Join us for Volcano Views & Brews lecture series with the Mt St Helens Institute! This months session covers What's Brewing at Yellowstone

This months topic: Mountain Goats Return to Lawetlat’la! w/ Nathan Reynolds

Presentation begins at 6:30 p.m. - Join us anytime after 5:00 p.m. for food and drink. $5 suggested donation.

Reynolds is an ecologist for the Cowlitz Indian Tribe in southwest Washington State. For millennia, Cowlitz people climbed the slopes of Mount St. Helens/Lawetlat’la to hunt mountain goats and collect wool. These fibers were spun into yarn, woven into capes and blankets, and traded throughout the pre-contact Northwest Coast as high-status items. Since the 1980 eruption, mountain goats have naturally recolonized Mount St. Helens and the population is expanding. Biologists from the Tribe, several agencies, and volunteer citizen scientists are working together to monitor population trends. The volcano was recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Property of the Cowlitz Tribe, and members are again gathering tufts of wool from the slopes of Lawetlat’la, preparing to recover the lost art of wool-weaving. Reynolds will weave science, culture and history together in his fascinating presentation!