Newhalem, Washington

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Newhalem is a small ^[1] unincorporated community in northwestern Washington, USA, located in the western foothills of the Cascade Mountains along the Skagit River. It is located within Whatcom County.

Newhalem is a company town owned by Seattle City Light and populated entirely by employees of the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project, or in local county, state or federal agencies. The town is not open to permanent residents who do not work for these certain agencies. The Ross Lake National Recreation Area surrounds Newhalem on all sides, and the North Cascades National Park boundary is approximately one mile to the north and south of the town. The name Newhalem has its roots in a local Native American language as meaning 'Goat Snare'.

[edit] Newhalem in Literature and Film

The writer Tobias Wolff lived in Newhalem ^[2] as a boy in the late 1950s, after his mother moved from West Seattle to marry a mechanic who lived in one of the company houses. In his memoir, This Boy's Life, he calls this isolated settlement "Chinook," and describes how the nearest high school was a long bus ride away, in a slightly larger hamlet called "Concrete" (the town's real name in this case). In the 1993 film version of This Boy's Life, starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, the two places are combined and called "Concrete."

Portions of the 1983 hollywood movie "WarGames", starring Matthew Broderick, were filmed in Newhalem ^[3]. Most notibly, the scenes of the "Cheyenne Mountain Complex" were filmed in an abondoned gravel pit northwest of the town.

Coordinates: 48°40′25″N, 121°14′50″W