through pretty quickly, like you see a lot of bands break up when the school year ends. I wouldn’t say that there’s a ton of indie rock music like we play. The younger folks seem to be really pushing hardcore music and emo revival stuff. … In terms of vibe, we tend to be on the low end of that rock stuff that’s around here. I think our newer stuff is kind of edging more into being a little more abrasive, but if you listen to some of the stuff on our records that we’ve put out there, it’s very straightforward indie/alt-rock.” Full Color Dream emerged after Webster’s previous band Fossil Fire (not to be confused with the Spokane band Fossil Fire Fossil Blood) disbanded in late 2022 with shows still on the books. So he got ahold of a bassist (Royce Nickerson Jr.), who brought in a drummer he knew, and they fleshed out some songs Webster had already written. After a host of lineup changes, Full Color Dream is now a five-piece group (with Webster as the only consistent member) that boasts two rock-solid LPs under its belt (2023’s Blooey and 2024’s Grouse) and a third self-produced album on the way (the band just dropped two new singles at the start of May: “Driving Through A Fly-Over State” and “Lessons”). While the band may call a college town home, the thirtysomethings that comprise the group are comfortable being somewhat apart from certain aspects of the scene. “The Bellingham house show scene is definitely banging, but we’ve never played a house show with Full Color Dream,” Webster says. “I mean, we’re all dudes in our early- to mid-30s, and we roll with an in-ear monitoring system. We’re more a venue band than a DIY band.”

espite being a much smaller city, Bellingham has actually birthed two massive acts that dwarf any Spokane artists since Bing Crosby — arena-headlining EDM duo Odesza and indie rock titans Death Cab for Cutie. While Full Color Dream isn’t aiming to sonically be the next Death Cab for Cutie, Webster still mentally feels the band’s presence. “I think that people here don’t necessarily have it in their heads that Death Cab is from here. Which is crazy to me, because I grew up here,” Webster says. “I will say that shadow looms large over me personally, because I’m such an enormous fan. I can’t walk past the house that they used to practice in without feeling the energy from it. And like, I moved away from Bellingham for a while, and I remember when I was leaving town listening to that song ‘Movie Script Ending,’ which is literally a song about moving out of Bellingham very specifically. That’s the kind of stuff that really sticks with me. And I wouldn’t necessarily say our music sounds much like theirs, but Ben Gibbard’s songwriting and rhythm section in general just groove so hard.” Tapping into a sense of groove is one of the

JUDGE STEVEN LEIFMAN

Full Color Dream’s Blooey and Grouse.

things that makes Grouse standout, thanks in large part to Webster’s buddy guitarist Ian Stephens joining the group. “[Grouse] was the first album that we did with Ian, who’s really a creative partner for me, on guitar,” Webster explains. “Neither of us really play lead or rhythm. We just kind of like find our spots and sort of groove around each other. And that’s something that really keeps that album alive for me — just the fluidity that we have, and how locked in we are together as players, because we’re such close friends and collaborators.” The latest Full Color Dream also finds Webster’s songwriting somewhat mirroring the spirit of his city. Like Bellingham itself, it eschews adornment and pageantry in order to focus on the basics. “I think lyrically with Grouse, I really tried to be more plain-spoken. Hide less behind metaphors and kind of poetry, and just say things as I would say them normally,” Webster says. “I really think if you’re a songwriter, it’s hard to just say how you feel.” n Full Color Dream, Hermano Kuya, Killmer, When She Dreams • Thu, May 8 at 7:30 pm • $15 • All ages • The Big Dipper • 171 S. Washington St. • thebigdipperspokane.com Full Color Dream, Killmer, Thimastr • Fri, May 9 at 8 pm • $10 • All ages • Mikey’s Gyros • 527 S. Main St., Moscow • mikeysgyros.com

MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 37

MUSIC | SOUND ADVICE

ELECTRONIC XTR HUMAN

lectronic music fans are not a monolith. While the modern stereotype might be perky, neon-clad outdoor EDM festivalgoers, there’s still space for those who’d much rather escape the sunshine and embrace the shadowy grimness of industrial music at an underground rave. XTR Human (Johannes Stabel) is for those in the latter category. The German purveyor of EBM (electronic body music, an offshoot of industrial, dance and synth-punk) brings a gothic grittiness to the dance floor. XTR Human’s 2024 album Schrank showcases his knack for blending heavy bass and brutalist vocals to create a delectably dark dance party. Ditch the flower crowns for your finest black wardrobe when XTR Human descends to The Chameleon’s Jaguar Room for the rare all-ages rave. — SETH SOMMERFELD XTR Human, Static Ghost, Ex-Heir • Fri, May 9 at 8 pm • $15-$20 • All ages • Jaguar Room at The Chameleon • 1801 W. Sunset Blvd • chameleonspokane.com

J = THE INLANDER RECOMMENDS THIS SHOW J = ALL AGES SHOW

Thursday, 5/8

COUNTRY MAGGIE BAUGH

J J THE BIG DIPPER, Full Color Dream, Hermano Kuya, Killmer, When She Dreams THE CHAMELEON, Ashley Young, Tristan Hart Pierce, Heart Machine J COEUR D’ALENE CASINO, Karla Perez as Selena GARLAND DRINKERY, Speak Easy: Open Mic Night J JAGUAR ROOM (CHAMELEON), Forest Stoke, Landon Spencer, The Holy Broke J QQ SUSHI & KITCHEN, Just Plain Darin RED ROOM LOUNGE, Thurrsdays EDM Night ZOLA, X24, TDC (Acoustic)

Friday, 5/9

AK ASIAN RESTAURANT, Nate Ostrander THE BEE’S KNEES WHISKEY BAR, Justyn Priest J THE BIG DIPPER, Blacktracks, Spooky, Bad Trip Motel, Index BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, Agents of Rock CHINOOK STEAK, SEAFOOD & PASTA, Cris Lucas J CONNIE’S CAFE, Just Plain Darin J THE GRAIN SHED, Haywire GREEN CITY SALOON, DJ KJ IRON HORSE (CDA), Pastiche J J JAGUAR ROOM (CHAMELEON), XTR Human, Static Ghost, Ex-Heir JEREMIAH JOHNSON BREWING CO., Son of Brad

38 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

ou might not recognize the name yet, but there’s a decent chance country fans have seen Maggie Baugh wowing national audiences. The singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist spent 2024 as a utility player (banjo, violin, guitar, etc.) for Keith Urban, flanking the country megastar during performances on the CMT Awards and The Tonight Show. But Baugh is certainly worthy of a spotlight all her own, boasting melancholy country ballad singles like “Think About Me” and “Drinking to the Broken Hearts” that have amassed over a million streams on Spotify. Catch Baugh’s rising polymath in the intimate confines of Hamilton Studio before her talents take her to much bigger stages. — SETH SOMMERFELD Maggie Baugh • Thu, May 15 at 7 pm • $40 • All ages • Hamilton Studio • 1427 W. Dean Ave. • hamilton.live

J J MIKEY’S GYROS, Full Color Dream, Kilmer, Thimastr MOOSE LOUNGE, The Real McCoy NIGHT OWL, Four On The Floor Fridays J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Ponderay Paradox RED ROOM LOUNGE, Masquerade Dance Party: Nazeke Nerve, DJ Donuts, Saratonix, Trizzle THE GOODY BAR AND GRILL, Midnight Open Mic TRVST, KosMos The Afronaut ZOLA, Brittany’s House, Rōnin

Saturday, 5/10

J THE BIG DIPPER, Deceased, Xingaia, Reaping Fields, Big Knife BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, Agents of Rock

THE CHAMELEON, Klypi, Iron Chain, Joaquin, Taylor Roff, Drew Mitchell J CUTTER THEATRE, Paper Flowers: Tribute to Fleetwood Mac THE DISTRICT BAR, Whitey Morgan (Acoustic) J EAGLES ICE-A-RENA, Slap Shot IRON HORSE (CDA), Pastiche MOOSE LOUNGE, The Real McCoy J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Ben Vogel RED ROOM LOUNGE, Young Neves, Kosha, Sugah Spooks, Streetlight, Mob Lil G THE RIDLER, Just Plain Darin THE GOODY BAR AND GRILL, Midnight Open Mic

