Not a Bog, a Fen: Kate Miller and the Save of Bonaparte Meadows

Scott drove to the town of Okanogan, in Okanogan County, and sat down in the offices of the Okanogan Land Trust with Kate Miller, its executive director. He admits on tape that the naming situation gets him every time.

The trust is small. Two staff and an intern, with a conservation coordinator role currently open, covering Okanogan and western Ferry counties. It has been a land trust since 2002. What it does, almost always, is conservation easements. An easement is a voluntary agreement between a private landowner and the trust that places permanent restrictions on a piece of land. The land stays private and stays in the family. What changes is that it can never be subdivided or developed. Some easements are grant funded, which means the landowner is paid for the rights they give up. Others are donated, which can carry a tax benefit. Either way the negotiation, the legal work and the funding take years, and Kate’s face when Scott asks how long it takes is one of the better moments in the episode.

Kate did not plan any of this. She was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and grew up overseas while her father worked in global public health. She went to Reed College in Portland, finished a PhD in cultural anthropology in California, did a postdoc in Vienna and taught at Western Oregon University. COVID rearranged her life, a friend pointed her toward local environmental nonprofits, and she has now run this one for more than five years. Her husband teaches at Tonasket Elementary.

Most of this conversation is about a single property, and it is worth the time.

Bonaparte Meadows sits below Bonaparte Mountain near Bonaparte Lake, up in the Okanogan Highlands. It is 745 acres, and at the centre of it lies roughly 265 acres of calcareous fen. If you have been using the words bog, fen and swamp interchangeably your whole life, this is the part of the episode that fixes that. A bog catches and holds rainwater, which is why bogs tend to be acidic. A fen is fed by groundwater welling up through the site and running along it. At Bonaparte that groundwater filters through limestone on the way, which makes it a calcareous fen, one of the rarest wetland types in the United States and the largest peat wetland in Okanogan County. Its deep peat soils hold water, store carbon, and feed cold clean flows down into the Okanogan River watershed.

A fen is a kind of wetland that is fed by groundwater that is welling up in and running through the site, whereas a bog is catching and holding rainwater.

Parts of it had been mined for peat.

The family that owned the property wanted to sell rather than place an easement on it, which meant the only way to protect the fen was to buy the whole thing. So a two person organisation, in one of Washington’s least populated and lowest income counties, set out to raise one and a half million dollars. Kate walks through exactly how that gets done: state Recreation and Conservation Office grants that require a local match, the Ponderosa Dinner the trust holds every summer, the end of year mail appeal, and the thing that genuinely surprised her, which was how hard her own neighbours gave.

On August 12, 2026, five days after this conversation was recorded, the Okanogan Land Trust announced that its For the Fen campaign had reached the full one and a half million dollar goal. Project partners include Trout Unlimited, the Okanogan Conservation District, North Central Washington Audubon Society, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and Sparrow Song Consulting. Restoration planning starts next, and further giving goes to a stewardship fund for the property.

You can learn more about Bonaparte Meadows and its extraordinary capacity to sequester carbon, store water and provide habitat for wildlife and plant life on the Okanogan Land Trust campaign page.

The quieter thread running under all of it is capacity. The trust holds 36 easements now. It also turns away landowners it would like to help, because two people can only carry so much, and some of those opportunities are time sensitive enough that saying no once means saying no forever. That is the part Kate finds hardest.

It really is hard to say to those people, we just don’t have the capacity to help you right now, which may mean we can’t help you ever.

There is also a divemaster certification in Egypt, a firm position on cake, and a list of places to eat that Scott draws out of her at the end.

Kate Miller Okanogan Land Trust Episode Transcript

Scott Cowan [00:00:04]:

Hello friends, and welcome to the Exploring Washington State Podcast. My name is Scott Cowan, and I’m the host of the show. Each episode, I have a conversation with an interesting guest who is living in or from Washington State. These are casual conversations with real and interesting people. I think you’re going to like the show, so let’s jump right in with today’s guest. I am in the offices of the Okanogan Land Trust in the city of Okanogan in the county of Okanogan. It’s always very confusing to me. I am with Kate Miller, the executive director of Okanogan Land Trust.

Scott Cowan [00:00:40]:

Kate, thank you for taking the time. In 30 seconds or less, give me your whole life backstory. Oh, wow.

Kate Miller [00:00:50]:

Well, first of all, thanks for coming all this way. It’s really good to be with you. Yeah, I have been executive director at Okanogan Land Trust for a little over 5 years now. I was born on the East Coast in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and when I was a kid, my family moved abroad for my father’s career in global public health. And we were overseas until I graduated from high school and came to the West Coast for college. I went to Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and just fell in love with the Pacific Northwest and traveled all around, mostly in Oregon, and just love these landscapes. Went to California for my doctoral work, and both my BA and my doctorate were in cultural anthropology. That was my first love.

Kate Miller [00:01:39]:

Yeah, got my PhD, worked a couple of academic jobs, did a postdoc in Vienna for a year. That was amazing. And I was working at Western Oregon University down in Monmouth, Oregon, between Salem and Corvallis in the beautiful Willamette Valley when COVID came along. And as it did for so many others, really disrupted my life. I had been thinking increasingly over the previous several years that finishing out my career in academia was maybe not what I wanted or was suited to do. I thought all the time about compounding environmental crises, and I thought, well, maybe that could be my career in some way. And so I was trying to figure out what a cultural anthropologist could, what kind of value I could provide in that space.

Scott Cowan [00:02:33]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:02:33]:

And was kind of in a very academic kind of way, was working on a second research project around rural communities and responses to climate change in that local area around in the Willamette Valley. And then COVID COVID hit, and I was like, I gotta, I gotta go.

Scott Cowan [00:02:49]:

You gotta go.

Kate Miller [00:02:50]:

I gotta get out. Um, and, um, I have a very dear friend from college. We also taught at Reed together in our first few years of teaching, and she is from here. Her family is from here up in the Okanogan Highlands above Tonasket. So I had been here as a college student and then visited again later in life, um, her and her family. She had had an academic career too, and then left it after she had her son to move back to this area and ultimately take over the running of the small nonprofit group that her father founded to fight a gold mine that was being proposed in the Okanogan Highlands. That organization is called Okanogan Highlands Alliance.

Scott Cowan [00:03:36]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:03:36]:

So my friend is now co-director of OHA since her father retired. And she said to me, you know, you could do what I do. You could run a small environmental nonprofit. you’ve got the skill set. If you could do a PhD, you could do that too. It’s about organization, it’s about grant writing, it’s about all these basic skills. And she sent me the posting for the job with Okanogan Land Trust right at a very critical moment where my future at Western Oregon was just looking increasingly bleak. And I applied on a whim and got the job and have just been learning.

Kate Miller [00:04:12]:

as much as I can about this work and really digging in here ever since.

Scott Cowan [00:04:18]:

Okay, so you were not prepared for this follow-up question, but this is the way my brain works. So, how hard was it to convince your husband to leave what you guys knew to move? I’m joking when I say the middle of nowhere, but you know, you’re,

Kate Miller [00:04:36]:

We’re pretty far out here.

Scott Cowan [00:04:37]:

Yeah, you’re up here.

Kate Miller [00:04:39]:

So, You know, actually not hard at all. Um, one of our very early, uh, dates actually was we went backpacking in the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness in Eastern Oregon. And as we were driving through like the John Day area, um, we were talking to each other, you know, this is very early in our relationship, about would you ever want to live rural in a place like this? And we both agreed that we kind of, you know, the idea held an appeal, but I couldn’t think what how my career could take me at that time, you know, to a place like this. And anyway, while I was at Western Oregon University, my husband got his master’s, his teaching credential, and that was explicitly a conversation between us that he’d be able to go anywhere and be a teacher. So, yeah, we’d come up together to visit our friends and got a flavour of the community and of the landscape. So when the opportunity came, he was all in, unfortunately. Is he a teacher now?

Scott Cowan [00:05:34]:

He’s a teacher at Tonasket Elementary, yeah. Elementary kids?

Kate Miller [00:05:37]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:05:38]:

Ooh, good for him.

Kate Miller [00:05:41]:

Yeah, he’s a natural. He’s really good with them.

Scott Cowan [00:05:44]:

So now the next 30-second question to put a timer on. No, I’ll keep, so can you describe the, well, first off, what, when you say the Okanogan Land Trust, boil that down to what is the essence of it?

Kate Miller [00:06:02]:

Okay. Um, Okanogan Land Trust is a nonprofit organization. We’ve been a land trust since 2002. And what we do is we protect working lands, wildlife habitats, and water resources in Okanogan and Western Ferry Counties, primarily through the medium of conservation easements, which are voluntary agreements between a land trust and a private landowner to put certain restrictions around that land forever. The landowner continues to own the land. They retain a lot of rights to that land. But we’re putting certain things off the table, primarily the rights to subdivide that land. So if the conservation easement covers 120 acres, it’s going to stay 120 acres.

