NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, July 17.
Take a hike and write with the state’s poet laureate, dance or learn more about researching family histories this weekend on the North Olympic Peninsula.
Those activities are among the offerings this weekend.
For more on the Art Jam and Jazz in the Alley concert in Sequim, as well as other activities, see Peninsula Spotlight, the weekly arts and entertainment magazine included in today’s Peninsula Daily News.
More events are also on the calendar at www.peninsuladailynews.com.
PORT ANGELES
Hike and Write
PORT ANGELES — Washington poet laureate Elizabeth Austen will lead a free Hike and Write outing Saturday.
Austen’s walk and writing session will take place on the Smokey Bottom Trail beside the Elwha River, though participants are asked to meet at the Port Angeles Library, 2210 S. Peabody St., for carpooling Saturday at 8:30 a.m.
No hiking nor writing experience is necessary. Austen will walk for about 30 minutes on the mostly flat trail, read some outdoors-oriented poetry and stop for a 20-minute writing session.
An Olympic National Park ranger will join the group to show the riverside revegetation work and the bed where Lake Mills once lay.
The outing is part of the “Elwha: A River Reborn” exhibit at the Port Angeles Library through Aug. 29.
Hike and Write participants, who must be 18 or older, are asked to register in advance by phoning the library at 360-417-8500 or visiting the North Olympic Library System site, www.NOLS.org, and clicking on “Events” and then “Port Angeles.”
Flea market set
PORT ANGELES — The Mount Pleasant Grange’s sixth annual Community Flea Market and Yard Sale will be from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.
The sale will be in the grange community hall, 2432 Mount Pleasant Road.
Vendor spaces are $10 for each 2½-foot-by-8-foot table inside the hall or for each outdoor 10-foot-by-20-foot space.
For more information, email yodaisha@msn.com or phone 360-670-9035.
MoveOn.org videos
PORT ANGELES — A series of short videos on the subject of saving the economy will be hosted by Andrea Radich of MoveOn.org, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
The free videos will be shown at the Port Angeles Library, 2210 S. Peabody St.
Over the past few months, MoveOn.org and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich have released a series of 12 videos featuring ideas for saving the economy, Radich said.
She said they cover a wide range of issues, from making polluters pay for poisoning the air and water to ending mass incarceration to busting up the big banks to a host of educational reforms.
For more information, phone Radich at 360-457-6884 or email andreasangels@msn.com.
Cuthbert’s travels
PORT ANGELES — The Rev. Dr. Walter Knowles, an Episcopal church historian and musician, will present a seminar titled “From Holy Island to Cathedral” at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.
The seminar explores St. Cuthbert’s travels from Iona, Scotland, and Lindisfarne, England, to Durham Cathedral, England, and “his community’s way to our time and place,” according to a news release.
The seminar is free, while donations are welcome. Attendees can bring a sack lunch or go out to a nearby eatery.
Participants are asked to reserve a seat by stopping by St. Andrew’s at 510 E. Park Ave. or phoning the office at 360-457-4862.
TAFY garage sale
PORT ANGELES — The Answer for Youth, a drop-in center for homeless and at-risk young people, is having a rummage sale at 833 Front St. — the corner of Front and Race streets — today and Saturday.
Furniture, appliances, kitchenware, Christmas items, beds, a boat with a motor and trailer, and other items will be for sale from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. both days.
For information, contact TAFY director Susan Hillgren at 360-670-4363.
Sanctuary meeting
PORT ANGELES — NOAA’s Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary will host a meeting of the Sanctuary Advisory Council at The Landing mall, Room 205, 115 E. Railroad Ave., from 9:50 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. today.
The meeting is open to the public, with public comment periods at noon and 2:40 p.m.
Julia Parrish will tell of the 2014-15 Cassin’s auklet mortality event in the morning session, followed by a state Department of Ecology presentation on sanctuary-related aspects to the Washington Marine and Rail Oil Transportation study.
In the afternoon, Chris Harvey of NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, will give a summary of ecosystem indicators.
An overview of the Olympic Culinary Loop and an update on progress to expand marine debris cleanup in the Pacific Basin region also are on the agenda.
To receive more information, email Karlyn Langjahr at karlyn.langjahr@noaa.gov or visit http://olympiccoast.noaa.gov.
A draft meeting agenda will be posted at http://tinyurl.com/pdn-sanctuaryagenda.
The advisory council provides advice and recommendations on managing and protecting the sanctuary.
It is composed of 22 seats representing various local and regional organizations and agencies serving in a volunteer capacity.
For more information on the sanctuary, visit www.noaa.gov or www.facebook.com/usnoaagov.
SEQUIM
Rock walks
SEQUIM — Dave Parks, geologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, will lead two Rock Walks at the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday.
The free walks will be from 11 a.m. to noon and from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the refuge on Voice of America Road.
They are held in celebration of the refuge’s 100th anniversary.
The Rock Walk will start at the upper overlook at the top of the trail leading down to the Dungeness Spit.
Participants should wear sturdy walking shoes and weather-appropriate clothing.
Parks will discuss the geologic history and coastal evolution of Dungeness Spit and examine the stratigraphy of the coastal bluffs west of the base of the Spit.
He is a licensed engineering geologist and hydrogeologist living in Port Angeles.