TRVST, SAV ZOLA, Blake Braley, Zack Pass

ZOLA, The Zola All Star Jam, Shawnna Nicholson

Sunday, 5/11

Wednesday, 5/14

BIG BARN BREWING CO., Dylan Hathaway THE DISTRICT BAR, I Speak Machine, Iron Chain TRVST, TRVST 1 Year Anniversary Open Decks Legends: Based Fiasco, Jersey, DJ Motty, Saratonix

Monday, 5/12

J THE BIG DIPPER, Unearth, Tomb Ripper, Dead Low RED ROOM LOUNGE, Red Room Open Mic ZOLA, Nate Stratte

Tuesday, 5/13

SWING LOUNGE, Swing Lounge Live Music Tuesdays

J THE BIG DIPPER, fish narc, GAG, Psychic Death THE DRAFT ZONE, The Draft Zone Open Mic RED ROOM LOUNGE, Red Room Jam J THE COVE, Songs and Stories J TIMBERS ROADHOUSE, Cary Beare Presents TRVST, The TRVST Open Decks ZOLA, Akifumi Kato, Jenna Bucsko

Just Announced... J THE BIG DIPPER, Planet of the Little Green Men, June 9. THE CHAMELEON, Eulogy of Giants, June 14.

MUSIC | VENUES J KNITTING FACTORY, The Sword, Aug. 22. J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley & Stephen Marley, Aug. 26. J KNITTING FACTORY, Matisyahu, Aug. 28. J J KNITTING FACTORY, Alestorm, Sept. 20. J KNITTING FACTORY, Bunt., Oct. 7. J THE PODIUM, Russell Dickerson, Oct. 14. J SPOKANE ARENA, Eric Church, Oct. 25. J THE PODIUM, Kevin Gates, Nov. 15. J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Geoff Tate, Nov. 20.

Coming Up...

J J HAMILTON STUDIO, Maggie Baugh, May 15, 6 pm. THE CHAMELEON, Glitterfox, The Bed Heads, Lucas Brookbank Brown, May 15, 8 pm. MIKEY’S GYROS, Giant Palouse Earthworm, May 15, 8 pm. J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Brian Jacobs, May 16, 5-8 pm. ZOLA, Randi Marie Shaw, May 16, 5:30 pm. CHINOOK STEAK, SEAFOOD & PASTA, Riley Anderson, May 16 & 17, 6 pm. J HAMILTON STUDIO, Jared Hall Quintet, May 16, 7 pm. MOOSE LOUNGE (NORTH), Agents of Rock, May 16 & 17, 7 pm. J THE BIG DIPPER, Hayes Noble, Prim, Jumbotron, May 16, 7:30 pm. THE DISTRICT BAR, DJ Trizzle, May 16, 8 pm. J J KNITTING FACTORY, The Dip, May 16, 8 pm. J SPOKANE TRIBE CASINO, 24k Magic, May 16, 8 pm. BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, Sonic Groove, May 16 & 17, 8:30 pm. IRON HORSE (CDA), Hasenpfeffer, May 16 & 17, 8:30 pm. MOOSE LOUNGE, Loose Gazoonz, May 16 & 17, 8:30 pm. THE BARREL BAR & GRILL, Pastiche, May 16 & 17, 8:30 pm. THE CHAMELEON, Pigeon John, Awol One, May 16, 9 pm. NYNE BAR & BISTRO, Beardz II Men, May 16, 9 pm. ZOLA, Royale, May 16, 9-11:55 pm. J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, The Cole Show, May 17, 5-8 pm. J JAGUAR ROOM (CHAMELEON), The Writer’s Room: Sky Dornbirer, Hannah Boundy, Jonathan Turnick, Anne McCaslin, Jessica Martin, May 17, 6 pm. J THE BIG DIPPER, OVRLK, Remember Me When,

The Pink Socks, Past Life Kenny, May 17, 7:30 pm. BING CROSBY THEATER, Taken by the Sky, May 17, 7:30 pm. THE CHAMELEON, Toni Romiti, May 17, 8 pm. ZOLA, Jerry Lee Raines, May 17, 9 pm. J SPOKANE FALLS COMMUNITY COLLEGE, Masters of Brass XXIV, May 18, 3-4 pm. J THE BIG DIPPER, Icarus, Atomsk, Solace, Love Brunch, May 18, 7:30 pm. J KNITTING FACTORY, Seether, P.O.D., Nonpoint, May 20, 8 pm. CENTRAL LIBRARY, Open Mic Night: Come Be Heard!, May 21, 3:30-5 pm. PACIFIC AVE PIZZA, Square Wave Wednesday, May 21, 7-11 pm. J FIRST INTERSTATE CENTER, Diana Krall, May 21, 8 pm. J JAGUAR ROOM (CHAMELEON), Nightlife, May 21, 8 pm. THE DISTRICT BAR, Ward Davis, May 21, 9 pm. J J ONE SPOKANE STADIUM, Outlaw Music Festival: Willie Nelson & Family, Bob Dylan, Billy Strings, Sierra Hull, Lily Meola, May 22, 4-11 pm. BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, Theresa Edwards Band, May 22, 6:30 pm. J THE BIG DIPPER, Satsang (solo), May 22, 7:30 pm. J J MIKEY’S GYROS, Punk Palouse Fest, May 23 & 24. J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Pamela Benton, May 23, 5-8 pm. ZOLA, Hot Club of Spokane, May 23, 5:30-7:30 pm. CHINOOK STEAK, SEAFOOD & PASTA, Just Plain Darin, May 23 & May 24, 6 pm. J THE BIG DIPPER, Angelmaker, False Visions, The Night We Died, May 23, 7 pm. THE DISTRICT BAR, Phoneboy, INOHA, May 23, 7 pm. SPOKANE EAGLES LODGE, Over Easy Duo, May 23, 7-10 pm. THE BARREL BAR & GRILL, Sonic Groove, May 23, 7 pm. J KNITTING FACTORY, Geneva, Snacks At Midnight, Shady Angels, Fall of the Conscience, May 23, 7:30 pm. THE CHAMELEON, The Chilling Alpine Adventure, Helmer Noel, Raj Saint Paul, May 23, 8 pm. BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, Fire From Ashes, May 23 & 24, 8:30 pm. IRON HORSE (CDA), Bruiser, May 23 & 24, 8:30 pm. MOOSE LOUNGE, Laketown Sound, May 23 & 24, 8:30 pm. ZOLA, The Night Mayors, May 23, 9 pm.