Kate Miller [00:06:45]:

It’s not going to be subdivided out and sold in pieces. And it’s going to limit development, residential or other kinds of development on the property, to whatever is allowed within the terms of the easement. So if there’s a house there, single-family home, that’s probably going to be included in the easement and allowed, but maybe no further construction. If it’s a big piece of rangeland, we might want to make sure that there are development rights in the future so that a farm family, maybe even farmworkers, can live there appropriate to the scale of the operation, but no more than that. So prohibiting subdivision, limiting development, and then from there, it’s very customizable, this agreement. It can look, it can reflect whatever it is that the landowner and the land trust want to protect, whether that’s more habitat or more agricultural viability, or if there are important water resources on the property, the terms will have more to do with protecting those water resources. So yeah, from there, it’s just a highly customizable agreement that gets recorded on the title to the property, and it remains in effect, in theory, forever.

Scott Cowan [00:07:54]:

I want to phrase this carefully because what I’m going to say is, well, I’m going to say it this way. So What benefit or motivation would a landowner have to do this besides good, the good of it? I don’t mean, so, but is there, are there any tax breaks? Do they get, okay, so pitch me like I’m a, pitch me like I have 160 acres of agricultural land up here. How’s that? What’s in it? Why would I want to do this?

Kate Miller [00:08:25]:

Great. Well, it really depends on the property and the intentions or the purposes that the landowner has, that, you know, the uses that they want to retain in the future. For many kinds of properties with many kinds of conservation values, right, those are those reasons, the things we’re trying to protect.

Scott Cowan [00:08:44]:

Mm-hmm.

Kate Miller [00:08:46]:

There are grant programs out there that we can apply for and utilize to compensate the landowner for the rights that they’re giving up. So there may be a direct payment to that landowner. if there’s a grant program out there that’s a good enough fit. And these are all competitive programs, so it has to rank out against other properties around the state. So yeah, that’s an option. And this is something we kind of discuss and decide pretty early in a project. Is it going to be, is it path A or path B? Is it going to be a donated conservation easement where the landowner doesn’t get compensated in cash for what they’re giving up? Or are we going to pursue that funding to bring them some or all of the value of what they’re giving up? And as you mentioned, there are For properties where the value of the easement is in effect donated, for which they’re not receiving compensation, there can be tax benefits to doing that. The IRS counts that donation as if it were a donation of cash, though you have to go through some extra steps to substantiate what that value is.

Scott Cowan [00:09:46]:

Interesting, because I wasn’t, by no means am I an expert on this, but I wasn’t aware at all that The property owner may be able to receive some funding.

Kate Miller [00:10:01]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:10:02]:

In return for the donation.

Kate Miller [00:10:06]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:10:07]:

Air quotes. I mean, you know, around that. So the land trust then brings expertise into it because your organization is up to date on what programs are out there and potentially available for a landowner in Tonasket.

Kate Miller [00:10:23]:

Absolutely. And we’re pretty good at applying for those grants and managing them when they come in, and then going through all of the due diligence steps. It’s like any real estate transaction, only quite a bit more complicated than just the sale of a house. So there’s a lot of intermediate steps, and that’s what we’re good at, is just kind of walking through those steps to, to the point where the easement is negotiated and can be recorded.

Scott Cowan [00:10:44]:

And is there a Parcel size that this begins to make sense at? Is there, I mean, if I owned a quarter acre here in town, that’s probably not viable. If I owned, but do I, how much, at what point can a parcel begin to make potential sense?

Kate Miller [00:11:09]:

Yeah, no, that’s a great question. And parcel size is one of the criteria that is mentioned in our strategic conservation plan, which kind of guides how we make those initial decisions and evaluate a parcel of whether we’re going to go forward, whether we’re going to seek funding, so forth. But it’s relative to the other considerations. We might go smaller on a parcel if there’s some very specific thing there to protect. Usually in Okanogan County, that’s a particular high-value water source, an important, perhaps a salmon-bearing tributary of the Okanogan or a headwater spring.

Scott Cowan [00:11:47]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:11:47]:

For such a tributary. So there’s no absolute answer. The question of size really relates more to the viability of that conservation value. For ag land here, especially for rangeland, which Okanogan County is a big cattle-producing county.

Scott Cowan [00:12:04]:

Yeah.

Kate Miller [00:12:05]:

So a lot of the properties we work on are big rangeland properties. you need a lot bigger land base for that kind of operation to be viable. So we’re typically, that’s a really different scale.

Scott Cowan [00:12:17]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:12:17]:

And I happen to sit on the evaluation committee for Washington State RCO’s Farmland Preservation Grant Program. And so I see projects come in from around, obviously I don’t rank our projects.

Scott Cowan [00:12:31]:

Right.

Kate Miller [00:12:31]:

But I’ve seen projects come in from around the state. And so, you know, what that size question looks really different when you’re on the Olympic Peninsula, even in relation to something like ag viability, Right. You know, than it does out here. But it also depends on what type of ag or what type of habitat or what type of resources there. So, but that’s a really long-winded answer. The short answer is that our strategic conservation plan identifies 40 acres as kind of the minimum size. And typically we’re looking at something more like 80 or above, again, unless there’s something really, adjacency to public land is another big factor, right? Because then you’re kind of effectively extending the scope of of conserved land.

Scott Cowan [00:13:11]:

Then the other question that’s probably going to be next to impossible to ask, but that’s my specialty, is, so I knock on your door on January 1st. I know you’re closed, but January 1st. And I say, I have 160 acres, I’d like to do something with it. Process time to go through this? Folks, you can’t see her face, but she just rolled her eyes at me.

Kate Miller [00:13:34]:

I did not.

Scott Cowan [00:13:35]:

No, just kidding. Um, no, just kind of, is this, is this something that takes, you know, years? Years?

Kate Miller [00:13:42]:

Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:13:43]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:13:43]:

Um, and that part of the reason why we have the conversation about funding early on is because the, the process of applying for funding and getting that funding secured adds a year or more, right, to the process right off the bat. But even in the simplest possible case of a donated conservation easement, um, with no weird wrinkles or problems that arise, we are still talking about multiple years just because it takes that long to walk through all those steps. And typically just to, you know, it’s a long conversation with the landowner, even when they come in through the door with a pretty clear idea in their mind of what their intentions are.

Scott Cowan [00:14:24]:

Right.

Kate Miller [00:14:24]:

That still all has to get negotiated. We’re going to ask them questions they haven’t maybe thought about before about what they want to allow or prohibit. And we’re going to have to put that in the form of a legal document that can stand up Right. In court, potentially, that can stand up in time to future challenges. And that is not a, that’s not a quick process.

Scott Cowan [00:14:44]:

No, no, it’s not. I knew that was going to be a really difficult question, but I was thinking years.

Kate Miller [00:14:52]:

But still, every time somebody walks through the door, I catch myself thinking, oh, this one’s going to be pretty simple. And 5 years later, it’s not always that long, but there’s There are always complications.

Scott Cowan [00:15:06]:

Yeah, well, it’s real estate. There’s always, Yeah, there’s always something. There’s something, even if you think it’s a, you know, oh, I’m just buying the house across the street. I’m buying it from Bill and Sally. I know them. And, you know, those deals don’t work.

Kate Miller [00:15:20]:

I think that’s the worst, actually.

Scott Cowan [00:15:21]:

Actually, I might say buying it from family can be the worst. Oh, yeah.

Kate Miller [00:15:25]:

You got some funky family situations.

Scott Cowan [00:15:27]:

Yeah, there’s just some, anyway. Okay. So how many people work for the land trust? How big is your organization?

Kate Miller [00:15:41]:

Right now, we are 2 employees and a summer intern. I have just made an offer to bring in our 3rd staffer in a really critical position, which is our conservation coordinator.

Scott Cowan [00:15:55]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:15:55]:

Position. That’s the person who’s going to be doing the bulk of that evaluation and due diligence, all that process work. So yeah, in the last several years, we’ve been a 3-person organization. Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:16:08]:

If I could wave a magic wand, how many, what do you think the optimal size for the organization would be based on what you’re seeing the county, the potential of the county for this type of project?

Kate Miller [00:16:20]:

Great question. I would really like to get to 5 staff within the next few years. I think that would really allow us to respond effectively to all of the worthy opportunities that walk through our door that right now we just don’t have the capacity to follow through on without burning ourselves out.

Scott Cowan [00:16:42]:

Right, right. Okay. And so when we started having a conversation about sitting down and talking about the land trust and all that, currently you’ve got kind of a project that’s kind of front and center.

