Her Deepest Ecologies: The Podcast Jessica Gigot, PhD

In Part 2, we dive into some of the major issues facing the health and survival of migratory swans, including habitat degradation, lead poisoning, and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus (HPAIV). Below are some links to the places and topics that came up in our conversation. You can ready Martha’s Bio in Part 1.
“If you see a sick duck, goose, swan, or even a bird, do not pick it up. Do not put it in your car. Do not transport it.”


This is an article by Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife about the return of the swans to Washington. In our conversation, Martha also mentioned a resident swan on Whidbey Island and issues with swan die-off and lead poisoning at Judson Lake.
See Martha Jordan at Christianson’s Nursery for her talk on Snow Geese on December 2nd from 10:30-12. Pre-registration is required.
Visit the Martha Jordan Birding Trail at Leadbetter Point State Park.
An article from last November in the Cascadia Daily on the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus (HPAIV).
As a reminder, it is important to not pick up any dead or dying swans because HPAIV is transmissible to humans and dogs. Here is how to report:
Wildlife biologists, Puget Sound Energy employees, and volunteers from Northwest Swan Conservation Association work hard to respond to reports of sick, injured, and dead swans.
To report, call 360–466–0515. Leave a short, detailed message with your name, number, location, and the swan’s condition.



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I loved the chance to talk with Martha Jordan about migratory Trumpeter swans and other migratory wildfowl. I met Martha twenty years ago at one of her education talks. As a swan enthusiast, I have so much more to learn from her. In fact, there was so much to discuss, I turned my interview with her into two episodes.
Part 1 focuses on Martha’s work with swans, Trumpeter swan distribution and populations in North America, and a look at the history of swan monitoring and conservation in the northwest.
Part 2 will be out on November 28th!
“That’s what the birds were telling us.”

About Martha:
Martha Jordan is the founder and Executive Director of the NWSCA. She received her wildlife science degree from Oregon State University, Corvallis. Her interest in swans began in the late 1970s while working with collared snow geese in the Skagit Valley near Mt. Vernon, Washington. Martha has been a major contributor to state and federal agencies, documenting the status of Trumpeter Swans in the state of Washington, helping to protect key habitats and reduce mortality from lead poisoning and powerline collisions, and helping in development of the first Washington State section of the Pacific Flyway Trumpeter Swan Management Plan.
In the early 1980s she established the Washington Swan Working Group (later known as the Washington Swan Stewards), affiliated with The Trumpeter Swan Society. She chaired this group from its’ beginning until 2015 when she founded Northwest Swan Conservation Association. Martha served as a Board member of The Trumpeter Swan Society from 1985-2009. She left TTSS in 2015 to found NWSCA and brings her many decades of expertise to build strong partnerships that will promote the welfare and vitality of both Trumpeter and Tundra swans in Washington and throughout the northwest region.
Find out more about NWCA here: https://nwswans.org/


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“We are with the trees every day, we live with them.”

This interview was extra special because I had a chance to talk with my fellow Oregon State University Press author, Ann Stinson. I met Ann in Portland last April when we had a reading together at Broadway Books. I loved the chance to compare and contrast farming and forestry and I appreciated the chance to discuss her beautiful memoir, The Ground at my Feet: Sustaining a Family and a Forest, and the history of family forests in the Pacific Northwest.
Ann Stinson grew up near Toledo, Washington. After high school, her interests took her to Japan, New York City, and Portland, Oregon.  She earned a BA in English from Western Washington University and a MA in East Asian Languages and Culture from Columbia University. A former school teacher, she is president of the Family Forest Foundation and is on the board of the Washington Farm Forestry Association.
About the Book:
The Ground at My Feet is a memoir about loss and grief as well as a portrait of a family, a region, and an industry. Combining personal story and research, Stinson weaves essays, poems, history, and science into a rich and layered account of life in a family forest in the Pacific Northwest. She maps interactions between the land and its people over two centuries: the Cowlitz peoples, homesteaders, and several generations of logging families who have worked the property. She follows her family’s logs as they become lumber for fence boards and suburban homes, touring a local cedar mill and traveling with her father to visit mills in Japan.
Stinson adds a landowner’s voice to conversations about the human tendency to demand more of the land than it can sustain. With its uniquely personal view of the Pacific Northwest’s timber and forestry heritage, The Ground at My Feet is an engaging addition to the literature of the landscape and ecology of the West.
* Information on The Family Forest Foundation
* For more information & videos visit Ann Stinson’s Writing World

Tree Books Mentioned:
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Susan Simard
The Overstory by Richard Powers