219 LOUNGE • 219 N. First Ave., Sandpoint • 208-263-5673 ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS • 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd., Spokane Valley • 509-927-9463 BARRISTER WINERY • 1213 W. Railroad Ave. • 509-465-3591 BEE’S KNEES WHISKY BAR • 1324 W. Lancaster Rd.., Hayden • 208-758-0558 BERSERK • 125 S. Stevens St. • 509-315-5101 THE BIG DIPPER • 171 S. Washington St. • 509-863-8098 BIGFOOT PUB • 9115 N. Division St. • 509-467-9638 BING CROSBY THEATER • 901 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-227-7638 BOLO’S BAR & GRILL • 116 S. Best Rd., Spokane Valley • 509-891-8995 BUCER’S COFFEEHOUSE PUB • 201 S. Main St., Moscow • 208-596-0887 THE BULL HEAD • 10211 S. Electric St., Four Lakes • 509-838-9717 CHAN’S RED DRAGON • 1406 W. Third Ave. • 509-838-6688 THE CHAMELEON • 1801 W. Sunset Blvd. COEUR D’ALENE CASINO • 37914 S. Nukwalqw St., Worley • 800-523-2464 COEUR D’ALENE CELLARS • 3890 N. Schreiber Way, Coeur d’Alene • 208-664-2336 CRUISERS BAR & GRILL • 6105 W Seltice Way, Post Falls • 208-446-7154 THE DISTRICT BAR • 916 W. 1st Ave. • 509-244-3279 EICHARDT’S PUB • 212 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208-263-4005 FIRST INTERSTATE CENTER FOR THE ARTS • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • 509-279-7000 FOX THEATER • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-624-1200 GARDEN PARTY • 107 S. Madison St. • 509-389-5009 THE GRAIN SHED • 1026 E. Newark Ave. • 509-241-3853 HAMILTON STUDIO • 1427 W. Dean Ave.. • 509-327-9501 IRON HORSE (CDA) • 407 E. Sherman, Coeur d’Alene • 208-667-7314 IRON HORSE (VALLEY) • 11105 E. Sprague Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-926-8411 JOHN’S ALLEY • 114 E. Sixth St., Moscow • 208-883-7662 KENWORTHY PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE • 508 S. Main St., Moscow • 208-882-4127 KNITTING FACTORY • 911 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-244-3279 MARYHILL WINERY • 1303 W. Summit Pkwy. • 509-443-3832 MIKEY’S GYROS • 527 S. Main St., Moscow • 208-882-0780 MILLIE’S • 28441 Hwy 57, Priest Lake • 208-443-0510 MOOSE LOUNGE • 401 E. Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene • 208-664-7901 MOOSE LOUNGE NORTH • 10325 N. Government Wy, Hayden • 208-518-1145 NASHVILLE NORTH • 6361 W. Seltice Way, Post Falls • 208-457-9128 NEATO BURRITO • 827 W. First Ave. • 509-847-1234 NITE OWL • 223 N. Division St., 509-309-2183 NORTHERN QUEST RESORT & CASINO • 100 N. Hayford Rd., Airway Heights • 877-871-6772 NYNE BAR & BISTRO • 232 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-474-1621 PACIFIC PIZZA • 2001 W. Paciﬁc Ave • 509-440-5467 PANIDA THEATER • 300 N First Ave., Sandpoint • 208-263-9191 PEND D’OREILLE WINERY • 301 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208-265-8545 POST FALLS BREWING CO. • 112 N. Spokane St., Post Falls • 208-773-7301 RED ROOM LOUNGE • 521 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-838-7613 THE RIDLER PIANO BAR • 718 W. Riverside Ave. • 509-822-7938 SEASONS OF COEUR D’ALENE • 1004 S. Perry St. • 208-664-8008 SPOKANE ARENA • 720 W. Mallon Ave. • 509-279-7000 SPOKANE TRIBE RESORT & CASINO • 14300 US-2, Airway Heights • 877-786-9467 TRVST • 120 N. Wall St. ZOLA • 22 W. Main Ave. • 509-624-2416

Spokane String Quartet

u n e M the

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MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 39

COMMUNITY MOTHER KNOWS BEST

Much like the mothers and mother figures in our lives, Spokane is brimming with beauty and knowledge at every turn. Each year on Mother’s Day weekend, the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture hosts a home tour in one of Spokane’s many historic neighborhoods, showcasing the unique architecture that resides there. This year, the tour takes attendees to the tree-lined streets of the historic Millwood district to discover the charming French, Mediterranean and European cottageinspired homes. Along with the walking tour, head to Hutton Settlement (above) to hear stories about the neighborhood’s history, see Model Ts and spend some quality time with your mom while you’re at it. — MADISON PEARSON Mother’s Day Home Tour • Sat, May 10 and Sun, May 11 from noon-4 pm • $15-$30 • Downtown Millwood • Map provided with ticket purchase • northwestmuseum.org

40 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

WORDS MEMOIR MOMENT

OUTDOORS KIND OF A BIG DILL

In honor of Asian American Heritage Month, Spokane’s nonprofit Asians for Collective Liberation hosts South Vietnamese-born American author Viet Thanh Nguyen at Spokane’s Central Library. Nguyen is known for his 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer and a collection of other acclaimed novels that dive into the Vietnamese diaspora and Asian American experience. At this event, Nguyen dives into his new memoir, To Save and To Destroy: Writing as an Other, in which he examines what it’s like to be an outsider through literary, historical, political and familial points of view. The event will also be livestreamed for those unable to make it to Nguyen’s talk on Thursday. — COLTON RASANEN

The goal of the Spokane Garden Expo is to enable plant lovers to spring into the gardening season with everything they might need to make their garden beautiful and lively. This Saturday, organizations within the region’s gardening community host the 24th annual Garden Expo with the aim of doing just that. The annual event features over 250 booths offering a variety of garden and plant-related items, from garden art and wind chimes to various planters and garden growing products. For those who love to grow plants — or for those who love the idea of growing plants but don’t necessarily have a green thumb — this expo is a great place for the Spokane gardening community to grow together. — HANNAH HIGENS

An Evening with Viet Thanh Nguyen • Thu, May 8 at 6:30 pm • Free • Central Library • 906 W. Main Ave. • aclspokane.org

Spokane Garden Expo • Sat, May 10 from 9 am-5 pm • Spokane Community College • 1810 N. Greene. • spokanegardenexpo.com

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WORDS THE COST OF FREEDOM

Set in the rugged landscape of Washington state’s high desert, local author Jeffrey Dunn’s newest book is a story about identity, friendship and freedom. Whiskey Rebel centers around Iraq War veteran Punxie Tawney who teams up with fellow drifter Hamilton Chance to pursue Chance’s desire to fulfill his ancestor’s dream: distilling a tax-free whiskey. On their journey across central Washington, the two met a crew of characters battling their problems, each teaching them a lesson. Join Dunn for a reading from Whiskey Rebel as well as a discussion of history and the challenges of finding true freedom at this event hosted by Auntie’s. — MADISON PEARSON Jeffrey Dunn: Whiskey Rebel • Fri, May 9 at 6 pm • Free • Auntie’s Bookstore • 402 W. Main Ave. • auntiesbooks.com

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Crowdwork has become all the rage over the past couple of years in the stand-up comedy scene. Here’s the thing — most of it is incredibly mediocre and done by lazy comics who aren’t sharp enough to actually write good jokes. Thankfully, that’s certainly not the case with Gary Gulman. The veteran comedian and author knows the value of honing a joke until it’s a carefully worded, expertly timed comedic gemstone. He’s got some essentially perfect jokes in his arsenal (his bit about abbreviating states is a modern classic riff) and also knows how to connect with an audience on a personal level with hilarious yarns about everything from awkward observations to mental health struggles. In a world of dudes just winging it on stage, Gulman is a craftsman comedian. — SETH SOMMERFELD

Fix & Flip Call Now (509)926-1755 www.pmcmoney.com

Gary Gulman • Thu, May 15 at 7:30 pm • $56 • Bing Crosby Theater • 901 W. Sprague Ave. • bingcrosbytheater.com

MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 41

your friend. We are a few of many amongst you. Reach out. Let people “hate” on you for your beliefs and positions. They are not worthy of the panic and chaos your “friend” wants to fuel. Leave it in your past with the good times to carry you forward to even better. You...will be just fine. You ARE just fine. You’ve “got this.” Haters gonna Hate. Don’t spend time “there.” Spring. Renewal.

CHEERS SPOCAN LOVE Kudos to our warm Spokane audience who turned out and demonstrated gratitude and love for Bruce Cockburn at the Bing Monday night 4/28. BC is 80 now! He walked on stage severely bent over, with two canes. White hair and long beard... After he settled in and said thank you - he gave one of the most memorable, prophetic, and heartwarming concerts I’ve ever attended. His guitar work and voice were as beautiful as ever and he still has a message we need to hear. SIGNED, SEALED, DELIGHTFUL Cheers to the USPS employees at the Rowan location. Every time I walk in, it feels less like a chore and more like stepping into a fun little adventure. Immaculate vibes — always friendly, upbeat, and ready to help. Thanks for making the process of sending mail as fun as it should be. Keep being awesome. You’ve got fans out here. DAVID’S PIZZA SATURDAY This place is the best. Thank you to the server who waited on us while we waited for our pizza. You are awesome and you deserve a raise. You are perfect at your job, and we appreciated it. Thank you for making our experience a memorable one. Peace! STAY THE COURSE Be assured, it’s good you got ditched by your “friend.” Probably one who claims to “live and let live.” (Only applicable to them.) Your “value” to them no longer pays dividends. You aren’t “supply.” There are billions of lovely people on the planet who would be honored to be

SPOKESMAN-REVIEW Cheers to the dedicated reporters at the SpokesmanReview. I do appreciate the honest reporting and the balanced approach in your well written articles. I also appreciate the humor in your replies to the incessant FaceBook trolls who jump at any opportunity to claim biased reporting. Especially when you publish a factual article on the insanity of the current Republican (Trumpiblican) Party. Keep up the great work and the humor when responding to the trolls.