Kate Miller [00:16:55]:

Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:16:56]:

Publicly, at least publicly facing front and center. Why don’t you take me through that whole process, how it started, where you’re at, where you want it to, because it looks like, according to the website on my phone here, it looks like you’re getting close to, I don’t want to say wrapping it up, but getting it to where you wanted it to go. So why don’t you tell me about that?

Kate Miller [00:17:24]:

Thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, so I mentioned that OLT has worked historically through the medium of conservation easements, and that has been an important and a strategic choice for many reasons, but partly because we work in a really conservative county and a county where I think residents of all persuasions really value property rights, private property rights. And so working with landowners, working through these voluntary agreements has been the way to establish ourselves to do good work in this county and without running afoul of those sensibilities. And over the time, my predecessors built a really, I mean, again, in the face of some real opposition, a trusted reputation in this county. And we’ve been able to work really effectively in that way. But a couple of years ago, 2 and a half years ago now, I started getting calls from people, primarily folks who live up in the Okanogan Highlands and in the Wakanda area of the Highlands, saying, hey, this property, this place that a lot of folks around here call the Bog, the landowner is starting to make noise about putting it on the market and selling it. What can we do about this? And I had heard about this property from other folks in the conservation community. There are a lot of really amazing amateur and professional naturalists living in this county, and especially up in the highlands.

Kate Miller [00:18:58]:

So I had heard about this place. I’ve driven by it, I’ve seen it, and I’d heard about it. I’d heard it talked of as the dream. What if one day we could see this place protected? And then the day arrived. And a whole bunch of Okanogan Land Trust got those calls, other partner organizations got those calls. Fish and Wildlife program staff from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation heard about the opportunity as well. And again, a lot of individuals living up in that area. And so we started talking amongst ourselves.

Kate Miller [00:19:36]:

We started organizing ourselves. And very, very long story short, we arrived towards the end of 2025 at a a plan to acquire this property, which is called Bonaparte Meadows, that had Okanogan Land Trust in the lead as sort of the presumed purchaser of the land with support from all of these partners, Trout Unlimited, the Okanogan Conservation District, the tribe, and others. Okay, so why do we care? Bonaparte Meadows is a 746-acre property. It’s immediately south of Bonaparte Lake, which is a real recreation hub in the county. People love to camp there, fish there, swim there. There’s an ice fishing derby every winter that’s really well attended. So it’s a pretty well-known and beloved spot in the Highlands. And the bog, or Bonaparte Meadows, lies immediately south of there and is very visible from Bonaparte Lake Road as you’re driving up from Highway 20.

Kate Miller [00:20:37]:

Sorry, that’s our office phone ringing. And people in the Highlands have known that it’s a very special place, that it’s a very ecologically rich place for a long time. But only when we really started working to protect it did we start to understand exactly how much so. At the center of the property is a 265-acre calcareous fen.

Scott Cowan [00:21:06]:

A what?

Kate Miller [00:21:08]:

Yes, that is the appropriate response. So there are different types of wetlands, it turns out. In kind of popular speech, we use words like fen and bog and swamp kind of interchangeably, but there are technical definitions here. So a fen is a kind of wetland that is fed by groundwater that is kind of welling up in and running through the site. And in the case of, whereas a bog is kind of catching and holding rainwater, that’s part of what makes bogs typically very acidic in their chemistry.

Scott Cowan [00:21:40]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:21:43]:

In Bonaparte Meadows, the water is rising up through a mineral-rich and specifically a calcium-rich bedrock. And so that’s giving the water a very mineral-rich, calcium-rich chemistry. It is also basic or alkaline as opposed to acidic. And those conditions are just really rare. It’s not a common kind of environment to form on the landscape because you need such specific conditions. which means that the kinds of plants that grow there are very rare kinds of plants that are really adapted to these specific conditions, and those plants form the basis for a whole ecology that is really distinctive and really rich. So the acquisition, in addition to this 265-acre calcareous fen wetland that has Bonaparte Creek running through the middle of it, so that water is running through the site, kind of refreshing it, it also includes, the property also includes the surrounding forested uplands on both sides. And on almost 2/3 of the total property boundary, it’s bordered by public land, the Colville National Forest and Washington DNR land.

Kate Miller [00:22:51]:

And that too really adds to the value because it means that wildlife passing through this area just have protected land to move through. So yeah, I could go on for quite a while here about all the reasons we have to want to protect this place.

Scott Cowan [00:23:10]:

So Question, though. First off, 745 acres approximately, give or take a square foot or 2, is a good-sized parcel of land.

Kate Miller [00:23:21]:

Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:23:22]:

You’ve got a third of it’s basically this, I don’t want to say rare, but rarer, uncommon ecosystem. You’re bordering on DNR and tribal Stuff. Why? How do I want to phrase this? You mentioned when we started talking about easements and all of this, but this is a purchase.

Kate Miller [00:23:53]:

Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:23:53]:

I don’t know if you can talk about,

Kate Miller [00:23:54]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:23:55]:

Okay. So why?

Kate Miller [00:23:57]:

Why not a conservation easement?

Scott Cowan [00:23:59]:

Yeah. Could this just be because this is what the property owner is not interested in? They would like to divest themselves of ownership of the parcel.

Kate Miller [00:24:09]:

Okay. That’s basically it in a nutshell. Until 2025, until January 2025, this property was owned by a man named Jack Jones. His legal name was Herman, but on all the legal paperwork I have going back decades, he’s Herman, quote unquote, Jack Jones. He went by Jack. He bought it in 1968 with partners. They had this plan to dam the creek at the south end, the lower end of the wetland, create a second lake, and sell vacation properties all around the edges. The Army Corps of Engineers put a stop to that.

Kate Miller [00:24:43]:

Then for many decades, the property, the wetland was mined for peat.

Scott Cowan [00:24:48]:

Mm-hmm.

Kate Miller [00:24:48]:

Peat soils were extracted from the property. And for folks that garden, you’ll know that peat soils are a real, like, valued as a gardening medium.

Scott Cowan [00:24:57]:

Mm-hmm.

Kate Miller [00:24:57]:

They hold water really well and they’re rich. And Jack was nearing the end of his life when he first started to float the idea of selling the property. He wanted to make things easier for his heirs. So, yeah, he wasn’t, the family wasn’t interested in holding the property, and that’s typically, you know, when somebody wants a conservation easement, it’s because they envision continuing to own the place.

Scott Cowan [00:25:20]:

Right.

Kate Miller [00:25:21]:

So they were looking to sell, so that was our option, was to buy. Jack actually passed away as I sort of alluded to, in early 2025. But before he died, he told his 2 sons that he would like to see the property remain intact if possible, to be sold all as one piece.

Scott Cowan [00:25:38]:

Mm-hmm.

Kate Miller [00:25:39]:

And that has really given us our window of opportunity because they have been doing their best to honour that request, that intention. Um, and I think ultimately over time, I think they’ve come, become really attached to the vision that we have for the property, and, and they’ve been amazing to work with. But that’s that’s what gave us our window, and purchase was really the option here. I would say also, conservation easements are great tools, but they’re kind of minimalist tools.

Scott Cowan [00:26:08]:

Mm-hmm.

Kate Miller [00:26:09]:

You mostly, with a conservation easement, you are taking certain rights off the table. You are prohibiting certain uses. It’s very hard to prescribe a very detailed set of actions or management goals through a conservation easement. So because this site is so special, so unique, so ecologically rich and important, not just for what’s there, but for the benefits it provides to the wider landscape, that pushes us to think in terms of a strategy that allows for a more active, engaged management, and that is acquisition.

Scott Cowan [00:26:48]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:26:49]:

So just to say that, that is why OLT took this really important step. big step outside of our traditional way of working to acquire this land.

Scott Cowan [00:26:57]:

So one thing that pops into my head instantly is when this purchase is completed, and the land trust is the owner now, how are you, how is your organization set up to be a I don’t want to say active, but you’re now the legal owner. So is your organization set up to manage that type of responsibility?

Kate Miller [00:27:31]:

No, that’s a really good question. It’s going to be a lot of work, probably even more than we envision, especially because, as I mentioned, there’s that history of peat harvest. And so there’s going to be some significant restoration that we want to do once we have the opportunity.

Scott Cowan [00:27:46]:

Okay, earlier one of my questions was, if you could envision, I can wave a magic wand, you said you wanted 5 people. Okay, I’m going to wave the same. I carry the magic wand with me everywhere. What does the vision look like for Bonaparte Meadows 5 years from now?

Kate Miller [00:28:05]:

Right. Well, our first step is going to be to convene our partners, who have been with us all this time, but we’re starting now to reorganize ourselves from the goal of acquisition. Now we’re looking beyond acquisition to what comes next. And what that looks like immediately is convening an advisory body, a council for restoration planning and then implementation. So a number of our partners, including the tribe, including Trout Unlimited and the Conservation District and some other local groups that have also played a part here, These are all organizations that have experience and expertise in ecological restoration. OLT is not a restoration organization, nor do we expect to become one.

