Newhalem, Washington
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Newhalem is a small [1] unincorporated community in northwestern Washington, USA, located in the western foothills of the Cascade Mountains along the Skagit River. It is located within Whatcom County.
Newhalem is a company town owned by Seattle City Light and populated entirely by employees of the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project, or in local county, state or federal agencies. The town is not open to permanent residents who do not work for these certain agencies. The Ross Lake National Recreation Area surrounds Newhalem on all sides, and the North Cascades National Park boundary is approximately one mile to the north and south of the town. The name Newhalem has its roots in a local Native American language as meaning 'Goat Snare'.
In pre-Colonial times, the site was inhabited by members of the Upper Skagits.
[edit] Newhalem in Literature and Film
The writer Tobias Wolff lived in Newhalem [2] as a boy in the late 1950s, after his mother moved from West Seattle to marry a mechanic who lived in one of the company houses. In his memoir, This Boy's Life, he calls this isolated settlement "Chinook," and describes how the nearest high school was a long bus ride away, in a slightly larger hamlet called "Concrete" (the town's real name in this case). In the 1993 film version of This Boy's Life, starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, the two places are combined and called "Concrete."
Portions of the 1983 hollywood movie "WarGames", starring Matthew Broderick, were filmed in Newhalem [3]. Most notibly, the scenes of the "Cheyenne Mountain Complex" were filmed in an abandoned gravel pit northwest of the town.
[edit] Newhalem Summer Softball Tournament
Each year, during the third weekend of July, the annual "mushball" tournament is held. The competitors are all Skagit Valley teams that normally play in the co-ed league on friday nights at Skagit Valley College. After the season, however, this tournament takes place. The players will typically camp at the campgrounds not more than a mile away from the fields. On the second morning of the tourney, at the firehall, is a pancake feed. One year the tournament didn't take place because the sheriff thought too much rowdy behavior was going on.
[edit] References
- ^ (<2000)
- ^ Geoffrey Wolff, Tobias's brother, refers to it as "Newhalem Camp" in the biography of their father, The Duke of Deception.
- ^ WarGames (1983)
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