JEERS PLASTIC BAG BAN Since Washington state instituted a “plastic bag ban” in 2021, at least one study has shown that there is no difference in the amount of plastic discarded before the ban and since the ban. This is thought to be due to several different reasons. One of these is that people are continuing to discard the newer heavier bags just as they did the previous “single use” bags. Another reason is that the plastic is thicker and therefore creates more waste than the previous bags. So, starting in January, the bag thickness will increase again, and the price will go up from 8 cents to 12 cents in an attempt to reduce the amount of waste that is generated by plastic bags. Good job Washington State Legislature! You can’t balance a budget, but at least you got the plastic bag problem solved. CUT DOWN THE BRADFORD PEARS Now that those disgusting white trees have the audacity to bloom again, we all have to suffer. There is nothing worse than the olfactory assault that occurs every time you try to go outside when those white flowers blossom. I can only imagine the conversation city planners had. “These trees are trying to attract flies with the smell of rotting meat, let’s put them on every street in the city!” Were they born without a nose? Without a conscious? When I think of all the hard work put into making Sprague beautiful and safe to walk along, only to be completely wasted by these malodorous monstrosities it makes me almost as sick to my stomach as the fetid stench of the

trees themselves. Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina have already woken up to make these invasive, cheap, and gross trees illegal, and it’s time Spokane followed suit. Cut down every one and put a real tree in its spot. Cheap is a bad look, and a worse smell.

in the area, SPD is to busy worrying about who is stealing from Walmart, instead of patrolling the neighborhood. WRONG CHOICE WSU President Elizabeth Cantwell decided to not join over 550 colleges and universities in a letter to Trump encouraging him to back off on “the unprecedented governmental overreach

RE: CAR TABS BREAKING: Spokane teeters on the brink of collapse… not from crime,

“

be a treat!” // Now my disabled spouse gets to stumble in the street. // Did taxpayer dollars fund that safe, elevated walk? // Now it looms empty, secured with a lock. // I’m sure the store has reasons for all they had to do. // But isn’t it really just because a homeless person might walk through? RE: CAR TABS You made some good points. The meager fine for outdated tabs is almost the cost of buying them. With nearly non-existent street patrols, why would struggling people comply? We’re all suffering the soaring inflation. Why not make tabs cost WAY lower and the fine for not buying them WAY higher? Help being a law abiding citizen more cost effective. There’s a wealth of drivers with expired tabs, broken equipment, breaking speeding and other laws, stolen vehicles, transporting who knows what. Easy marks, we all see them everyday, continuing more prevalent. Squeezing revenue for our roads from these scofflaws may be difficult (or pointless) but for all the folks trying to do the right thing, it would be nice to believe the city has our backs and is trying also.

”

Immaculate vibes — always friendly, upbeat, and ready to help. and political interference now endangering American higher education.” President Cantwell needs to learn that WSU is in Washington State. WSU is not in Idaho. Less than 30 days on the job and you make a big blunder. Don’t let the door hit you in the rear on your way out.

poverty, or rising rent—but from expired car tabs. Thankfully, we have a self-appointed squad of basement-dwelling badge fantasizers ready to slap the “LOSER” label on anyone who didn’t cough up $$$ to fund the DMV’s toner budget. Because nothing screams “community leadership” like weaponizing traffic bureaucracy against people who might be—brace yourself—busy surviving real life. But please, do tell us more about how your moral compass points due sticker. Spoiler alert: Shouting “law and order!” at Becky’s 2009 Ford Focus with expired tags doesn’t make you a hero—it makes you a hall monitor with delusions of grandeur. Pro tip: If your idea of civic duty is shaming working-class people over registration fees, you’re not a law-abiding patriot—you’re just cosplaying authority because your HOA won’t give you real power. Go take your complaints to the City Council. Meanwhile, “losers” like me will keep driving on. THX

I DON’T CARE I don’t care that you are a single parent, you can barely afford to feed your kids and keep your lights on. I don’t care that you’re on a fixed income, just got diagnosed with cancer, and can barely afford your meds. If you can’t afford to renew your tabs you are a LOSER. May God have mercy on your pathetic soul. “THESE WALKS ARE NOT ABOUT OUTREACH.” Re: Gavin Cooley’s column. “These walks aren’t about outreach,” says Gavin Cooley. What does this mean? *** When Gavin and his posse finish their walk, they will go to a warm restaurant, where they will enjoy breakfast. Gavin and his posse will not pay for their breakfast. Gavin, it seems, is worthy of a free cup of hot coffee after he’s out looking at people on the streets in the cold dawn hours. The people Gavin and his posse look at on the street? They are not worthy of a free cup of hot coffee from Gavin while he is out looking at them in the cold dawn hours. *** It means that, for Gavin Cooley, hospitality is transactional. It means Gavin Cooley is the wrong man for a leadership role as Spokane is trying to learn to think and, thus, live hospitably with each other in this community which belongs either to none of us or it belongs to all of us.

RE: TESLA HATER I see your finger and raise you a duel. Your taste in vulgarity: ironic; your derangement syndrome: spoon fed. You’re as edgy as a pair of rusty scissors: tetanus. They’ve fleeced you of your mind and you’re rolling out the agitprop. HOMELESS SHELTER So here we go again, city putting another shelter in the North Central-Emerson Garfield area, without a warning to the people of the area, and as for this church, are they getting a tax break or is the city paying them? Was this the only church in the area to give in to the city? The mayor says she wants to have shelters scattered around the city, what about the South Hill, Five Mile, Indian Trail, Kendall Yards or the Mayor neighborhood which should have been first, to have shelters our area already have homeless problems

TO THE FANCY STORE DOWNTOWN Jeers to the fancy store downtown. // That locked the skywalk to the library and made us all frown. // “Move downtown!” They said, “It’ll

SOUND OFF 1. Visit Inlander.com/isawyou by 3 pm Monday. 2. Pick a category (I Saw You, You Saw Me, Cheers or Jeers). 3.

CHEERS AND JEERS BLOOMSDAY Cheers to the organizers of Bloomsday 2025 who once again pulled off a great event. Jeers to the people who can’t follow directions and make it hazardous for others on the course. The directions for which side of the road to walk is clear for anyone who can follow directions. For those of you who come to a complete stop in the middle of the street to do something with your phone, do you ever think about anyone around you or are they just supposed to avoid colliding with you? For those non-runners or non-walkers who used Bloomsday to protest on the sidelines instead of cheering on runners, good job! I heard the president gets notified by his closest advisers whenever people protest him at Bloomsday. Where is Spokane, again? n

THIS WEEK'S ANSWERS C S P A N R H O C R A N E L A S E R O P E N O C E A N Q U A D R U P L E V I S I O N P O E A M P A R C S U S E L F S C U B P H O P A U V A L S E E P O C T U P L E E N T E N D R E L E A P A R E D L E E D S S E X D E C U P L E C R O S S A D S J O E O L A Y N O N A P E J E T F I T S I R P E C S A S H D U O T R I G I N T U P L E U E G G S L I C E R A N N I E T S A E T O N S B O A R D

NOTE: I Saw You/Cheers & Jeers is for adults 18 or older. The Inlander reserves the right to edit or reject any posting at any time at its sole discretion and assumes no responsibility for the content.

Provide basic info: your name and email (so we know you’re real). 4. To connect via I Saw You, provide a non-identifying email to be included with your submission — like “petals327@yahoo.com,” not “j.smith@comcast.net.”

Fireworks & Family Feast vs.

Friday May 9th 6:35PM Military & Veteran Appreciation FIreworks Night

Saturday May 10th 6:35PM

Honoring all active-duty service men and women of our United States Armed Forces, veterans, and support organizations.

