Ross Anderson

Ross Anderson is a founding member of the Rainshadow Journal collective. He retired to Port Townsend after 30 years of journalism at the Seattle Times.

Second Acts: The Musicians Fueling Pt. Townsend’s Blooming Musical Life

Few, if any, of those musicians could make a living at it, but they were lured by the local arts vibe and the variety of venues ranging from bars to the more formal auditoriums managed by the nonprofit Centrum at Fort Worden State Park.

Who the Heck was Juan de Fuca?

It was Englishman Charles Barkley who in 1787 finally sailed into the mysterious strait and named it for Juan de Fuca.

Emerging from its Time Warp: The Once and Future Port Gamble

Port Gamble is an authentic regional gem -- Some three dozen 19th century homes, a steepled church, general store, specialty shops and a community theater – surrounded by verdant lawns and whitewashed picket fences.

Port Townsend’s Centrum @50: Ideas in Creativity

At age 50, Centrum has become a $4 million-a-year operation with 14 fulltime staff.  In a typical year, it brings in 300 temporary faculty, professional musicians and other artists from around the world who in turn lure more than 2,000 participants and thousands more visitors for the weekly summertime concerts and readings.

Maine Newspapers formerly owned by Seattle Times Sold to Non-Profit

According to the Press Herald, the National Trust for Local News, a two-year-old nonprofit with a tiny staff and budget, has agreed to the deal with Masthead Maine, the Maine company which has owned the newspapers for several years.

Muscle Up! (It’s a Long Row to Alaska)

Famously, participants will not have engines – none whatsoever. Their 750 mile voyage to Ketchikan, Alaska, will be powered by some combination of wind, muscle and no small amount of human endurance and ingenuity.

George Vancouver and the Puget Sound Maps

Occasionally I’ll check his recorded longitude-latitude coordinates against my GPS, and they’re astonishingly close. Some of his South Pacific charts were used by the Navy as recently as WWII – 150 years after they were drawn.

Five Ways Up the Inside Passage

From Seattle’s Fishermens Terminal to Port Townsend and Bellingham Bay, the boatyards and marinas are abuzz with power sanders and arc welders, the smell of varnish fumes and sawdust and diesel oil – fishermen and boaters gearing up for another voyage up the Inside Passage to Alaska.

Walla Walla Hits the Ground Running (So What Would it Take to Sink Her?)

Over the past 70-plus years, state ferries have carried hundreds of millions of passengers on perhaps 10 million trips. And yet, across seven decades, not a single life has been lost in a ferry accident. But if a ferry were to sink, here's how it might happen...

“Sure, I’ll Sign That”: How Cal Ripken Jr. Demanded a Fantasy Trade

Each spring, as we approach Opening Day, I’m reminded that baseball is about a weird concoction of reality and fantasy, physics and psychics, curve balls and called strikes, nine-digit...

Latest