10 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
ABOUT
he Paciic Northwest prepares for a
banner harvest of its favorite fruit this fall
Story and photos by
LYNETTE RAE McADAMS
I
Above: A lone apple tree overlooks Willapa Bay in Oysterville, Wash-
ington, on the Long Beach Peninsula.
Top: An organic Gala apple grown in the state of Washington, the
leading commercial apple producer in the nation. This year, the Wash-
ington State Tree Fruit Association forecasts a harvest of 132.9 million
standard 40-pound boxes of fresh crop apples — a harvest that’s up
15 percent compared to 2015.
t was the gift of a golden ap-
ple that launched the thousand
ships that sailed for Troy. In
Old Norse tales, apples were
offered to the gods in exchange
for everlasting youthfulness.
William Tell split one once, in a fa-
mous feat of fatherly marksmanship,
and even Issac Newton felt entirely
inspired the day he realized the apple
didn’t fall far from the tree.
We use them to express care
or adoration (as in an apple for a
teacher); but also as a taunt or a nar-
cissistic jeer (“How do you like them
apples?”). And we’ve all heard that
especially, our pantries.
eating one per day keeps the doctor
By the time it arrived in the Pacif-
away, but just try telling that to Snow ic Northwest — irst with European
White, who knows irsthand how
explorers and then with overland
a single bad apple can spoil
pioneers — the apple had al-
T he
the bunch.
ready been cultivated for
le
p
p
oldest a
Across every
thousands of years. Just
e Paciic
threshold of humanity,
tree in th in Van- enough practice, appar-
st is
we’ve carried with
Northwe hington. ently, to land it in the
as
W
us the apple. From its
place where it could
r,
e
couv
0 years inally be perfected.
9
1
rn
birthplace in Central
tu
l
It wil
ctober.
Asia, along every
Today, Northwest
old this O
trade route, across every
apples are prized the
mountain and ocean and
world over, and here in the
continent, this ubiquitous fruit
Columbia-Paciic region, we’re
has followed our lead, leaving its
lucky to be just a stretch downriver
mark on our religions, our literature, from some of the best apple-growing
our art, our language, and, most
country on Earth — particularly this