All hot dogs, Pepsi products, and ice cream sandwiches are only $2.00 all night long. Stick around for postgame fireworks.

Presented by:

For Tickets: 42 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

Rosauers Family Feast & Fireworks Night

Presented by:

Games 5/8 Through 5/11

FREE PARKING

EVENTS | CALENDAR

BENEFIT

STAGE LIGHTS FOR OUR PLACE A fundraiser for Our Place Spokane featuring a social hour, appetizers, silent auctions and more. May 8, 6-8:30 pm. $40. Salem Lutheran Church, 1428 W. Broadway Ave. ourplacespokane.org WEST CENTRAL ABBEY BENEFIT CONCERT A benefit concert to raise money for the restoration of the West Central Abbey’s historic chapel. Performances by Betsy Rogue, Karli Fairbanks and poet Mery Smith. May 9, 7-9 pm. $20. West Central Abbey, 1832 W. Dean Ave. westcentralabbey.org ELEVATIONS CHARITY GOLF CLASSIC A shotgun start golf tournament at Wandermere Golf Course benefitting Elevations Spokane through raffles and more. May 10, 11:30 am-noon. $150. Wandermere Golf Course, 13700 N. Wandermere. elevationsspokane.org HEROES GARDEN PLANT SALE Locally grown flowers and veggie sale with proceeds benefitting the Heroes Garden, a therapy garden for veterans and Gold Star families. May 10, 9 am-5 pm and May 11, 9 am-1 pm. Five Mile Grange, 3024 W. Strong Rd. facebook. com/HeroesGarden (509-990-4558) WOOFS & WHISKERS An evening of fundraising for SpokAnimal features food, exciting auctions hosted by our KREM and heartwarming stories—all to support local pets in need. May 16, 5:30-8:30 pm. $100. Felts Field, 6105 E. Rutter Rd. spokanimal.org

COMEDY

LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER An annual storytelling giving voice to motherhood in all of its complexity, diversity and humor. May 11, 7-10 pm. $35. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague Ave. bingcrosbytheater.com (509-227-7638) SASHAY & SLAY: THE HAPPY HOUR DRAG SHOW This month’s show features Snatch Game, a game popularized on Ru Paul’s Drag Race in which queens impersonate a celebrity. May 11, 3 pm. $15-$21. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com TANYALEE DAVIS Tanyalee Davis is currently the Guinness Book of World Records holder for the shortest comedian and has over 3.2 million followers on TikTok. May 11, 7 pm. $20-$25. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com (509-318-9998) NEW TALENT TUESDAYS Watch comedians of all skill levels work out jokes together. Tuesdays at 7 pm (doors at 6 pm). Free. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com/ GARY GULMAN: MISFIT STAND-UP TOUR Gary Gulman has spent 25 years as a celebrated comedian and writer. Known for The Great Depresh and Born on 3rd Base, he also authored the memoir Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the ’80s. May 15, 7:30-9:30 pm. $48-$71. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague Ave. bingcrosbytheater.com JOSH BLUE Following his groundbreaking win on NBC’s Last Comic Standing in 2006, Josh Blue has risen through the ranks to become a well-established headliner at venues throughout the world. May 15-17; Thu-Sat at 7 pm, FriSat at 9:45 pm. $25-$35. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com (509-318-9998)

COMMUNITY

BITCH ‘N’ STITCH Grab your crochet, knitting, embroidery, weaving, cross stitch, felting, looming, macrame, friendship bracelets and craft casually in the company of others. Every second and last Thursday at 6:30 pm. Free. Lunarium, 1925 N. Monroe St. facebook. com/Lunarium.Spokane FIRE: REBIRTH AND RESILIENCE An exhibition exploring the catastrophic 1889 fire that destroyed more of Spokane’s downtown core. The exhibit features information on historic and contemporary fires, illustrating how destruction is a catalyst for rebirth and resilience. Tue-Sun from 11 am-5 pm. through Sep. 28. $9-$15. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org MOTHER’S DAY FLORAL WORKSHOP Join Jen, the head floral designer at My Fresh Basket and learn flower arranging techniques while you create a oneof-a-kind bouquet for your mom, All supplies, flowers and on glass of wine included in ticket price. Email to RSVP. May 8, 5:30-7 pm. $65. My Fresh Basket, 1030 W. Summit Pkwy. myfreshspokane.com (509-558-2100) SAMURAI, SUNRISE, SUNSET Step into the world of a samurai and experience armor, weaponry and personal items from the powerful military class that ruled Japan for nearly 700 years. Each item tells a story through its master craftsmanship and individual details. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through June 1. $9-$15. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931) ASIAN NATIVE HAWAIIAN PACIFIC ISLANDER HERITAGE FESTIVAL A twoday celebration of ANHPI heritage in the Spokane area featuring a family fun fair, Asian cooking demonstrations and samples, cultural exhibits, traditional performances and more. May 9-10; Fri from 1-6 pm, Sat from 10 am-7:30 pm. Free. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. spokaneunitedwestand.org VIETNAM VETERANS EXHIBITION An exhibit of historical photos and information honoring Vietnam veterans. May 9-10, daily from 10 am-7 pm. free. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. freevietnews.com (509-899-5058) GRAD BASH Celebrate the end of the school year with great brews, tasty food trucks, lawn games and live music from DJ Hutch. May 9, 7-10 pm. Free. Brick West Brewing Co., 1318 W. First Ave. brickwestbrewingco.com THE WAVY BUNCH NIGHT MARKET & STREET FAIR A night market and street fair featuring vendors, live music, art installations, a beer garden and more. May 9-Oct. 10, second Friday of each month from 5-9 pm. $3. Catalyst Building, 601 E. Riverside Ave. thewavybunch.com (509-828-1393) HAYDEN KITE FESTIVAL Fly your homemade or store-bought kites in the park and win awards like best flyer, crash and burn and more. May 10, 122:30 pm. Free. Broadmoore Park, 2691 W. Broadmoore Dr. cityofhaydenid.us. JUNIOR LILAC PARADE Spokane’s historic middle school and parade. Marching bands, drill units, youth organizations and other clubs perform while walking the streets of downtown. May 10, 10:30 am. Free. Downtown Spokane. spokanelilacfesstival.org

MOTHER’S DAY HOME TOUR An exclusive look at Spokane’s historic homes and buildings, highlighting the historic Millwood district this year. May 10& 11, 12-4 pm. $15-$30. Downtown Millwood. northwestmuseum.org NEWPORT REN FAIRE An annual renaissance faire with traditional food, performances and activities. May 10, 10 am-5 pm. Free. Newport Rodeo Grounds, 1101 W. First St. pocld.org NORTH MONROE SHOP HOP Pick up a postcard at any of the participating locations, get a stamp at each shop and head to the next. At the last stop, drop off your completed postcard for your chance to win a prize basket from one of the four locations. May 10, 10 am-5 pm. Free. Paint In My Hair, 2711 N. Monroe St. facebook.com/paintinmyhair LAMP FOR THE PATH Geshe Gendun Samdup, a Dharma teacher, will teach twice daily on Jowo Atisha’s “Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment,” a short text outlining the practices that lead to full awakening. May 13-17. May 12-17. By donation. Sravasti Abbey, 692 Country Lane. sravastiabbey.org DROP IN & ZINE Drop in and learn how to make your very own eight-page mini-zine using a single piece of paper and Spark’s art supplies. Every Tuesday from 5-7 pm. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. spark-central.org GAME ON! Play a variety of local multiplayer video games with other middle and high school students. May 13, 4-5:30 pm. Free. South Hill Library, 3324 S. Perry St. .spokanelibrary.org LIVE EDGE WOOD WORKSHOP A three-day workshop in which attendees will select, prep, shape, mount and finish a piece of live edge wood. May 13, 20 & 27 at 6 pm. $50. The VetsGarage, 224 E. Pacific Ave. vetsgaragewa.com ARTISAN GUILD SIX-MONTH ANNIVERSARY Check out goods and art from local artisans. Also features raffles, snacks and a free D&D session. May 15, 10 am-7 pm. Free. The Artisans Guild, 4727 N. Division St. facebook.com/ TheArtisansGuild01 (509-808-2694) WORM COMPOSTING FOR KIDS Make your own miniature worm compost farm while learning about the biology of decomposition. Participants are expected to get their hands dirty and will leave with live worms of their own. Registration is recommended. May 15, 4-5 pm. Free. Hillyard Library, 4110 N. Cook St. spokanelibrary.org WELLNESS AND BEAUTY EXPO A wellness and beauty expo featuring onsite beauty services, live music, fashion shows and more. May 16-17, 10 am-6 pm and May 18, 10 am-4 pm. $5-$12. Spokane County Fair & Expo Center, 404 N. Havana. WellnessandBeautyExpo.com ARMED FORCES TORCHLIGHT PARADE The annual evening parade through downtown Spokane features more than 300 entries, including floats, military groups, marching bands and more. May 17, 7:30 pm. Free. Downtown Spokane. spokanelilacfestival.org

FILM

BATMAN FOREVER Batman must battle former district attorney Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face, and The Riddler with help from his sidekick, Robin. May 8, 7-9 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org (208-882-4127)

SCAN HERE TO LEARN MORE!

