A Walk Around Lake Washington

Lorraine McConaghy, historian of the Museum of History and Industry and former instructor of the University of Washington Certificate Program in Genealogy and Family History decided to make her summer project a walk. Not just any walk, Lorraine decided to circumnavigate metro Seattle's vast urban Lake Washington.

Her reasons for this urban odyssey?

“But in the end, I decided to walk around Lake Washington for a variety of reasons, not all particularly good ones. Personally, I just wanted to accomplish something, to actually finish something. Cheek had clocked in at about 75 miles — I thought I might be able to manage that in less than a week. And I'd just turned 60, which was a real shocker — I needed to test myself, this new person suddenly grown old. And I loved Lake Washington but couldn't afford to live on it; maybe encircling it, learning it, would let me truly see this urban lake and own it without ownership.”

Lorraine chronicled her journey in a four part series for Crosscut, the online guide to local and Northwest news that publishes news, commentary, news about commentary, commentary about news — just about anything that is non-fiction.

As we all know, Lorraine is a marvelous storyteller and a joy to read. So take a walk with her. Soak up a little sun and a little history without hurting your feet. Read the tale of the lake as told by Lorraine: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.