Magic Canoe champions locally-driven solutions and regenerative ways of living to inspire change throughout Salmon Nation. We are creating a movement, a bioregional future where communities are woven deeply into nature, place, and one another.
Combining solutions journalism and creative visual storytelling, Magic Canoe uplifts innovative ideas that work. We highlight community-based changemakers, problem solvers, conservation entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and doers determined to create more equitable economies, resilient communities, and a healthier environment in Salmon Nation — the vast bioregion where wild Pacific salmon live. It stretches from northern California to the North Slope of Alaska.
Wild Pacific salmon are the heartbeat and connector of all living things in Salmon Nation, and our editorial choices focus on, either directly or indirectly, their thriving. Indigenous values of respect, reciprocity, and responsibility guide the way forward.
Overall, Magic Canoe is demonstrating this vision of a liveable, interconnected future through dynamic narratives that illustrate this: ecological, systemic, and personal transformation is not only possible—it’s happening now.
Some examples of stories we publish:
- Narratives of solutions that address the current polycrisis, including climate collapse, inequitable systems, extractive mindsets, environmental degradation, etc.
- Profiles of individuals as changemakers, uplifting their ideas and solutions through interviews, photography, and video. How does personal transformation inform systems transformation? We seek stories of learning and unlearning, to find new directions forward now.
- What’s being underreported? How can Magic Canoe shine light on the edges of ecological and cultural possibility in Salmon Nation? Where the work is being done is where we are.
Areas we are interested in:
Here are Magic Canoe’s four main themes, with examples of topics we seek to uplift. This is not an exhaustive list, but here to offer guidance and generate ideas:
Ecology/Environment
- Climate science and solutions, including policies, community resilience, and response
- Rights of nature
- Rewilding
- Climate-smart forestry
- Regenerative agriculture
- Food sovereignty, systems, and security
- Ecological threats, where issues are brought to light, along with community responses
- Transboundary issues, such as mining, extraction, downstream pollution, and First Nations and U.S. tribes collaborations
Salmon
- The state of salmon throughout the bioregion, including policies and impacts
- Issues related to climate change
- Protection and restoration efforts, including dam and fish farm removal
- Advocacy
Indigenous Leadership
- Values related to living in right relation
- Indigenous-led stewardship of traditional homelands
- Restoring balance and connection
- Co-management and successful models
- Indigenous Protected Conservation Areas and Indigenous Guardians networks
- Threats to and protection of Indigenous sovereignty
- Land Back
- Rights and title
- TEK/ITK
- “Two-eyed seeing” – Indigenous & western science approaches
New Economies
- Local business solutions such as our What Works series,
- Regenerative economics, including the principles of a living economy
- Bioregional finance
- Doughnut economics
- Blue economies and coastal communities
- The conservation economy including restorative forestry
- The gift economy
- Indigenous economies – traditional principles and practices, trade
- Indigenous understandings of wealth and abundance
Additional details:
For a story to be a Magic Canoe story, it should contain one or more of the following: help to create a vivid picture of Salmon Nation; be accessible and help readers see themselves as part of a deeply interconnected and interdependent bioregion; help readers see or care about a topic in a new light or have a values shift; and/or promote the ideas and values of Cecil Paul’s vision of a supernatural canoe.
We welcome all pitches for interviews, feature articles, photo essays, video features, book reviews, and other multimedia offerings.
Our rates are competitive, and your work will be shared with a growing audience in the Western US and Canada.
To pitch stories, contact nick (at) magiccanoe (dot) org. Please include:
- a short description of your article concept
- a brief bio
- links to previous work, relevant clips, portfolio, or website