A Deeper Vision: Wes Wehr and the Okanogan Highlands
On Friday, March 1st, 2019, we explored how paleobotanist Wes Wehr experienced and helped to reveal hidden dimensions of the Okanogan Highlands.
Wesley Wehr was a child of western Washington who from an early age showed talent in music, visual arts, and the ability to connect with a wide variety of people. He also developed a real passion for fossils and gemstones, often traveling to eastern Washington to seek out new treasures. “In the desert at night,” Wehr later wrote, “looking at the basalt cliffs and the full moon above them, I began to visualize what the landscape had once been.”
Wehr combined his artistic feel for geologic time with knowledge of living and fossil plants to become one of the premier amateur paleobotanists in the world. Beginning in the late 1970s, he turned his attention to the Okanogan Highlands, digging extensively around Republic and across the border near Princeton, British Columbia. He was instrumental in assembling the combination of scientific and local educational facilities at the current Stonerose Interpretive Center and visualized the formations between the Cascades and the Rocky Mountains as fertile ground for long-term, sustainable study.
Thank you, Jack Nisbet, for returning to the CCC to share your regionally-specific expertise!
For more about Jack Nisbet: www.jacknisbet.com
This event was provided in partnership with Humanities Washington and the North Central Regional Library.