Scott Cowan [00:28:53]:

Right.

Kate Miller [00:28:54]:

But as the holder of the title to the land, we expect to be sort of convening that group, hearing from everybody about, you know, first developing a set of restoration goals and then deciding on the best strategies given the characteristics of the site. And so, we expect essentially to be the convener of that process, the organizer of that process.

Scott Cowan [00:29:15]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:29:15]:

And so part of that growth that I was talking about earlier is to bring somebody on who can help coordinate and manage that process, hear from the partners, select the best ideas and move forward, apply for funding and so forth. So 5 years from now, I would expect we would be past the planning and the permitting processes, and we would be really getting in there and implementing those restoration plans and starting hopefully to see some of those natural processes reassert themselves and the conditions begin to improve.

Scott Cowan [00:29:44]:

So I’m making an assumption, you’re not going to be harvesting peat?

Kate Miller [00:29:49]:

No. No, I think that is a management goal that we all agree on, is for that not to happen.

Scott Cowan [00:29:55]:

Not to happen. Okay. Because I’m not even sure how does one harvest peat? Is it an environmentally neutral or damaging process? I mean, I honestly don’t know.

Kate Miller [00:30:09]:

Thank you for asking that question. Um, so the process of harvesting the peat is in itself pretty simple. It’s just a mechanical, you know, digging the peat out of the ground, piling it up and bagging it and so forth. Um, but it is environmentally harmful in a number of ways. And this is why, by the way, one of our key collaborators, Julie VanderWal, Sparisong Consulting over in the Methow, she’s been doing a lot of training and education with people around peat-free gardening.

Scott Cowan [00:30:37]:

Right.

Kate Miller [00:30:37]:

Mediums and alternatives to peat. But one way in which it’s harmful, this process, is that in order to get at that peat, you know, that peat is under a certain amount of standing water and vegetation and so forth. And so one thing that’s happened at Bonaparte Meadows is that the southern portions of the wetland where the water is kind of draining out and flowing away have been kind of dredged and channelized in order to move more water out of the site. Lowering the water table and facilitating that extractive process. So one of our, again, our kind of agreed-upon restoration and management goals is to bring that water table back up again.

Scott Cowan [00:31:15]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:31:15]:

And reverse that process. But peat is also, and this is something I didn’t know until we got into this process, but peat is an incredible store of carbon. So wetlands, and particularly peat wetlands worldwide, according to the IUCN and other kind of climate research groups, peatlands, wetlands around the world store more carbon than all other habitat combines. And wetlands per acre can store twice as much carbon as forest.

Scott Cowan [00:31:48]:

Hmm.

Kate Miller [00:31:48]:

Which, so interesting, World Wetlands Day is in February. So this year when it came around, all these groups were kind of putting out their calls to action around conserving wetlands as a natural climate solution. And that was very exciting for us. We got all these great statistics and really allowed us to think about the much more global impacts of this very local project. But so wetlands, peat wetlands in particular, sequester carbon just in this very basic process where plants are pulling carbon out of the atmosphere to make up their substance.

Scott Cowan [00:32:28]:

Mm-hmm.

Kate Miller [00:32:28]:

As those plants die and they begin to break down in these waterlogged, low-oxygen conditions in the wetland, They break down slowly and they only break down partially, and that is the process that forms that peat soil, that peat matter. And in the process, they take that carbon that they have used to make up their structure and they are putting it in the ground. They’re making it part of the soil. And when you dig that up and you dry it out, you are releasing that carbon back into the atmosphere.

Scott Cowan [00:33:01]:

Oh.

Kate Miller [00:33:01]:

So instead of being held and sequestered, And an active, a healthy peat wetland is pulling carbon out of the atmosphere all the time. So you’re not just stopping, but you’re reversing that process and you’re putting carbon back into the air.

Scott Cowan [00:33:14]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:33:15]:

All right.

Scott Cowan [00:33:16]:

So I always learn stuff, no matter who I talk to. It’s always kind of fascinating.

Kate Miller [00:33:20]:

Part of what I love about this project is I have learned so much about all kinds of things I didn’t even know there were to know.

Scott Cowan [00:33:27]:

Now, you mentioned with this project, And I’m saying you singularly, and I don’t mean it like that. But your organization and other cooperating organizations are fundraising to purchase this parcel. Are we having a bake sale? Are we doing car washes? How does an organization or a group of organizations Are there grants available to this? So you could grant, right? But how do you get it to the last mile and get it to the point where whatever that agreed-upon purchase price is to be, that you can bring the wheelbarrow, the little Monopoly man with the wheelbarrow and the bags of money up to the escrow office and drop it off and say, here we go. How has that process been here?

Kate Miller [00:34:23]:

Well, that has been another whole aspect of the learning with this process because Okanogan Land Trust, we’ve been very successful in our grant writing. We know how to do that. We’ve been pretty successful at sustaining ourselves at our current size through our general fundraising efforts. We have 2 fundraisers a year. We ask our supporters for money.

Scott Cowan [00:34:43]:

I’m going to stop you. First, let’s talk about the 2 fundraisers that you already had Sure. So how did Okanogan Land Trust fundraise outside of this particular project?

Kate Miller [00:34:57]:

Yeah, no, great question. We, once a year in the kind of summertime season, we hold a dinner called the Ponderosa Dinner. It is our gathering for longtime supporters and donors to the land trust. It’s a chance to just get people together, feel good, enjoy each other’s company, and we ask people for money. And we’re really blessed with just an incredible community of people, many of whom have been with the land trust since its founding days, who just really value the work we do and are willing to support it year after year. And then we do kind of a more standard end-of-year fundraiser where we send out our end-of-year newsletter about all the stuff we’ve been doing for the year. We send that out by mail with a letter enclosed that says, as you’re getting towards the end of your year and you’re looking at what money you have left over, maybe throw us some. And so those are the 2 times of year, and that’s, so that’s entirely by mail.

Scott Cowan [00:35:59]:

Right.

Kate Miller [00:36:00]:

Um, and by email. And, um, that has been, you know, the results from that have been enough to sustain us. So what we, what we did when we you know, made the decision to pursue acquisition of Bonaparte Meadows, um, we were essentially committing to a capital campaign, which is when you raise money as a nonprofit for a specific project or purpose. And that was a first for us. So I have learned quite a bit about that kind of fundraising along the way.

Scott Cowan [00:36:25]:

It’s easy, isn’t it?

Kate Miller [00:36:28]:

If I had known how much work it was going to be, um, I know I would have still done it, but So just to back up for a second, because you asked about grants and things, our fundraising, our funding strategy writ large includes grants.

Scott Cowan [00:36:44]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:36:44]:

So the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office, RCO, which is an amazing agency we have here in Washington that funds, you know, everything from land acquisition by nonprofits and public land agencies to boating facilities, to playgrounds, to trails, all kinds of outdoor recreation and conservation activities. But they have, among other grant programs, one for critical habitat protection. And so we have applied and are still waiting the results of our application for that critical habitat funding.

Scott Cowan [00:37:21]:

Mm-hmm.

Kate Miller [00:37:22]:

RCO, in many of its grant categories, will pay up to 50% of the eligible costs. So in this case, the primary eligible cost is the actual purchase price of the land, but there are some other incidentals along the way. So that left us with 50% to raise from other sources, and we determined that fundraising was the best way to get that other 50%. So in December and January, we kind of soft-launched this campaign, talking to people behind the scenes. And then in March, we went public with this effort. And we’ve done events, we’ve spoken, Julie and I both together and separately have spoken about and in the Methow Valley some, in Wenatchee as well. We’ve been putting out calls on social media. We’ve been using our email list to keep our supporters and new subscribers updated.

Kate Miller [00:38:22]:

Yeah, just using all the channels we have available to us to get the word out and talk to people about what’s going on. And I think that’s really important. makes this place so special and so worth preserving. And the most fun aspect of all of that has been getting people out there. Because it’s private land, you know, I mentioned that it’s very visible from Bonaparte Lake Road, so people have, in this area, have seen it. Anyone who’s, you know, stayed at Bonaparte Lake,

Scott Cowan [00:38:46]:

Right.

Kate Miller [00:38:46]:

, has seen it, but they didn’t get to necessarily go out in it. So bringing people there, bringing people out into the wetland, We had a geologist, Carl Lilquist, come. We’ve had expert birders and butterfly experts take people out in the fen and show them what there is to see. And it’s been a learning experience for us, the partners in the project, but it’s been amazing to share that with the public as well.