A TALK ON CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

A SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION: THE QUEST TO EXPERIENCE GOD Beyond denominations and doctrines, understanding yourself and your relationship with God dissolves loneliness, brings fulfilling connections, and gives meaning and purpose to your life.

By Giulia Nesi Tetreau, CSB Tuesday May 13 at 7:00pm CenterPlace Regional Event Center 2426 N. Discovery Place Spokane Valley, WA SCAN FOR MORE INFO 

MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 43

EVENTS | CALENDAR MATTER OF MIND: MY ALZHEIMER’S Matter of Mind: My Alzheimer’s is an intimate portrayal of three families confronting the unique challenges of Alzheimer’s and how this progressive neurodegenerative disease transforms roles and relationships. May 14, 5-6 pm. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main. spokanelibrary.org

FOOD & DRINK

MOTHER’S DAY BURN-AWAY CAKE DECORATING Instructor Christina will guide you step by step as you design a “burn away” cake that reveals a hidden photo of you and your mom beneath the flames. May 8, 5:45-8 pm. $90. The Kitchen Engine, 621 W. Mallon Ave. thekitchenengine.com (509-328-3335) PINOT’S PALETTE GRAND RE-OPENING & 1919 WINE CELLAR GRAND OPENING An open house grand re-opening of Pinot’s Palette and the grand opening of 1919 Wine Cellar. Enjoy drink specials, giveaways and painting. Register prior to attending. May 8, 4-8 pm. Free. Pinot’s Palette Spokane, 1919 E. Sprague Ave. pinotspalette.com (509-530-1334) BLOOMS & BUBBLES BRUNCH A light buffet brunch with sweet and savory bites featuring a make-your-own cookie bouquet and a fresh flower bouquet workshop. May 10, 10 am-1 pm. $65. Commellini Estate, 14715 N. Dartford Dr. commelliniestate.com (509-466-0667) THE DINNER DETECTIVE COMEDY MYSTERY DINNER SHOW An interactive comedy mystery dinner theatre show featuring audience interaction and a catered dinner. May 10, 6-9 pm and June 7, 6-9 pm. $70.95. Ruby River Hotel, 700 N. Division St. thedinnerdetective.com HIGHLAND PARK UNITED METHODIST CHURCH 74TH SUKIYAKI DINNER A sukiyaki dinner featuring a bake sale, Japanese collectibles, homemade crafts and more. May 10, 12-4 pm. $20. Highland Park United Methodist Church, 611 S. Garfield St. (509-535-2687) MOTHER’S DAY WEEKEND VENDOR BAZAAR Sip Washington wines while browsing unique goods from local vendors. May 10, 2-5 pm. Free. Helix Wines, 824 W. Sprague. reiningerwinery.com CHOCOLATE TASTING & BOOK PAIRING Sample treats with different flavors from Halletts Chocolates and get suggestions for books that pair well with them. Adults. Registration is required. May 11, 2-3 pm. Free. North Spokane Library, 44 E. Hawthorne Rd. scld.org (893-8350) MOTHER’S DAY BRUNCH EXPERIENCE Sip on your choice of mimosa or tea with five plated courses. Instructor Jamie Aquino demonstrates recipes while you follow along, learning and tasting as you go. May 11, 11 am-1:30 pm. $115. The Kitchen Engine, 621 W. Mallon Ave. thekitchenengine.com (509-328-3335) MOTHER’S DAY BRUNCH ON THE RIVER: A Mother’s Day brunch with a mimosa bar and views of the Spokane River. May 11, 9-11 am & 12-2 pm. $40. Ruby River Hotel, 700 N. Division St. mothersdayontheriver2025.eventbrite. com (509-323-2585) SPOKANE LILAC FESTIVAL BREWFEST A showcase of local brewers like Brick West, Hat Trick, The Grain Shed and Uprise with live music from Andy Rumsey, Snacks at Midnight and more. May 17, 1-5 pm. $10-$50. Spokane Pavilion, 574 N. Howard. spokanelilacfestival.org

44 INLANDER MAY 8, 2025

MUSIC

CELEBRATING THE LITTLE THINGS The final performance of the Coeur d’Alene Symphony’s season featuring soloist Albert Miller. May 9, 7 pm and May 10, 2 pm. Kroc Center, 1765 W. Golf Course Rd. cdsymphony.org (208-667-1865) FREEDOM, TAPESTRY WOMEN’S CHOIR CONCERT Tapestry is a collective of women singers of diverse backgrounds and faiths with a love of music and the Palouse in common. May 9, 7:30-8:30 pm. Free. St. James Episcopal Church, 1410 NE. Stadium Way. facebook.com/ tapestrywomenschoir (509-332-1742) SPOKANE JAZZ ORCHESTRA: MAMBO & SALSA NIGHT Son Dulce, a 12-piece Latin band, performs mambo and salsa selections with the Spokane Jazz Orchestra. May 10, 7:30-9:30 pm. $38-$51. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague Ave. bingcrosbytheater.com (509-227-7638) SPOKANE SYMPHONY MASTERWORKS 9: TALES OF HEMINGWAY In the last Masterworks of the season the Spokane Symphony perform works that tell vivid stories from around the world featuring guest cellist Zuill Bailey. May 10, 7:30 pm and May 11, 2 pm. $24-$83. The Fox Theater, 1001 W. Sprague Ave. foxtheaterspokane.org (509-624-1200) MUSIC OF TINA TURNER Singers LaKisha Jones, Nova Y. Payton, and Armando Imagines will take you on a journey through Tina Turner’s legendary musical career as the Spokane Symphony elevates iconic songs like “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” “Disco Inferno,” “Proud Mary,” and more. May 17, 2 pm. $54-$114. The Fox Theater, 1001 W. Sprague Ave. foxtheaterspokane.org (509-624-1200)

SPORTS & OUTDOORS

SPOKANE INDIANS VS. VANCOUVER CANADIANS Regular season games. Promotional schedule includes: Cafecitos de Spokane Night (May 8), Military & Veteran Appreciation Fireworks Night (May 9), Rosauers Family Feast & Fireworks Night (May 10) and Mother’s Day Game (May 11). May 8-10, 6:35 pm and May 11, 1:05 pm. $12-$32. Avista Stadium, 602 N. Havana St. spokaneindians.com A THIRSTY THURSDAY WORKSHOP: WATERING: CONTROLLING YOUR CONTROLLERS Confused by your irrigation controller? This session breaks down manual and smart controllers, teaching you how to program them for optimal water use. May 8, 6-7 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300) SPOKANE GARDEN EXPO Over 350 booths selling garden plants, flowers, art, furniture, planters and more. May 10, 9 am-noon. Free. Spokane Community College, 1810 N. Greene St. spokanegardenexpo.com (509-869-0344) SPRING WILDFLOWER HIKE Hike through Chewelah’s Gold Hill Community Forest and learn about wildflowers from Kathy Ahlenslager. May 11, 10 am. Free. Chewelah. chewelahvalleylandtrust.com RIDE WITH MAYOR LISA BROWN A bike ride with Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown through West Central, Kendall Yards, Riverfront Park and ending at City Hall. May 14, 7:30-8:30 am. Free. West Central Community Center, 1603 N. Belt St. spokanebicycleclub.org/SpokaneBikes

