Mount St. Helens, Ash in the Air, and the Stories Beneath the Mountains
I do not remember every detail about the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, but I remember enough to know it changed the feeling of the Pacific Northwest.
I graduated that year.
I remember working on a strawberry farm, and I remember the berries being bad that season. There was too much rain, strange weather, and ash in the air from the eruption. Even when you were not directly near the volcano, people felt it. The atmosphere itself felt unsettled.
That is what many younger people may not understand about large natural events. They do not only affect one mountain. They ripple through agriculture, weather, work, transportation, tourism, and even memory itself.
More than four decades later, people are still rebuilding roads and bridges around Mount St. Helens because the landscape never truly stopped changing after May 18, 1980.
The recent rebuilding work along the Spirit Lake Memorial Highway after the 2023 landslide is a reminder that nature is still reshaping that region. We often think disasters end when the headlines stop, but volcanic landscapes continue evolving for generations.
A Mountain with Older Names
Long before settlers called it Mount St. Helens, Indigenous peoples already knew the mountain well.
Among some Nations, one traditional name is Lawetlat’la or Loowit, often connected to stories of a smoking mountain and powerful spiritual forces.
These mountains were never viewed simply as scenery. They were living beings, teachers, warnings, and part of a larger relationship between people and the land.
Today, scientists increasingly recognize that Indigenous oral histories may preserve memories of real geological events stretching back centuries or even thousands of years.
That matters.
Because for a long time, Western society dismissed these stories as myths.
Spirit Lake and a Changed World
One of the strangest places left behind is Spirit Lake.
When the volcano erupted, the side of the mountain collapsed in the largest landslide in recorded history at the time. The blast flattened forests and sent entire hillsides crashing into the lake.
Millions of trees were ripped from the earth.
Many still float there today in giant drifting log mats, decades later.
The lake itself was physically lifted higher by the debris avalanche. Engineers have spent years trying to manage drainage systems because flooding and mudflow risks remain.
It feels almost symbolic.
Humans rebuild highways and bridges, while the mountain quietly reminds everyone that nature still decides the final shape of the land.
The Earth is Still Alive Here
Living in British Columbia, we sometimes forget how geologically alive this coast really is.
Around Vancouver, we are surrounded by mountains that appear ancient and permanent, yet many are part of active volcanic systems.
Mount Baker still releases heat and steam.
Mount Garibaldi, Mount Meager, and Mount Cayley are all part of the volcanic story of the Pacific Northwest.
Scientists say the larger immediate risk for our region is likely the Cascadia Subduction Zone — the massive fault line off the coast capable of producing earthquakes and tsunamis.
Yet Indigenous peoples along this coast already carried stories about great floods, rising waters, and survival by canoe long before modern geology explained these events.
The Canoe Stories
I have often thought about the flood stories shared among Coast Salish peoples, including stories connected to the Squamish region.
Some describe people escaping rising waters in canoes and tying them to mountaintops.
People sometimes compare these stories to Noah’s Ark, but they are their own teachings, rooted in this land, these waters, and these mountains.
What fascinates me is that these stories may not only be spiritual — they may also be memories.
Memories of tsunamis. Memories of earthquakes. Memories carried across generations through oral tradition.
In modern society, we often assume written records are the only true history, but perhaps stories carried around fires and through families preserved knowledge in ways we are only beginning to understand again.
What I Remember Most
What I remember most from 1980 is not panic.
It is atmosphere.
The feeling that nature was bigger than us.
The feeling of ash, rain, damaged crops, uncertain skies, and realizing that mountains are not frozen objects in the distance. They are part of an ongoing living system.
And maybe that is why the story of Mount St. Helens still matters today.
Not only because of destruction, but because it reminds us that the Earth is still changing beneath our feet — and that people who lived closest to the land often understood that long before modern science caught up.