Scott Cowan [00:39:15]:

Right. And so based on what you just said, the The sons that inherited this from your father when he passed, they’ve been receptive to having the public go on to the parcel?

Kate Miller [00:39:30]:

Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:39:30]:

They’ve been cooperative, and you can work with them? That’s cool.

Kate Miller [00:39:35]:

Yeah, just to quickly address that, we have with them what’s called an option agreement, which is that we have essentially paid them for the time, the right to pursue the funds necessary to purchase the property. Um, and that option agreement means that they will not sell to another buyer or put the property on the market until that, the term of that option agreement expires. Um, the original term ran through the end of July of this year. They recently granted us a 30-day extension, so now we have until the end of August.

Scott Cowan [00:40:04]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:40:05]:

And that agreement includes things like bringing people out there for the purpose of, you know, both assessing the property. We had an appraiser out to value it. We had, um, An environmental consulting group come and assess the land for any potential contaminants or hazards. So, and then of course we’ve had all these experts inventorying the species and the other ecological characteristics. But yes, they have really gone above and beyond and been very generous with granting us access to bring the public out there.

Scott Cowan [00:40:34]:

So out of all the channels that you’ve been using to fundraise, any surprises? Any channel that you maybe thought would work? Like, well, I’m just making this up. Well, I really thought email was going to work, but it turned out that this worked better. So is anything, what surprised you? Has anything surprised you in the fundraising?

Kate Miller [00:40:54]:

Yeah. The thing that has surprised me is the level of community support and excitement here in Okanogan County, especially in the North Country, in Tonasket and the Highlands, but really really throughout the county, including in the Methow. Folks don’t necessarily always come over to the east side of the county from the Methow Valley, folks who live there. But we knew this place was special, and OLT got involved because of that community interest and outcry. But the number of people now who stop me when I’m just trying to grocery shop in Tonasket, or I’m hanging out with my friends, and ask me, Are we going to do this? And the way that that’s translated into fundraising success, I figured we would maybe raise a few hundred thousand if we were lucky from here in the Okanogan Valley, and that the majority of the support might come from more conservation-minded donors in the region or statewide. But we’re at $1.1 million with another $150,000 pledged as a matching challenge right now.

Scott Cowan [00:42:06]:

Wow.

Kate Miller [00:42:08]:

majority of that has come from here in the Okanogan Valley, with a substantial amount also coming from the Methow. So people are really digging deep. They’re really passionate about this. They’re really invested. That, what, are we going to make it? I mean, just gets me every time because, yeah, it’s very humbling to be at the helm of something that means so much to so many people. And it’s been incredible.

Scott Cowan [00:42:31]:

That’s very cool. That’s a really cool story. So, you know, One of the things, and I told you this when we were chatting before I pushed record, you know this because, well, you live up here now. But I think if I’m going to pick on a large city in Washington, I’ll just pick on Seattle just because I can. I don’t think, I certainly didn’t, and I lived in Seattle for many, many years. I didn’t realize this. The landmass of Okanogan County is huge.

Kate Miller [00:42:59]:

Huge. Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:43:01]:

It’s, I know it’s larger than Connecticut, which I think means it’s larger than Rhode Island and Delaware. So, we’re talking about a county, one of 39 in the state, and that by itself, landmass is larger than states. And it’s certainly larger than King County, certainly larger than Chelan County. But the population per acre here, I think, is the lowest in the state, which makes me think how Stevens and Ferry, they must be so small. And the people are like, I don’t know.

Kate Miller [00:43:35]:

I think you’re right about the population density. It’s not the lowest population.

Scott Cowan [00:43:38]:

Right, it’s density per square mile.

Kate Miller [00:43:39]:

I think that’s right.

Scott Cowan [00:43:40]:

And I think it’s just because of this ginormous body of land that is open.

Kate Miller [00:43:45]:

And so much of it is public land as well.

Scott Cowan [00:43:47]:

Right. And so it’s just interesting to me that, you know, this county, It’s very, there’s distinct parts to it. Okay. There’s just distinct parts to it. And so to hear you tell me the story of the people of the county banding together to take care, preserve a specific place in a very large region is very uplifting. I think that’s very cool.

Kate Miller [00:44:15]:

And the other piece of context that you didn’t mention is that Okanogan County, in addition to being, you know, very low population density, is a very low-income county. I think average household income for the county is $40-something thousand a year. So, you know, it’s not a place with a huge concentration of wealth. Over here in the Okanogan Valley, the Methow Valley is sort of the other big valley system in the county where there is more wealth, mostly coming, you know, from Seattle in terms of, you know, people who’ve relocated, second homeowners.

Scott Cowan [00:44:45]:

Right.

Kate Miller [00:44:46]:

Recreational visitors. You know, that, there’s a concentration of wealth there. So here in the Okanogan Valley, there’s even less. And so, yeah, that’s a big part of what surprised me is just how much people were willing to give of what they had to see this place protected. And, you know, I heard it just from somebody the other day, but it’s like, if there’s one thing I hear from most of the people here when they call or when they stop me to talk about this project, it’s, I’ve driven by that place for years and I’ve always wondered what the story is. what’s out there, why it was allowed to be mined for peat, and if the day would ever come when it could be protected. So, and that’s just, I hear that from,

Scott Cowan [00:45:30]:

Interesting.

Kate Miller [00:45:31]:

The majority of people here in the county that I talk to, it’s just, it’s a place in people’s mental map and their imagination of the county and its geography. It is a place that really matters to people. And I’ve heard stories from people whose grandfather used to homestead there and, or who used to go and mess around in the, In the bog, you know, it’s just, it’s, it’s, um, yeah, it’s a really iconic place within the county.

Scott Cowan [00:45:58]:

Okay, so we’re getting close to the, the, the goal.

Kate Miller [00:46:03]:

Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:46:05]:

What’s next?

Kate Miller [00:46:08]:

For Okanogan Land Trust? For the project?

Scott Cowan [00:46:10]:

For, let’s just, the project seems to me, if I’m going to encapsulate it, it seems like To restore it back to as close to its natural ecosystem as possible.

Kate Miller [00:46:23]:

Yes. Yeah. Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:46:25]:

And to ensure that future generations can benefit from that, both human and wildlife.

Kate Miller [00:46:32]:

Absolutely. Okay. Well said.

Scott Cowan [00:46:34]:

Okay. So we just put that on the back burner. We’ve accomplished that. We’re done. We’re done for the day. What’s next for the Okanogan Land Trust?

Kate Miller [00:46:44]:

Yeah, well, I think about that a lot. I think what’s next for OLT is not another big, really public acquisition, not just because I really would like to catch up on my sleep. No, but also because, you know, this was a unique project worth sticking our necks out for and going past our our traditional comfort zone. There aren’t a lot of other places like that.

Scott Cowan [00:47:16]:

Right.

Kate Miller [00:47:16]:

I’m sure I will eat my words. Somebody will come to me next week with another great project, and I’ll be like, oh, I can’t turn it away. But no, it really, there really aren’t that many of these. And when we do this, we will be like, I used this analogy to somebody the other day, like a python that’s just eaten like a, you know,

Scott Cowan [00:47:37]:

You gotta digest it.

Kate Miller [00:47:38]:

Yeah, we gotta digest. So there’s gonna be that aspect perspective of things. But I also think, you know, one of my hopes, this project was just so obviously worth doing intrinsically, but one of my hopes all along for the land trust is that the attention and support garnered by this project would translate into a higher level of support going forward.

Scott Cowan [00:48:03]:

Mm-hmm.

Kate Miller [00:48:04]:

And that, that would be part of how we realize that that increase in capacity, not just for projects like this or for Bonaparte Meadows itself, but to be able to respond better to all of the amazing requests that we get from private landowners every week that are really worthy and worth doing. So I hope that this project, I’m really looking forward to being involved with Bonaparte Meadows for years to come, but I’m also really looking forward to being able to say yes to more conservation easements, to being more confident to respond to other kinds of projects that become available. Just having that capacity and that flexibility to say, hey, and the confidence,

Scott Cowan [00:48:50]:

Mm-hmm.

Kate Miller [00:48:51]:

, to say we can respond to the opportunities that come to protect all of the incredible open space and the working lands and the incredible habitat that exists here, and exists here in part because of that low population density. While the opportunity is here.

Scott Cowan [00:49:08]:

Right.

Kate Miller [00:49:08]:

Let’s do it while we can. And let’s be the kind of organization that can respond to those opportunities.

Scott Cowan [00:49:15]:

So I’m paraphrasing, you’re looking to increase the capacity of the organization?

Kate Miller [00:49:21]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:49:21]:

Okay. So in 2025, how many easements were completed?

Kate Miller [00:49:32]:

In 2025, we had, gosh, time is like, we had 2 easements completed. 2 in 2025? Which brought us up to 35 easements that we hold in total. One more this year, so that’s 36.