THEATER & DANCE

THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE Maureen is stuck caring for her aging mother. Mag is a nightmare and their mutual antagonism hits a new level when Maureen’s first, and possibly final, chance at love appears. Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm through May 18. $15-$30. Spokane Civic Theatre, 1020 N. Howard St. spokanecivictheatre.com (509-325-2507) CHURCH BASEMENT LADIES Church Basement Ladies is a musical comedy that takes you to the heart of a smalltown church kitchen in 1965, where four dedicated women navigate the challenges of feeding their congregation and managing their personal lives. May 9-18; Fri-Sat at 7 pm, Sun at 2 pm. $20. Chewelah Center for the Arts, 405 N. Third St. chewelahcenterforthearts.com QUIERO FLAMENCO: TABLAO A powerful evening of Flamenco highlighting the improvisational communication between dancers and musicians featuring Jose Moreno, Jed Miley, Amelia Moore and Daniel Azcarate. May 10, 7-9 pm. $30. Hamilton Studio, 1427 W. Dean Ave. hamilton.live (509-327-9501) MARY POPPINS Young Jane and Michael have sent many a nanny packing before Mary Poppins arrives on their doorstep. Using a combination of magic and common sense, she must teach the family members how to value each other again. May 16-25; Fri-Sat at 7 pm, Sat-Sun at 3 pm. $17-$22. Kroc Center, 1765 W. Golf Course Rd. cytnorthidaho.org

VISUAL ARTS

PIECED TOGETHER: 2025 SENIOR ART & DESIGN EXHIBIT An eclectic and engaging selection of works from Whitworth University’s art and graphic design majors. Mon-Fri from 10 am-4:30 pm through May 17. Free. Bryan Oliver Gallery, Whitworth, 300 W. Hawthorne Ave. whitworth.edu (509-777-3258) ANDREA JOYCE HEIMER: NO NAME THAT I KNOW OF Through collage-like layers of detail, Washington-based artist Andrea Joyce Heimer reconstructs tangled memories of her upbringing in rural Montana. The artist combines autobiography, fantasy, and dark humor to explore themes of loneliness and belonging. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through May 25. $9-15. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931) ART U.S.A.: ONE HUNDRED AMERICAN WORKS ON PAPER A collection of 100 pieces of art from the Jundt’s permanent collection depicting an expanse of American life from the years 1925-1950. MonSat from 10 am-4 pm through May 10. Free. Jundt Art Museum, 200 E. Desmet Ave. gonzaga.edu/jundt (509-313-6843) DARYA J. PILRAM: EMBRACING IMPERFECTION: THE ART OF KINTSUGI REPAIR Darya J. Pilram exhibits ceramic works repaired using the art of Kintsugi, a Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics by joining the pieces with lacquer and gold. Wed-Fri from 11 am-5 pm through May 30. Free. Trackside Studio, 115 S. Adams St. TracksideStudio.net SAINT GEORGE’S IB VISUAL ARTS JUNIORS A showcase of work by Saint George’s International Baccalaureate Diploma Visual Arts Programme Junior classstudents. Thu-Sat from 11 am-4 pm through May 31. Free. Avenue West Gal-

lery, 907 W. Boone Ave. avenuewestgallery.com (509-839-4999) JAMES DHILLON: PAST IS PRESENT James Dhillon presents immersive and expressive work in this new exhibit. Times vary, through June 30. Free. D2 Gallery and Studio, 310 W. First Ave. D2gallerystudio.com (509-309-6754) JEANETTE KIRISIAN: KEYSTONE ANIMALS Jeanette Kirishian pays homage to a few of nature’s keystone species, those that are vital to the health and enrichment of specific environments. Mon-Fri from 10 am-5 pm through May 30. Free. Spokane Art School, 503 E. Second Ave., Ste. B. spokaneartschool.net JOSEPH R TOMLINSON “...”: Illustrations inspired by comic books, album art, movie posters and more by local artist Joseph R Tomlinson. Daily from 11 am-6 pm through June 2. Free. Entropy, 101 N. Stevens St. instagram.com/entropygalleryspokane (503-913-3124) KIM LONG & COLLISTA KREBS: STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE Kim Long displays vibrant paintings and Collista Krebs showcases whimsical clay art, both artists showing their love for the animal kingdom. Wed-Sat from 11 am-5 pm through May 30. Free. New Moon Art Gallery, 1326 E. Sprague Ave. manicmoonandmore.com (509-413-9101) TRACY POINDEXTER-CANTON: VIGNETTES & WANDERINGS New mixed media works inspired by poetry and prose by Tracy Poindexter-Canton. Daily from 11 am-7 pm through May 24. Free. Liberty Building, 203 N. Washington St. spokanelibertybuilding.com MYTHOS This exhibition featuring artists Jesse Albrecht, Sally Jablonsky and Hannah Koeske looks broadly at the idea of mythology in contemporary Northwest art. Wed-Fri from 11 am-5 pm through May 30. Free. Kolva-Sullivan Gallery, 115 S. Adams. mobile.kolva.comcastbiz.net PORTRAITS FROM WITHIN: 4 EMERGING SPOKANE ARTISTS A showcase of works by Elsa Oxford, Lily Henderson, Carly Ellis and Emily Flynn-Delay curated by Kelly Baker that explores the various experiences of young woman artists in Spokane. Mon-Fri from 8 am-5 pm through June 27. Free. Chase Gallery, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. spokanearts.org POSTHUMANS A multi-medium group exhibition about technology’s impact on the world by artists Sarah Barnett, Joe Hedges and Reza Safavi. Thu-Sat from 4-7 pm through May 24. Free. Terrain Gallery, 628 N. Monroe. terrainspokane.com REAL VISION An exhibit that showcases the diverse talents of three innovative painters, a skilled woodworking artist, and an intriguing collection of largescale graphite drawings. Featured artists include Doug Fluckiger, Stephanie Frostad, Wilson Ong, Molly Sims and Samuel Gentz. Wed-Sat from 10 am-6 pm, Sun from 10 am-5 pm through June 1. Free. The Art Spirit Gallery, 415 Sherman Ave. theartspiritgallery.com (208-765-6006) STRUT YOUR STUFF A 20th anniversary art show featuring work from 15 local artists focused on themes of natural heritage, the industrial legacy of sawmills and community spirit. Tue-Sun, times vary through May 23. Free. The Jacklin Arts & Cultural Center, 405 N. William St. thejacklincenter.org (208-457-8950) VISIONS UNVEILED: THE WOMEN PAINTERS OF WASHINGTON A contemporary fine art showcase revealing new perspectives from the Women Painters of Washington. Wed-Sat from 5-8

pmthrough June 27. Free. Trails End Gallery, 204 E. Main St. chewelah.org TAKE IT AS IT COMES Paintings and prints by Sironka, Ralph Noll, Katie Frey, John Thamm, Darrell Wilcox, Roch Fautch, Matt Wolf, Audreana Camm and Kodi McQuillen featuring a unique blend of scenics and animals. May 9-31, Fridays from noon-7 pm. Free. Shotgun Studios, 1625 W. Water Ave. ShotgunStudiosSpokane.com (509-688-3757) GROW LIKE A TREE EXHIBITION & BOOK LAUNCH Artists Rebekah WilkinsPepiton and Lisa E. Silvestri present their children’s book Grow Like a Tree about the life cycles of trees. Each illustration is made of foraged materials. Fri-Sat from noon-8 pm through May 31. Free. Saranac Art Projects, 25 W. Main. sapgallery.com MOTHER’S DAY PAINT AND SIP CLASSES A fun, relaxing day of painting, sipping wine and making memories together. May 10, 11 am-9:30 pm and May 11, 10:30 am-7:30 pm. $39-$45. Pinot’s Palette Spokane, 1919 E. Sprague Ave. pinotspalette.com (509-530-1334)

