Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) is celebrating its March 31 anniversary and twelfth year as a regional, climate activists collective confronting the root causes and perpetrators of air pollution, water degradation, and resulting climate change, through direct actions and locally organized solutions, in solidarity with frontline communities and grassroots networks of fossil fuels resistance [1-5].  We welcome everyone of all ages to enjoy this decade-plus milestone at two Twelfth Annual Celebrations of WIRT, held as benefit concerts and potluck gatherings in Sandpoint and Moscow, Idaho, with provided pizza, requested snacks and beverages, and a background slide show of WIRT and allied activism.  WIRT invites and extends our hearty thanks to the remarkable core activists, board members, friends, and allies who have coordinated and shared the successes of ongoing citizen challenges of the corporate and government sources of climate chaos.

Please join WIRT activists on two early spring evenings, for convergences full of musical performances, spirited conversations, invigorating camaraderie, wholesome food and drink, and other creative works offered by north Idaho and regional residents.  At each of these free, lively, public events, we encourage and eagerly anticipate organizers, musicians, and businesses sharing their admired talents and participating as volunteers and/or sponsors.  These yearly festivities not only strive to raise awareness and funds supporting relentless WIRT activism, but also seek to attract and involve cross-cultural, youth, and community member diversity in the climate justice movement in Idaho and the Northwest.

Thursday, April 6, 7 pm: Monarch Mountain Band

Gardenia Center, 400 Church Street, Sandpoint

As a high-energy bluegrass, newgrass, and folk rock trio, the Monarch Mountain Band has been performing at numerous local and regional venues, halls, festivals, fairs, and clubs for close to 30 years [6].  Their high-stepping, toe-tapping, progressive repertoire includes bluegrass standards along with covers of the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Band, Byrds, Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, and many more.  Offering great entertainment for entire families and friends, the Monarch Mountain Band thrills music enthusiasts of all genres, who appreciate the excellent techniques and pure sounds played by this group of musicians.

Saturday, April 8, 7 pm: Fiddlin’ Big Al & Guests

The Attic, 314 East Second Street (rear, second story), Moscow

KRFP Radio Free Moscow DJ and board member and core WIRT activist Fiddlin’ Big Al Chidester performs ragtime, honky-tonk piano, fiddle, and guitar, singing old-time, country blues and original, socio-political satire songs [7].  Al started the practice of playing traditional, phase-shifted, electric viola, adding to his multi-instrumental, experimental, Americana repertoire offered on mandolin, banjo, dobro, and lap steel guitar.  He writes humorous, topical songs about peace, freedom, and political hypocrisy, some recorded on his 2004 album Where Were You the Night New Orleans Drowned? and Other Songs for Our Time.  Besides performing at Northwest barter fairs and hosting a long-running jam session at the Moscow Moose Lodge, Fiddlin’ Big Al broadcasts several weekly, KRFP, music shows, giving airplay to an eclectic mix of genre-bending music, recorded performances from regional venues, and occasional, live, studio sessions.

For further event and issue information and responses to your questions, and/or to contribute toward WIRT’s twelfth anniversary celebrations and performer and organizer travel expenses, please visit the WIRT website and facebook pages, contact us via phone, text, email, or facebook message, and print and post the color Twelfth WIRT Celebration Flyer [8].  If you cannot participate in these upcoming opportunities, but would like to uphold the persistent endeavors of this direct climate action group, please arrange an appreciated visit or send a mailed donation to our Sandpoint office.  Physical and fiscal contributions assist the dedicated, determined work and outreach of WIRT and partner, environmental justice organizations confronting new and expanded, fossil fuels extraction, production, transportation, and related infrastructure throughout the Northwest.

Recent WIRT Background

During the last year, WIRT has commented, testified, and petitioned, hosted frontline and solidarity action trainings, protests, and paddles, and communicated online via social media, email, and website and on-air through the weekly Climate Justice Forum program on KRFP Radio Free Moscow, urging resistance and contesting myriad regional fossil fuels and industrial onslaughts [9, 10].  We have actively opposed and monitored BNSF Railway, Uinta Basin, and other railroads’ derailments, permits, and track and bridges construction and Northwest coal, oil, tar sands, petroleum coke, nuclear waste, and other hazardous freight trains, such as nationwide, rail transports of liquefied natural gas (LNG).  WIRT has supported coalition efforts to halt Highway 95 realignment in wetlands on Paradise Ridge, to stop Treasure Valley and Payette River-side oil and gas well spacing, forced leasing, drilling, and waste injection, and to end expansion of the Coastal GasLink and local Gas Transmission Northwest gas pipelines, along with the Keystone, Dakota Access, Lines 3 and 5, and Trans Mountain oil and tar sands pipelines.  We have countered Powder River Basin coal, Alberta tar sands, and Nevada and Oregon lithium mines, Salish Sea oil refineries, BNSF’s oil train trespasses and locomotive wreck and diesel leak on the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community reservation, the Zenith and Port Westward oil-by-rail terminals, and planned massive deforestation projects around Lake Pend Oreille.

WIRT is grateful for ongoing community assistance and recognition of our shared, volunteer activism, especially around our 2021 and 2023 anniversaries, such as grants for fossil fuels train and pipeline resistance from the Stand Up to Oil and Stop GTN Xpress networks, a Good Steward of the Earth award bestowed by allies Responsible Growth Northeast Washington, SHAWL Society (Sovereignty, Health, Air, Water, Land), and Silver Valley Community Resource Center in April 2021 [11, 12], and a Green and Red Podcast conversation with Scott Parkin of Rising Tide North America, around Earth Day 2021, about WIRT’s decade of dissidence [13-15].  In our thirteenth year and beyond, we will continue to intensely reject the previously mentioned and other numerous threats to healthy air, water, land, and life, from climate-wrecking pollution and militarized violence, while rigorously amplifying the voices of indigenous and climate activists on some of the most challenging fossil fuels frontlines.

[1] Search Results for: Annual Celebration, April 2, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[2] 6.5 Magnitude Idaho Earthquake-Interrupted Post, March 31, 2020 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[3] WIRT Tenth Annual Celebration Announced Soon!, March 6, 2021 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[4] WIRT: Ten Years Today!, March 31, 2021 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[5] 11th WIRT Anniversary!, March 31, 2022 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[6] Monarch Mountain Band, April 2, 2023 Monarch Mountain Band

[7] Alan Chidester (Fiddlin’ Big Al), April 2, 2023 Alan Chidester

[8] Twelfth Annual Celebration of Wild Idaho Rising Tide, April 2, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[9] Wild Idaho Rising Tide, April 2, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[10] Wild Idaho Rising Tide, April 2, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[11] Enviro Groups Find Common Cause, To Hold Friday Stewardship Event, April 12, 2021 Spokane Public Radio

[12] Good Stewardship of the Earth Event (& Recognition of WIRT Activists)!, April 14, 2021 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[13] G&R Episode 83: Fighting Fossil Fuels in Idaho w/ Organizer Helen Yost, April 22, 2021 Green and Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals

[14] Happy Greenwash Day!, April 22, 2021 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[15] Thanks to Scott Parkin and the Green and Red Podcast…, April 25, 2021 Wild Idaho Rising Tide