This week on the Compass, we reprise our coverage of two special days in June 2019, when ceremonies brought acknowledgement of several thousand years of rich social and religious indigenous culture, ownership and rejection of past intolerance by the white man, and the opportunity to educate citizens and visitors alike about the relationship between the ‘SKlallam People and the European settlers who came to occupy this special place the ‘Sklallams called the village of Qatay. A 30-foot totem arrived at the foot of Water Street, and the Cheech-ma-han Trail was dedicated and embraced by the community. Join us as we revisit some of the sounds, voices and music of these two celebratory days.

We talk with a doctor about hearing loss, a problem that’s likely to affect every one of us sooner or later…and if you don’t address it sooner, you almost certainly will be worse off later.

Could it be that many of the world’s most dreaded diseases, from Alzheimer’s to cancer and heart disease, can be prevented or even cured by a simple change in diet? This week, in a program that first aired in March of 2016, we talk to a doctor who tells us it could.

This week on Compass, humble sailor Olivier Huin tells us his story about building a 51-foot wooden sailboat and of his first attempt in 2017 at navigating the Northwest Passage from Newfoundland to Breskell’s new home in Port Townsend. In that conversation earlier this summer, he spoke of his current preparations, as he and his five-person crew prepared to make a second attempt to cross. Since then, Olivier has been reporting in each week by SatPhone. We’ll include his latest report, along with the crew’s observations about the impact of a rapidly changing Arctic climate.

This week on the Compass we report on the seventh annual All-County Picnic at HJ Carroll Park, where local residents from every walk of life came together (as they do each year) with emergency planners to learn how to prepare for disaster and to build resilient communities.

Teenage years are never easy, but in recent years an increasing number of troubled teens consider suicide as an option. Port Townsend has not escaped this. Four years ago 15-year-old Benji Kenworthy took his own life, which first shattered this community but then led to an option that can help save teenager’s lives. The Benji Project provides teenagers with stress management and emotional resilience skills to keep them from a drastic action that will affect everyone around them. On today’s Compass we talk with Cynthia Osterman, Benji’s mother, who has built the project into a valuable local resource.

We invite you to the All-County Picnic, a free event that’s fun for the whole family … and could also save your life.

In this edition of Compass, KPTZ reporter Chris Bricker speaks with Mary-Wynne Ashford, M.D., author and activist, who has been a leader in the international peace and disarmament movement for several decades.  She’ll be one of the keynote speakers this week during events at the Cotton Building.  From our civilization’s naive exploration of Nuclear Energy in the 1940s and 1950s to coping in subsequent decades with the Genie that’s out of the bottle, it is important for us to remember two profound days in history that changed the world. On August 6th and 9th the community of Port Townsend will reflect on the meaning, tragedy and lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with music, poetry, movies, speakers, ceremony and prayer.

This week on the Compass, we talk with Mike Schleckser, better known to KPTZ listeners as DJ Max, a Port Townsend man whose father passed away and, as a tribute to his dad, Mike decided to go for a long walk from Mexico to Canada all by himself – 2,650 miles. It took four months, and today he tells us all about the pain and the joy.

Summer is upon us with warm sunny weather, and the waters of the Olympic shore beckon to boaters of every stripe to come play. So this week on the Compass we reprise a show produced previously by veteran kayaker and KPTZ DJ Chris Bricker on the subject of kayak safety, which was motivated by the tragic deaths of two kayakers off the Dungeness Spit when the weather suddenly turned bad in April of 2015.