Parks also will present recent research on the rates of coastal bluff erosion in the Dungeness drift cell.
For more information phone the Refuge office at 360-457-8451 or send an e-mail to: david_falzetti@fws.gov or visit www.dungeness100.com.
Discussion group
SEQUIM — The Sequim Great Decisions Discussion Group will meet at Sequim Library, 630 N. Sequim Ave., from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. today.
The topic is “Europe’s Shattered Dream of Order — How Putin Is Disrupting the Atlantic Alliance.”
The suggested background reading for the discussion is the article, “Europe’s Shattered Dream of Order,” from the May/June 2015 issue of Foreign Affairs.
New members are welcome.
For more information, email jcpollock@olypen.com or phone 360-683-9622.
Thrift shop
SEQUIM — The Sequim Dungeness Hospital Guild’s Thrift Shop at 204 W. Bell St., will be open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.
Featured will be summer fashions for the entire family, furniture item, kitchenware, fine jewelry and fashion accessories, books and puzzles.
All white-tagged items will be marked at half price.
Volunteer and consigners are always needed.
Call 360-683-7044 for more information.
DNS hijacking
SEQUIM — The Sequim PC Users Group will present an overview of Domain Name Server (DNS) hijacking at the Shipley Center, 921 E. Hammond St., at 10 a.m. Saturday.
The meeting is especially for those concerned about what this kind of hijacking is and how to check if a computer has been compromised.
Attendees are asked to bring a portable device running Windows to follow the demonstration.
Soroptimists sell See’s
SEQUIM — Soroptimist International of Sequim members will be at Heather Creek, 122 W. Washington St., selling See’s Candies as a fundraiser from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today and Saturday.
Sales of the candy support scholarship funding for seniors as well as for women returning to school to continue their education, providing personal items for victims of domestic violence, funding and support of community agencies.
PORT TOWNSEND
Three new books
PORT TOWNSEND — Local writers Mike McAndrew, Michael Hale and John Thomas Baker will offer a mix of memoir, fiction and fantasy in a shared reading at the Writers’ Workshoppe & Imprint Bookstore at 7 tonight.
Admission is free to the reading at the Workshoppe, 820 Water St.
McAndrew, who retired to Port Townsend after a career in photojournalism, will read from The Night of the Sun, his recently published story of life underground after being drafted into military service in the Vietnam War era.
Hale, an artist and longtime Port Townsender, will present his newly finished Antiqueus: Quest of the Mazzergast, a tale for young adults.
The book follows Wizard Dearkin and his young crew, saviors of the continent Antiqueus and its magnificent city of Atlantis.
Baker, a student of Raymond Carver in an early Centrum writing workshop in Port Townsend, will read from his novel The Green and the Blonde: An American Journey.
In it, Baker tells the story of Sean McAllister, a fictional hero who comes of age during the late 1960s, connects with the back-to-the-land movement and finds his way to the Northwest.
For more details about Friday’s reading, phone the Writers’ Workshoppe at 360-379-2617.
Conversation Cafe
PORT TOWNSEND — The topic is “The Power of Words” at the Conversation Cafe at the Highway 20 Road House, 2152 W. Sims Way, from 11:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. today.
Lunch is optional.
Conversation Cafe is an exercise in active listening and nonconfrontational conversation.
For more information, visit www.conversationcafe.org.
Contra Dance
PORT TOWNSEND — Wild Phil and the Buffalo Gals will play the tunes while Nan Evans will call the dances at the Third Saturday Contra Dance at the Quimper Grange on Saturday.
The dance will be from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. at the grange at 1219 Corona St., Port Townsend.
The dance costs $6 for adults, $3 for those 3 to 18 years old and is free for those under 3.
For more information, contact Jo Yount at joyount@olypen.com or 360-385-0456.
PORT HADLOCK
Books and boogie
PORT HADLOCK— The Jefferson County Library will become a dance hall tonight.
Dance instructors Cheri Van Hoover and Debbie and Doug Groenig will teach zydeco steps for an hour and then turn everyone loose for another hour of dancing to live music from the F Street Band.
Admission is free to the party from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and refreshments will be laid out courtesy of the Friends of the Jefferson County Library.
For details, visit the library at 620 Cedar Ave., see www.JClibrary.info or phone 360-385-6544.
CHIMACUM
Maps and family histories
CHIMACUM — The value of maps in researching family history will be discussed at the next Jefferson County Genealogical Society meeting Saturday.
The meeting, which is free and open to the public, will be at the Tri-Area Community Center, 10 West Valley Road, Chimacum.
It will begin at 9:30 a.m. for coffee and visiting. The program, Mapping An Ancestor,” will begin at 10 a.m. and concludes at about 11:30 a.m.
During the program, Janet Camarata will tell of different types of maps, their value in solving family mysteries and on-line collections to search.
Camarata has been a family historian for 30 years.
FORKS
Birthday bash at library
FORKS — The Rainforest Council for the Arts will celebrate the first aniversary of its inception with a birthday party at the Forks Library, 171 S. Forks Ave., at noon Saturday.
This event is free and open to the public, Cake and ice cream will be served.
To date the group has co-sponsored the grand opening of the new Rainforest Arts Center, supported volunteers and assisted with a community concert, art exhibits and demonstrations, an open mic and a dance.