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I encountered Lewellyn’s book at our local bookstore, The Book Shucker, in Edison, WA. Immediately, I appreciated her work as a farmer and mental health advocate. She describes her book Rooted: How I Stay Small-Town Strong When Life Gets Hard and How You Can Too as a “prescriptive memoir” and I enjoyed the balance of story and practical advice that she offers her readers (as well as a Spotify playlist!). Books centered on, or even adjacent to, “farming” or “agriculture” often get overlooked. In our conversation, we talk about the marginalization of rural life and things that can be done to not only champion the vocation of farming, but also how to de-stigmatize mental health issues in rural communities. Thanks for listening!
Lewellyn is a journalist by trade and a farmer by choice.  She has a passion for growing everything from wheat and canola to a vegetable garden, chickens, and two farm kids. Lewellyn worked as a reporter and anchor at CKX television in Brandon, Manitoba before turning her focus to farming alongside her husband, but writing continues to be her passion.  Her new book Rooted is a prescriptive memoir that tells the story of her own struggles with anxiety and depression and offers tips on how to stay small town strong when things get tough. Mental health is one of the biggest threats to rural communities, and Lewellyn has made it her life’s work to start more discussions around this topic, advocating for agriculture, women, and mental health.
Check out Lewellyn’s website: https://www.lewellynmelnyk.com/
Order a copy of ROOTED!
All episodes were recorded at Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle, WA and edited at my farm in the Skagit Valley called Harmony Fields. Thank you to sound engineer Ayesha Ubayatilaka.
We have seven fascinating conversation in season one that will be released in spring and fall 2023!
Please send any comments or questions to: jessicagigot@gmail.com
NOTE: All podcast episodes are available for free, no paid subscription required.


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I have seen Claudia Castro Luna perform at the Skagit River Poetry Festival and have admired her poetry for a long time. Her latest book, Cipota Under the Moon, which came out last May “scores a series of poems as an ode to the Salvadoran immigrant experience in the United States.” I have always appreciated how ecopoetics and social justice appear seamlessly in Claudia’s work and in this conversation I wanted to talk more about how she addresses beauty, place, and community. She has served as both Seattle Civic Poet and Washington State Poet Laureate and is currently a Writing the Land poet. Enjoy this conversation!
Claudia Castro Luna is an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate fellow (2019), WA State Poet Laureate (2018 – 2021) and Seattle’s inaugural Civic Poet (2015-2018). She is the author of Cipota Under the Moon (Tia Chucha Press, 2022); One River, A Thousand Voices (Chin Music Press); the Pushcart nominated Killing Marías (Two Sylvias Press) also shortlisted for WA State 2018 Book Award in poetry, and the chapbook This City (Floating Bridge Press). Her most recent non-fiction is in There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis (Vintage). Born in El Salvador, Castro Luna arrived in the United States in 1981. Living in English and Spanish, she writes and teaches in Seattle on unceded Duwamish lands where she gardens and keeps chickens with her husband and their three children.
https://www.claudiacastroluna.com/
https://poets.org/poem/farmers-market
Resources mentioned:
Writing the Land project
https://www.seattle.gov/arts/programs/civic-poet
https://www.humanities.org/program/wa-poet-laureate/

All episodes were recorded at Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle, WA and edited at my farm in the Skagit Valley called Harmony Fields. Thank you to sound engineer Ayesha Ubayatilaka.
We have four fascinating conversation in season one that will be released weekly-ish, starting on April 22nd on Substack!
Please send any comments or questions to: jessicagigot@gmail.com
NOTE: All podcast episodes are available for free, no paid subscription required.



Get full access to Her Deepest Ecologies at herdeepestecologies.substack.com/subscribe

I loved talking with my dear friend Jodie Buller about her work at the White Eagle Memorial Preserve, a Natural Burial Ground at Ekone Ranch. She spends part of her time near me in western Washington, but one of her many roles is as Cemetery Director on the other side of the mountains in Goldendale, WA. This was an extra special conversation since Jodie and I used to host a radio show for our local station (KSVR, 91.7) in the years before she took on this important work. I appreciated what I learned about the process of natural burial, how ceremony is created, and the healthful ways we can think about and prepare for death.
Jodie has been a friend of Ekone since 2008, and stepped into leadership of White Eagle Memorial Preserve in 2013. She works with families directly to walk through end-of-life choices and burial logistics, and supports White Eagle’s Stewards, hosting tours, burials, and special events. Jodie lives part-time in the White Eagle Cabin in the Ekone Valley, and part-time in a wee cabin in Skagit Valley. Her background in outreach work for the Skagit Valley Food Co-op informs her passion to introduce White Eagle to communities throughout Washington and Oregon, with presentations and workshops on natural burial. She is a founding member of the Conservation Burial Alliance, and part of the Washington Funeral and Oregon Funeral website team, creating public service websites which provide resources for family and community directed death care.
Ekone Ranch
White Eagle Memorial Preserve
Resources mentioned:
Corpse Care: Ethics for Tending to the Death
Western Pine Beetles & Forests in WA
All episodes were recorded at Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle, WA and edited at my farm in the Skagit Valley called Harmony Fields. Thank you to sound engineer Ayesha Ubayatilaka.
We have four fascinating conversation in season one that will be released weekly-ish, starting on April 22nd on Substack!
Please send any comments or questions to: jessicagigot@gmail.com
NOTE: All podcast episodes are available for free, no paid subscription required.


Get full access to Her Deepest Ecologies at herdeepestecologies.substack.com/subscribe