Scott Cowan [00:49:46]:

Okay. So, it’s not like it’s a lot of, I mean, it’s not 360, it’s 36, which is still wonderful. I don’t mean,

Kate Miller [00:49:57]:

Well, it’s 18,500 acres are protected by those 36 easements. So, it’s a fair amount of land.

Scott Cowan [00:50:04]:

Right. So in your confidence and capacity, you know, vision, what do you think 2028 would be like? What, what would you be, what are you maybe aiming towards for like 2028, a couple years from now?

Kate Miller [00:50:24]:

You know, I, I haven’t thought about it in terms of numbers really. It’s, it’s that feeling when somebody walks through the door with a really worthy project and they’re great stewards of the land, and they really are thinking about the future, and they really, they really want this. And I will say that, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about the money side of things, and that is undoubtedly a motivation for many of our landowners, but it’s never enough on its own. The people who go all the way, people who walk through the door, may be thinking in terms of that monetary payment or that tax benefit, but the folks for whom that’s the primary motivation, they drop out along the way.

Scott Cowan [00:51:01]:

Right.

Kate Miller [00:51:02]:

It’s the people who want to do it, for whom this is about securing their family’s legacy, or, you know, the habitat that they’ve been stewarding and improving so carefully throughout their life. And it, it really is hard to say to those people, we just don’t have the capacity to help you right now, which may mean we can’t help you ever because it’s a time-sensitive thing for them. Or, you know, this is not a project The grants that we’re familiar with or that we’re used to don’t really apply to this project, and we don’t have the capacity to go seek out those new funding sources. So I haven’t thought about it so much in terms of how many easements could we complete a year as just not having to turn away really worthy projects and great landowners and stewards.

Scott Cowan [00:51:48]:

And you can’t predict how many of those are going to, quote unquote, come through the door.

Kate Miller [00:51:51]:

They fluctuate so much.

Scott Cowan [00:51:52]:

Right. You can’t. That’s not like you can And it’s not like you have a seating capacity in here of people to come in and talk to you.

Kate Miller [00:51:59]:

Right.

Scott Cowan [00:51:59]:

Okay. Well, we could go on and on about this, but I want to shift gears and go back to you a little bit. You have a lot of free time. It’s very obvious. When you’re not fundraising and researching and writing grants and overseeing the organization. What do you and your family like to do for fun and recreation?

Kate Miller [00:52:29]:

Yeah, well, right now it’s very smoky out, so we’re spending a certain amount of time having fun indoors. No, we have, my husband and I have 2 dogs that we love to, you know, just take out on the trails as often as we can. And we both love backpacking a lot. Our dogs are kind of anxious and high maintenance, so we’re kind of working, still working getting them comfortable with like sleeping in a tent and being out all day. Uh, but that’s our goal, is to get to the point where we can, we can backpack in the Passaic Wilderness with our dogs.

Scott Cowan [00:53:02]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:53:03]:

Um, yeah, so that’s a lot. A lot of it is, um, is hiking, walking the dogs, uh, swimming in the various lakes around.

Scott Cowan [00:53:14]:

All right, what’s the best lake around here to go swimming?

Kate Miller [00:53:16]:

I mean, I have to say Lost Lake, uh, up in the Highlands. That’s It’s beautiful. Okay. Um, yeah, I mean, that’s a lot right now. Honestly, that’s a lot of it. Okay. If I have any free time.

Scott Cowan [00:53:28]:

That’s summer now up here. Winter hits here.

Kate Miller [00:53:31]:

Yes. Uh, well, fortunately, I love to cross-country ski, and, uh, obviously the Methow has some world-class cross-country trails. Lots of fun to go over there. My husband and I have, our birthdays are one day apart in January, so, okay, uh, when we can, we get over there for like a nice ski weekend. But there’s also a beautiful snow park up near the town of Havilah in the Highlands that is community-maintained, the Havilah Snow Park. And it’s got some slightly rougher and more kind of up and down cross-country trails, but just beautiful. So we spend as much of the winter as we can up there as well. And it’s an amazing community meeting place.

Scott Cowan [00:54:10]:

Is there one, is it Sitmark?

Kate Miller [00:54:13]:

Sitmark is a downhill ski hill, yep, also quite near the the, the snow park, right? Um, it, it has rarely been open in recent years through a combination of some aging equipment, and then just last winter there was just no snow to speak of. But yeah, I’m not a downhill skier myself, but that is a very beloved local institution.

Scott Cowan [00:54:35]:

Okay. Um, and then Loop Loop, but,

Kate Miller [00:54:37]:

Yes, and folks go to Loop Loop and, and of course up into Canada for skiing. So yeah, wintertime it’s a lot of, lot of cross-country And, um, I personally am sort of inclined to hibernate during the winter, so I sleep a lot.

Scott Cowan [00:54:50]:

All right. Um, I’m gonna, now, I warned you I have 3, 3 questions I ask every guest. Now, for you, I’m gonna give you a little bit of latitude here.

Kate Miller [00:55:00]:

Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:55:01]:

And, and what I mean by that is, so the first, the first question is, you know, where’s a great place to get coffee? Now, I’m not gonna, but I’m going, I’m, so I’m gonna, for you, And only for you, I’ll let you say anywhere in Okanogan County. It doesn’t have to be in the town of Okanogan. It can be. There’s no wrong answers here. Yes, but let’s go the county. So if that, if that changes your answer any.

Kate Miller [00:55:26]:

Oh, that does give me a lot of latitude. Um, but I have to say, I mean, our little local shop almost across the street here, Crafted, it’s a little boutique with a coffee shop in the back. And, um, yeah, they do a nice cup of coffee, a nice little breakfast, and it’s very convenient to the office. So I’m I’m going to say Crafted.

Scott Cowan [00:55:43]:

I’ve never been in there.

Kate Miller [00:55:44]:

It’s really sweet.

Scott Cowan [00:55:45]:

Okay. And so what is your coffee drink of choice?

Kate Miller [00:55:48]:

Oh, well, these days, it’s an oat milk, you know, cold iced coffee.

Scott Cowan [00:55:54]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:55:55]:

But if I’m feeling indulgent, it’s a caramel macchiato with oat milk.

Scott Cowan [00:55:59]:

What about summer? Or not summer, winter?

Kate Miller [00:56:02]:

Oh, yeah. Well, then it’s a hot caramel macchiato with oat milk.

Scott Cowan [00:56:04]:

All right.

Kate Miller [00:56:05]:

Dairy upsets my tummy a little.

Scott Cowan [00:56:07]:

Okay. So, no dairy. All right. So, Crafted. I’ll have to go check that out because that’s, uh, I admit when I get my coffee here, it’s Freebird typically at the grocery store.

Kate Miller [00:56:18]:

Absolutely, great cup of coffee.

Scott Cowan [00:56:19]:

No, it is. And I go there because they serve Blue Star, which is one of my favorite coffee roasters in the state. Um, so that’s, you know, shout out to Blue Star.

Kate Miller [00:56:29]:

And my husband and I, you know, we divide our affections evenly among the various coffee shops in Tonasket.

Scott Cowan [00:56:34]:

So we’re, you know, we’re very like, So help me out. I, I’m, I don’t get up to Tonasket all that often anymore, but I can’t think of a coffee, I don’t want to say, I was gonna say good coffee shop. I can’t think of a coffee shop in Tonasket.

Kate Miller [00:56:47]:

Yes. Okay, so, um, if you want a sit-down coffee shop, there is Bean Addiction, which is also where the, like, um, vehicle licensing, like, window is. It’s kind of like a multi-purpose, um, stop. Um, and there’s another one. Oh, I’m so sorry to these folks because I cannot think of, um, the And then there are 2 coffee carts, Roosters and All Perked Up. And we kind of split our time between the 2.

Scott Cowan [00:57:14]:

And what’s your husband drink? What’s his go-to?

Kate Miller [00:57:16]:

He actually gets the same.

Scott Cowan [00:57:18]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:57:18]:

Yeah, but just in a larger size.

Scott Cowan [00:57:20]:

All right. All right. Once again, countywide.

Kate Miller [00:57:23]:

Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:57:24]:

Which is going to be hard. Play along. It’s lunchtime. So lunchtime, with how big this county is, I’m not going to, probably going to run up to Oroville if you recommend it. But the point is, where’s a great place to grab lunch?

Kate Miller [00:57:37]:

Okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna cheat here and I’m gonna give you one for Okanogan County and one for Ferry County because we do operate in western Ferry County as well.

Scott Cowan [00:57:44]:

Oh, I see how your game plan is.

Kate Miller [00:57:45]:

And we would love to.