WORDS

DROP IN & WRITE Aspiring writers are invited to be a part of a supportive writers’ community. Bring works in progress to share, get inspired with creative prompts and spend some focused time writing. Hosted by local writers Jenny Davis and Hannah Engel. Thursdays from 5:30-7 pm. . Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. spark-central.org AN EVENING WITH VIET THANH NGUYEN The keynote event for Asians for Collective Liberation Spokane’s Asian American Heritage Month. Nguyen speaks about his new memoir, his previous works and immigration. RSVP online to reserve a spot. May 8, 6:30-8 pm. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300) JEFFREY DUNN: WHISKEY REBEL Whiskey Rebel is set in Washington’s untamed Columbia Basin where two drifters and a collection of other quirky characters embark on a daring quest to distill tax-free whiskey and redefine the meaning of freedom. May 9, 6-7:30 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com (509-838-0206) TAKE IT AS IT COMES, BOOK LAUNCH Olivia Hildahl, local writer, fiber artist and family folklorist, reads from her first book, Take It as It Comes, A Montana Oral History. She will also discuss her decades long process of creating this collection of oral history, photography, memoir and genealogy that encompasses her family’s experience in early and middle 20th century Montana. May 9, 7-10 pm. Free. Shotgun Studios, 1625 W. Water Ave. shotgunstudiosspokane.com EVAN LEIKAM: ANJI KILLS A KING WITH TRAVIS BALDREE An unlikely assassin struggles to escape a legendary bounty hunter in this breakneck fantasy debut. Author Evan Leikam discusses the novel in conversation with Travis Baldree. May 13, 6-7:30 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com TOM DEWEESE ON GLOBALISM Tom DeWeese from the American Policy Center speaks about authoritarianism, civil liberties and more. May 13, 7 pm. $15. CenterPlace Regional Event Center, 2426 N. Discovery Pl. JBS.org BROKEN MIC A weekly open mic reading series. Wednesdays at 6:30 pm; sign-ups at 6 pm.Free. Neato Burrito, 827 W. First Ave. bit.ly/2ZAbugD n

POLITICS

Legislative Winners and Losers Cannabis policy saw some yeas and some nays in Olympia this legislative session BY WILL MAUPIN Agricultural cannabis workers will now see their collective bargaining and labor disputes handled by a state agency. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

ashington’s 2025 legislative session came to a close on April 27. Lawmakers in Olympia spent the first four months of the year debating a handful of cannabis-related issues, and we now know which will become law and which will wait at least another year. Two of the five bills on the 2025 docket successfully made it through the Legislature. House Bill 1141 was signed into law by Gov. Bob Ferguson on April 22. When it goes into effect on July 27, agricultural workers in Washington’s cannabis industry will be afforded the collective bargaining rights already enjoyed by other industries in the state. Agricultural workers who participate in the cultivation, growing, harvesting or production of cannabis will fall under the purview of the state’s Public Employment Relations Commission. As such, any collective bargaining agreements or labor disputes will have a state agency as a

mediator and enforcer of the law. Among HB 1141’s sponsors were Spokane Reps. Timm Ormsby and Natasha Hill. Senate Bill 5403 also made it through and, as of press time, was sitting on the governor’s desk awaiting his signature. As passed, the legislation differs dramatically from the original bill. The main thrust of the original version of SB 5403 was to establish a legal pathway for cannabis producers and processors to sell cannabis directly to consumers. This was welcome news for smaller producers who are often priced out of the state’s limited retail market by larger producers. SB 5403 advanced after two substitutions completely removed that provision from the text of the legislation. The bill as passed contains no mention of direct-toconsumer sales.

greenhand

NOTE TO READERS Be aware of the differences in the law between Idaho and Washington. It is illegal to possess, sell or transport cannabis in the State of Idaho. Possessing up to an ounce is a misdemeanor and can get you a year in jail and up to a $1,000 fine; more than three ounces is a felony that can carry a five-year sentence and fine of up to $10,000. Transporting marijuana across state lines, like from Washington into Idaho, is a felony under federal law.

Instead, it aims to limit financial agreements and consolidation among retail licensees. Licensees, as well as “other persons or entities with a financial or other ownership interest,” are capped at holding no more than five retail licenses collectively. Each license allows for one retail store. While this will not benefit small producers as much as the original bill intended, SB 5403 should in theory help foster competition within the retail market by limiting retail consolidation. Three other bills weren’t as successful. A bill to legalize homegrown cannabis died in committee for the second consecutive year. Another bill that would have paved the way for regulated on-site cannabis consumption failed to make it to a vote, and another bill concerning regulations on where cannabis businesses can be located passed one committee before dying in a second. n

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BE AWARE: Marijuana is legal for adults 21 and older under Washington State law (e.g., RCW 69.50, RCW 69.51A, HB0001 Initiative 502 and Senate Bill 5052). State law does not preempt federal law; possessing, using, distributing and selling marijuana remains illegal under federal law. In Washington state, consuming marijuana in public, driving while under the influence of marijuana and transporting marijuana across state lines are all illegal. Marijuana has intoxicating effects; there may be health risks associated with its consumption, and it may be habit-forming. It can also impair concentration, coordination and judgment. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. Keep out of reach of children. For more information, consult the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board at www.liq.wa.gov.

Marijuana use increases the risk of lower grades and dropping out of school. Talk with your kids.

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BY MATT JONES

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ACROSS 1. House broadcaster 6. Letter after pi 9. Origami bird 14. Area well beyond the coast 16. Pointer’s beam 17. Eyeglass prescription effect times 4? 19. Curved paths 20. He wrote “The Raven” 21. Piece of sound equipment 22. Partake of 23. Barry Bonds and Willie Stargell, for short 24. Baby leopard 25. Soup with sprouts and slices of beef 28. 2002 NBA Rookie of the Year ___ Gasol 29. Late actor Kilmer 30. Percolate slowly 31. Saying that has about 8 different meanings, some of them dirty? 36. English university town

37. Salonga of Broadway 38. Cut down 39. Con game run 16 different ways? 42. Maker of Regenerist skin care products 43. You may pay less to get more of them 44. Biden, familiarly 45. The “N” of NDA 46. “George of the Jungle” creature 47. “Top Gun” flier 48. Proper 51. Knight’s title 52. Chest muscle, for short 53. Pageant garment 54. Hybrid letter with 32 peaks that just looks like a long zigzag? 59. Photographer Leibovitz 60. Gadget used after hard-boiling, perhaps 61. Piece of lumber 62. Airport presence 63. British formal jackets

18 20

19 22

28 31

DOWN 36 1. ___ vin (chicken dish) 2. San Antonio team 39 40 3. Nobel Prize category 4. Partners of “ifs” or “buts” 43 42 5. It goes with “neither” 6. Auto takebacks 45 46 7. Revolutionary War spy Nathan 8. Number under the ! on a keyboard 51 9. Go higher 10. Speak with a gravelly voice 54 55 56 11. “Bad ___ Wanna Be” (Dennis Rodman book) 59 12. Prefix for classicist 13. Ending for north, west, or 61 northwest 15. Dry ingredient recipe measurement 26. “___ Johnny!” 18. Bank’s storage room 27. Columnists’ pieces 23. Expire, like a subscription 28. “Seinfeld” character played by 24. Panama divider Patrick Warburton 25. “The Last of Us” star Pascal 29. Gore and Mondale, for two

29 34

THIS W ANSWE EEK’S I SAW RS ON YOUS

30 35

34. Evade capture by 35. Theme park at Disney World 41 40. ___ pants (calflength trousers) 44 41. Takes a DVD out 46. Put on television 47 48 49 50 47. Block-removing game 48. “Rock Me Amadeus” 52 53 musician 49. “Where have ___ 57 58 this before?” 50. Thanksgiving day: 60 Abbr. 51. Mix, as cocoa 62 63 52. Barnyard animals “DOUBLE, DOUBLE” 53. BBQ rod 54. Little bit of gel 30. Marching band drum 55. Four-color card game 31. Actress Kaitlin of ABC’s “High 56. “Snakes ___ Plane” Potential” 57. Receive 32. “Forget You” singer Green 58. Suffix for glob or nod 33. From Amarillo, say 37

MAY 8, 2025 INLANDER 47

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