Counterculture Circulation

The underground newspaper scene in Bellingham circa 1969 told through contributing reporters of the Northwest Passage.

Story by MATHEW ROLAND

Tucked away in the Center for Northwest Archives is a sliver of journalism history. A slender cardboard box contains dozens of copies of the Northwest Passage, a counterculture biweekly newspaper published at the time of the Vietnam War.

Elizabeth Joffrion, director of heritage resources, pulls the lid off the box and warns me to be delicate with copies of the paper.

“Old newsprint tears easily,” she said.

I pull out a stack and turn them upside down on the table, flipping through the detailed art and graphic designs. These yellowing pages are artifacts in our current age of digital storytelling. The historic copies of newsprint offer a glimpse into the ’70s, a rebellious and turbulent time characterized by anti-war protests, environmental consciousness and the continued fight for equality.

The bi-weekly publication broke the mold of traditional newspapers of the time. It was staffed by volunteers and accepted stories from community contributors, thus providing an avenue for people to express their voice. The Northwest Passage worked to represent viewpoints of marginalized groups, covering politics, protests, sex, drugs, poetry, women’s rights, gay rights and the Native American and Chicano movements. In addition, the Northwest Passage was also a frequent contributor to environmental debates.

In an office in Fairhaven, the Northwest Passage served the community from 1969–86. According to Mapping American Social Movements, a project at the University of Washington, the Northwest Passage had a circulation of 4,000 copies between Bellingham and Seattle. The paper was one of more than 2,600 counterculture and underground publications in the United States from 1965–75. The project reveals the impact of the underground press on the civil rights movement, protests against the draft, and other social changes that define this era. Joel Connelly, a Bellingham native and political reporter and columnist for The Seattle P.I., contributed environmental stories to the Passage.

“The freedom to express yourself was a strength of the Northwest Passage,” Connelly said.

Now 70 years old, Connelly said he began contributing stories to the newspaper when he became conscious of the environmental issues facing Western Washington.

One of the big breaks for the Northwest Passage was exposing that Georgia Pacific was spilling mercury into Bellingham Bay. They reported that seven tons of mercury were being deposited into Bellingham Bay each year. The headline read “Georgia Pacific Poisons,” accompanied by a photo illustration of a gasmask and sunflowers.

“I think the Northwest Passage focused the pollution issue where it belonged,” Connelly said.

The following excerpt from that story highlights the tone of the Northwest Passage. “Above all, the public must demand that Georgia Pacific, which is the same company leading the rape of the redwoods in Northern California, stop its wanton exploitation and pollution of the environment for corporate profit. Georgia Pacific and corporations like it abuse land and natural resources because they regard them as commodities belonging to man, rather than land and natural resources being part of a community to which we belong where man has the right to use, but not to abuse, the products of nature.”

There were unique challenges facing the Northwest Passage, ranging from budget constraints to distributors who were nervous about the use of profanity. Not everyone in Bellingham was a part of the counterculture movement. The mayor of Bellingham at the time, Reg Williams, even attempted to bring obscenity charges against the paper.

Despite efforts to dismantle the paper, it persisted within the counterculture scene of Fairhaven, Bellingham and Seattle. Seventy-year-old journalist John Dodge contributed environmental stories to the Northwest Passage. His career in journalism spanned 35 years after leaving the Passage. Much of Dodge’s journalism career was spent at The Olympian as an environmental reporter and columnist.

“The target audience were basically folks fed up with the war, fed up with racism and sexism, and wanted rapid change,” Dodge said. “They weren’t comfortable with slow methodical change from within the system, things weren’t changing fast enough.”

When the public discovered the U.S. had bombed Cambodia in 1969, it sparked outrage that the government was expanding the Vietnam War into neighboring countries. Dodge said in Bellingham, hundreds of students and citizens marched up the Lakeway freeway onramp and out onto the freeway in protest, consequently shutting down I-5.

“The very first driver to come up to our blockade was a little old lady who got out of her car and sat down with us on the freeway,” Dodge said. Nearly 50 years later, a similar protest shut down I-5 in solidarity with those against the Dakota Access Pipeline in February 2017.

As I delicately close the last few pages of the Northwest Passage and place them upright back in the cardboard box, I am reminded of the responsibility journalists must uphold everyday. The stories we write and the photos we make may one day be archived for future generations to learn from, thus having a lasting impact on the communities they serve.