Scott Cowan [00:57:45]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [00:57:46]:

So in Okanogan County, I gotta say, because we’re sitting here in Okanogan, I’m gonna shout out Smallwoods. Uh, it’s maybe an obvious choice, but it’s a little south of town here, closer to Malott. They have a lovely porch, great smoked meats, and a really good milkshake.

Scott Cowan [00:58:01]:

So that’s, But you don’t like dairy?

Kate Miller [00:58:03]:

Well, I mean, for a milkshake, it’s different. It’s different. I don’t completely avoid dairy. But yeah, you know, when the staff and I are feeling like getting out of the office and going for a little lunch, we go down there. Okay. And then in Ferry County, there are great options. Republic is a lovely town with some, with some great dining, but I’m going to say Tugboats near Curlew is like a little, like a little mom-and-pop fast food stop Really good, really good fries, and surprisingly an excellent garden burger if you lean that way. So, uh, yeah, it’s a fun experience.

Scott Cowan [00:58:41]:

I, I had an assignment up in Curlew, just north of that. I mean, I jokingly said I could see Canada from this property. Like, it was, and I would stop there on my way to or from, depending. And so, yes, I’m laughing because their burgers are quite good. Um, yeah, anyway, all right. Um, well, since you brought Ferry County in, so I’m gonna put you on the spot. What about coffee in Republic, probably in Republic.

Kate Miller [00:59:04]:

Well, I was, I was, you saw me grabbing my phone because I was just trying to look up, you can edit this down for time. You’re just gonna get the dead air while I look on my phone. Well, there was Scott Brothers. Okay. Oh no, in just outside of Curlew. I’ve been there. Off just like this random little house off the road with a giant Newfoundland where they brew, they roast their own. Yeah.

Kate Miller [00:59:28]:

And they’re real coffee snobs, and you can stop in and get a Or a pound of coffee.

Scott Cowan [00:59:32]:

Yep.

Kate Miller [00:59:33]:

And, uh, yeah, the house that I,

Scott Cowan [00:59:36]:

the thing I had was up the road about a mile further.

Kate Miller [00:59:39]:

Correct.

Scott Cowan [00:59:40]:

Okay, so no, but,

Kate Miller [00:59:41]:

Oh, the house you were looking at?

Scott Cowan [00:59:42]:

Yeah, the house that I, my project I was taking care of. So I stopped in at Scott Brothers and they had a, I have a Bernese Mountain Dog, and so he’s about 140 pounds. And there was a giant Newfoundland.

Kate Miller [00:59:56]:

I have not seen the Newfoundlands.

Scott Cowan [00:59:57]:

It was like the size of a Shetland pony. Just laying there. I said, okay.

Kate Miller [01:00:04]:

How did things go between the dogs?

Scott Cowan [01:00:06]:

And I come over and pet the dog. He’s just looking at me and just like, it’s another tough day for me here. It’s just like, yeah, they were, it’s a really interesting place. That was in the middle of nowhere.

Kate Miller [01:00:17]:

Just total coffee connoisseurs in the middle of nowhere.

Scott Cowan [01:00:20]:

Yeah, that was pretty cool. And their coffee was pretty good.

Kate Miller [01:00:22]:

I mean, we have a couple of several conservation easements in Ferry County, including a couple up near Curlew. So we always go So, you know, even if we have to go a little out of our way, stop at a stop breakfast.

Scott Cowan [01:00:32]:

If you’re going that far, you might as well go.

Kate Miller [01:00:33]:

You might as well, yeah.

Scott Cowan [01:00:34]:

All right.

Kate Miller [01:00:34]:

And we’ve got other friends that we have to bring, you know, a few pounds of coffee for them up their street.

Scott Cowan [01:00:38]:

Which is getting expensive. That’s a generous gift these days.

Kate Miller [01:00:40]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [01:00:41]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [01:00:41]:

It’s true.

Scott Cowan [01:00:41]:

All right. So I warned you. I prepared you.

Kate Miller [01:00:44]:

Yes, you did.

Scott Cowan [01:00:45]:

I ask this question of everybody. You’ve agreed to play along. You’ve agreed to answer the question. All right. And it’s one or the other. Okay?

Kate Miller [01:00:53]:

Okay.

Scott Cowan [01:00:54]:

Cake or pie?

Kate Miller [01:00:58]:

Cake? I’m not sure I can justify it, except that I have a really, really fond memory. Like, I really love a good moist, like, open sponge cake.

Scott Cowan [01:01:10]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [01:01:11]:

One thing we didn’t cover about my background is that I did get my certification as a divemaster in the Red Sea in Egypt. And while I was doing that, one of the dive boats that my school contracted with to take divers out, including me at the time being sort of an apprentice divemaster. All of the boats had a kitchen on, like a little galley and a cook to make meals, lunch for the guests. And Mahmoud on the Nancy Queen, this one dive boat, would make a yellow cake with raisins every day along with whatever dishes were made for the guests. And even if I wasn’t out on the Nancy Queen for the day, if we moored up at the same dive site, I would cross over multiple boats and go be like, Mahmoud, do you have any cake? So I don’t know. I just love a good simple, but the actual answer is that I would take an excellent cake or pie over a mediocre one of the other.

Scott Cowan [01:02:08]:

All right. So some people, that question, it’s super easy. It’s cake.

Kate Miller [01:02:14]:

There’s no right answer. Sure.

Scott Cowan [01:02:16]:

There are wrong answers though.

Kate Miller [01:02:18]:

Oh, okay.

Scott Cowan [01:02:19]:

I firmly believe there are a couple of wrong answers. Anything pumpkin is wrong.

Kate Miller [01:02:24]:

Agree, hard agree. Or anything, I mean, I know it’s like passé to complain about pumpkin spice flavored things, but I,

Scott Cowan [01:02:31]:

No, it’s not passé. Not a big fan. It should be, I’m looking for legislation. No, it,

Kate Miller [01:02:38]:

My husband’s and my relationship almost foundered when I was living in Vienna not long after, for my postdoc, not long after we got together, and he sent me a care package included a small packet of pumpkin spice coffee because he knew and he thought it was funny. And it was like, oh, that was almost the end.

Scott Cowan [01:02:54]:

That’s evil. Um, yeah, my, my, so my daughter is, my daughter lives in Austria.

Kate Miller [01:03:04]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [01:03:05]:

And she’s still my child, so I have to love her. But she goes, I miss Starbucks. And I’m just like, oh, child.

Kate Miller [01:03:13]:

Oh, there’s so much good coffee in Vienna.

Scott Cowan [01:03:15]:

Yeah, there’s,

Kate Miller [01:03:16]:

anyway, it’s a It’s a whole experience, right? You go to one of these coffee shops.

Scott Cowan [01:03:18]:

So I’ve been told. I’ve not gone. Okay. So you’re in camp cake, which unofficially is still trailing pie, by the way. Pie is the least,

Kate Miller [01:03:29]:

I can see that.

Scott Cowan [01:03:29]:

But it’s interesting.

Kate Miller [01:03:30]:

I feel like somehow intrinsically, like, pie is the right answer. But I think for me, the answer is cake.

Scott Cowan [01:03:34]:

Well, there’s the other question, and I keep thinking it’s going to be true if I keep asking it enough times. So I’m going to ask you just to help make myself prove my hypothesis. As a child, did you have more cake or more pie?

Kate Miller [01:03:55]:

I think we probably had more cake in my household.

Scott Cowan [01:03:57]:

See, that’s my, I believe that.

Kate Miller [01:04:01]:

I think it is nostalgic. Like, there’s,

Scott Cowan [01:04:02]:

But everyone, but the vast majority of people go, no, that’s not it. I just, I keep thinking it’s It’s how you were, what you were exposed to as a kid. Those formative years. If your grandmother baked or your mom or your dad baked or whatever, you had cake. Both my grandmothers made lovely pies. And so it was like,

Kate Miller [01:04:25]:

You’re team pie then?

Scott Cowan [01:04:27]:

Yeah, probably.

Kate Miller [01:04:29]:

See, you don’t even want to pick a side.

Scott Cowan [01:04:31]:

Well, I’m probably team cheesecake.

Kate Miller [01:04:35]:

Oh, okay. Solid choice.

Scott Cowan [01:04:37]:

Yeah, see, I’m kind of, that’s probably where I go.

Kate Miller [01:04:40]:

Um, but honestly, I mean, I’d probably pick a nice flaky pastry if you really open the window.

Scott Cowan [01:04:45]:

Right. But it’s just, so I heard this, this question asked on a podcast, and I can’t remember what podcast it was. I can’t remember what it was about. But I thought this question was amazing. Because when they asked it, the guest was like, you want me to cut off my left or my right hand? And it was like, I’m gonna just keep asking. asking people this.

Kate Miller [01:05:04]:

So, you know what, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you what I really am. Like, if we’re really, if we have, like, if the, if the slate is, like, wide open, I’m team baklava.

Scott Cowan [01:05:12]:

Okay.

Kate Miller [01:05:13]:

All right. Yeah, team baklava. Okay. All the way. All right.

Scott Cowan [01:05:18]:

Inevitably, when we wrap these up, we didn’t cover something. Inevitably. What didn’t we cover that we should have, I should have brought up?

Kate Miller [01:05:26]:

Oh, that’s a, that’s a hard one. I guess I would love to put a pitch out there to people. Okay, this is kind of a two-way appeal to you, to your listeners. I would say, you know, come to Okanogan County. It’s a little rough around the edges sometimes, but the landscape here is so beautiful. It takes a little extra work, I think, to find the places that are really amazing, the trails that are good to hike and so forth. You know, there’s not as much information readily available.

Scott Cowan [01:06:00]:

Right.

Kate Miller [01:06:02]:

But the work rewards the effort, or the places reward the effort. And it’s really worth, like the Molson Open Air Museum, I don’t know if you’ve been up there.

Scott Cowan [01:06:13]:

I haven’t.

Kate Miller [01:06:14]:

It’s just so charming. And there are a lot of great trails and just amazing parts of the landscape. Even just driving up around in the Highlands, it’s just full of all these little microclimates. And it’s a really incredible place. But the, the other side of that is that since I talked about Oregon and, and living there for a long time, I traveled around Oregon a lot when I lived there. And since I came here, I’ve kind of just been, you know, it’s like a full-time job and more most of the time. And so I’ve mostly, and my husband and I have really enjoyed getting around and exploring Okanogan County. That was part of the point, is to like put down roots and be here.

Kate Miller [01:06:53]:

Right.

Scott Cowan [01:06:54]:

Mm-hmm.

Kate Miller [01:06:54]:

But it means my Washington geography is really poor, and I haven’t seen as much of Washington State. And it makes me feel like in some ways Oregon still feels like home. And I really want to change that in the coming years. I want to take more time off. I want to actually use my leave before the end of the fiscal year and it goes away. But I also just want to get out in Washington more. So I’m really excited to have discovered your podcast now and to hopefully use that as a way of finding people’s favorite places in the state. But yeah, I want to know where to go and maybe other places that are a little less obvious.

Scott Cowan [01:07:31]:

So, I’ve jokingly said Portland’s dead to me. That’s been kind of the running gag, throwing shade at the other side of the Columbia. Oregon’s a beautiful, beautiful place. Don’t get me wrong. There’s really, I mean, Eugene, I like Eugene a lot. Bend is really kind of cool.

Kate Miller [01:07:50]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [01:07:50]:

Oregon’s got a lot going for it. But, and I think I’m more familiar with Washington than I am with Oregon. But once you get out of the glare of the sun that is Seattle, and you begin to look outside of just Seattle, We’ve got rainforests. We’ve got, here’s a little factoid for you. Tri-Cities. Have you been to Tri-Cities?

Kate Miller [01:08:18]:

Not, I’ve not spent time there.

Scott Cowan [01:08:19]:

Okay, that’s fine. That’s fine. Okay, so Tri-Cities gets less rain than Phoenix, Arizona.

Kate Miller [01:08:24]:

Wow.

Scott Cowan [01:08:25]:

Okay, so you think about, you think of Phoenix, and whether you’ve been there or not, you think of hot desert, you know. Tri-Cities gets less rainfall. Wow. Yet we’ve got, you know, the whole rainforest here. We’ve got, you know, Mount Rainier. We’ve got all these places that are, nothing against the Space Needle, but we’ve all seen it. Postcards, pictures, hundreds of thousands of them.

Kate Miller [01:08:47]:

Sure.

Scott Cowan [01:08:48]:

The ferry system is beautiful. And it’s a great way to, if you’re not in a rush, to get around and go see Puget Sound. There’s just so much to experience here.

Kate Miller [01:08:58]:

Yeah, yeah.

Scott Cowan [01:08:59]:

And if you’re bored, just look the other direction, because there’ll be something that’ll catch your eye if you just turn around a different way. But to corroborate with you, the more I come up to Okanogan County, the more surprised I am when I find things. I had a house on, it was a project I had to do on Lake Wanakut.

Kate Miller [01:09:28]:

Mm-hmm.

Scott Cowan [01:09:29]:

That was interesting. Not always good interesting, but interesting. Interesting. But it was a beautiful little lake up there in that region by Oroville. Driving to Tonasket is a, excuse me, driving from Tonasket to Republic is kind of a pretty drive. You don’t think of that.

Kate Miller [01:09:55]:

Mm-hmm.

Scott Cowan [01:09:55]:

Because the state, the tourism, we think of Leavenworth, we think of Highway 2 and that. You don’t necessarily think about driving to Republic or driving from here, from Omak going to Cooley City over,

Kate Miller [01:10:13]:

Desatell Pass.

Scott Cowan [01:10:14]:

Yeah. And that’s kind of an interesting little drive.

Kate Miller [01:10:16]:

Absolutely, yeah.

Scott Cowan [01:10:17]:

And so, yes, come up here and I’m stumping for Okanogan County, but come up here and take a look around. So I’m going to ask you one last question and I don’t ask this question of my guests. So if somebody’s coming up here, breakfast and dinner, where’s, can you think of any? And this is unprepared, so she’s giving me that look like she’s thinking. Any recommendations anywhere in the county?

Kate Miller [01:10:42]:

Breakfast is tough. Yeah, it is. Breakfast is challenging. I would say come in the summer and get some nice fresh stone fruit, which is something that Okanogan County does very well, and have some yogurt. Okay. All right. Yeah, hopefully I’m not, I’m not missing someplace that’s really wonderful.

Scott Cowan [01:11:01]:

You are. I mean, because you’re doing a whole county.

Kate Miller [01:11:03]:

Of course. Dinner, I’ll give you one that I haven’t even, so my husband and I keep intending to get over to the Bonaparte Lake Resort, which is right there, you know, near the lake and near the Fen. They are very proud of their dinners, including I think Saturday is a smoked prime rib special. You got to You’re advised to put in a reservation in the high season. And we’ve been wanting to do a date night and do that for like,

Scott Cowan [01:11:31]:

Since you’ve been here?

Kate Miller [01:11:32]:

Yes. And we still haven’t done it. So join me and Kevin at Bonaventure Lake Resort. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [01:11:39]:

Okay. All right. Very good. Well, keep up the good work. I think what you guys are doing is important. And I think that See, I see like the Schland Douglas Land Trust building in Wenatchee because, you know, that’s where I live, but I really don’t know what they’re doing. I saw an announcement that they’re, this week, I think, that they just obtained or procured another piece of park. Whether they bought it or they’ve got an easement, I don’t know.

Kate Miller [01:12:08]:

I believe they purchased it. Yeah, I mean, they’ve done amazing work. Oh, worth checking them out if you’re in the Wenatchee area because a big part of what, you know, every land trust trust works in a way that’s appropriate to its environment. Okay, now we’re going to go off on a whole other topic, but that’s okay. Shalane Douglas has done amazing work to protect the kind of foothills surrounding the town and make it available for that amazing network of walking, hiking trails, right? And, um, you know, that’s just been, yeah, incredible for them and incredible work for the community there.

Scott Cowan [01:12:37]:

We really, I say we, but that’s just me. I don’t really know. I know more about what you’re doing than I know about what the organization in my backyard is doing. So So I appreciate you shedding light here. Gives me some encouragement to look closer to home, if you will.

Kate Miller [01:12:55]:

Great.

Scott Cowan [01:12:55]:

But I think we need more of this and less, what’s,

Kate Miller [01:13:00]:

Unthinking sprawl.

Scott Cowan [01:13:01]:

Unthinking sprawl or, you know, subdevelopments of houses on 5,000-square-foot parcels. Yes, we need affordable housing.

Kate Miller [01:13:09]:

Yes. Yes, 100%.

Scott Cowan [01:13:10]:

But we don’t necessarily need,

Kate Miller [01:13:13]:

But that should be coupled with, I mean, in my view, right? But you should think about affordable housing. You should be planning for and siting affordable housing, and you should be thinking about where do we, where do we wanna maintain the open space that we have? Yeah, it’s, it’s, it, it, to me, it’s two halves of the same coin.

Scott Cowan [01:13:28]:

Okay. Well, thank you for your time.

Kate Miller [01:13:30]:

Thank you so much for the opportunity. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation.

Scott Cowan [01:13:41]:

You can also visit our website at explorewashingtonstate.com. If you know anyone who would like the show, it’d be amazing if you’d share the show with them. This is the biggest way that we grow this show, good old word of mouth. Glad you were here with me today, and I hope to have you listening to the next episode. See you then.