Select a proposed crossing location on either the Willamette or Columbia. The system generates an engineering suitability report, NIMBY resistance score, and faction responses. Some crossings trigger larger consequences than you expect.
Click a zone to evaluate a crossing. Existing bridges shown in gold. Proposed zones in teal.
The Mid-Columbia crossing — once approved — creates the transportation corridor that makes a new regional airport feasible. A site near Woodburn, Oregon, equidistant from Portland, Salem, and Eugene, becomes the focal point. Three times the size of SeaTac. Six runways. Full cargo infrastructure. High-speed rail connection northbound to Portland and southbound to Sacramento. The Pacific Northwest's economic destiny pivots on this decision.
Adjust the timeline slider to observe Seattle's decline.
NFLHillsboro
The Seahawks relocate to Nike Stadium, Hillsboro. The south entrance is designated The Dante's Portal. Doug Fir attends the groundbreaking. He was not invited. He has a Dutch Brothers.
MLBOakland Coliseum
Years 1-2: "Seattle Mariners playing home games in Oakland." The most humiliating sentence in sports history. Year 3: rebrand to Pacific Mariners. The Mariner Moose is retired. Oakland does not do moose.
New mascot: Pacific Brown Pelican. Oakland respects this. Pelicans have seen things.
British Columbia secedes from Canada via a deal brokered by Dante's Underground Council. Canada releases a strongly worded 847-word statement. Nobody in Jefferson-Columbia reads it. Quebec briefly considers the precedent, declines. Alberta is furious. This is Alberta's default state.
Boeing's CEO visits Portland for a site evaluation. The following occurs.
A 10-mile landfill extension west of the Santa Monica Pier. Named for the aviation connection: Boeing, Woodburn, arrival. The lagoon on the interior. The Pacific on the exterior. I-10 extended on elevated structure over the lagoon to PCH near Malibu. 100,000 new residents. Most expensive real estate in North America.
The only nightclub on Earth with both lagoon and ocean views. Dutch Brothers bar program. Voodoo Donuts late-night menu. Screen Door Southern brunch Sundays. Sal Inferno conducts all his meetings here, ocean at his back. The symbolism is not subtle.
Lagoon-facing film and media district. The ocean light is unlike anything in the industry. The lagoon reflections are a visual signature. Vernon Studio District handles the industrial shoots. Landings handles prestige production.
First documented Year 2 of restoration. Trail cam photo: a mountain lion with Landings construction visible in the background. The photo goes viral. P-47 is given consultative standing in Pacific Palisades land use decisions via 2031 LA ordinance — drafted by a Portland urban planning firm. The firm's legal address is the same building as Dante's Portland. Nobody mentions this.
A handful of residents remain under strict regulation: mandatory brush clearing, no wood-frame construction, dark sky compliance, no fencing impeding animal movement, required fire suppression systems. They become de facto habitat stewards. Mountain lions adopt the zone as favored territory.
Most Palisades residents sell to the state restoration fund and relocate to The Landings. Beachfront property for former hillside residents. Some choose Baja California (now a Cascalifornia state). The restoration is largely complete by Year 4.
A Bureau of Reclamation pump station outside Lakeview, Oregon. Staffed by three federal employees since 1962. They have never been asked what they do. Their official title since 1979: "Regional Precipitation Monitoring Technicians." They have excellent benefits. The aqueduct runs underground along the US-97/US-395 corridor carrying Columbia River water south to Southern California. Built during the Eisenhower administration. Classified to avoid renegotiating the Columbia River Compact with Canada.
"Control of water access provides leverage over population distribution and political behavior. A thirsty population is a manageable population."
Ronald Reagan, Governor of California, ordered the spigot to near-closure in his final year of office, 1974-1975. The decision was framed internally as "resource management." The classified memo, recovered from a federal annex during Cascalifornia's 2027 National Archives declassification, describes the actual rationale explicitly.
In 1978-1979, Reagan's pre-presidential political network arranged for the aqueduct to be removed from California school textbooks. Oregon and federal educational materials were similarly revised under the classification order. Every California child who went to school between 1979 and Cascalifornia's founding learned nothing about the aqueduct. Every drought they watched unfold was partially manufactured.
Reagan's surviving supporters describe this as "protecting California by managing expectations." Everyone else has been very loud about it since the memo's release.
Presidential Daily Brief, Year 1. An appendix. Trump did not read the brief. He was shown a map. The map had a line. He asked what it was. A staffer explained. Trump said: "So we can turn it off?" The staffer said yes. Trump said "Good to know" and moved on. He mentioned it once. To the wrong person. That person told someone. That someone eventually told Newsom.
Trump's knowledge of the spigot was passive. Reagan's was active and deliberate. This distinction is noted in every subsequent history of the period.
Dante's brokered the secession. Canada's 847-word protest statement goes unread. Ted Cruz, newly progressive, serves as Governor and Imperial Council member.
The original deal covered Baja California (the northern state). Mexico City resisted extending it to the full peninsula. The resistance lasted approximately one negotiating session. Baja California Sur — including La Paz, Todos Santos, and Los Cabos — joins the deal. The adjustment fee doubles. Mexico retains the ferry routes as sovereign commercial operations and keeps offshore mineral rights to specific Pacific zones. The Baja wine country (Valle de Guadalupe) and the East Cape fishing grounds are now domestic Cascalifornia resources. Los Cabos becomes Cascalifornia's southernmost point and immediately the most expensive real estate in the nation-state.
The Tijuana-San Diego crossing becomes an internal road. The Cabo airport becomes a Cascalifornia international gateway. The Pacific Gray Whale migration corridor passes entirely through Cascalifornia waters for the first time.
Las Vegas joins in 20 minutes. The Strip reacts immediately. One casino announces a Doug Fir-themed hotel tower without asking permission. He has not commented.
Reno declines to join. This is Reno's decision.
Internationally famous. Six-month reservation wait. The chef refuses all interviews. On three documented occasions, he has been seen with a Dutch Brothers. He has not commented on this. Food journalists make pilgrimages. The restaurant will never close.
Terms: tax-free in perpetuity, dedicated Cascalifornia security detail, one permanent flight corridor to Mar-a-Lago. Trump agrees to make no territorial claims, military movements, or statements about Cascalifornia water infrastructure. The aqueduct silence clause is the most carefully negotiated section. The treaty is signed on a Tuesday. Trump announces it as the greatest deal ever made.
Technically a US state. Globally recognized as a distinct entity. Self-sufficient. Well-organized governance running in parallel with US government for 150 years. Diplomatic relations with Cascalifornia established immediately. Embassy in Salt Lake (former Airbnb). Embassy in Sacramento (dignified building).
Water rights dispute resolved by Doug Fir during technical consultations: "The water goes where the pipe goes. We can make more pipe." Both sides claim victory. The water issue is resolved. Nobody fully understands how.
Within five years of Cascalifornia's formation, Phoenix and a substantial swath of Arizona determine they are more philosophically aligned with Deseret than with the remaining United States. The logic is geometrically inevitable:
Cascalifornia controls Arizona's water (Colorado River delta, upstream agreements). The remaining US cannot reach Arizona without crossing Cascalifornia or Deseret territory. Arizona's political and religious culture — particularly in Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler, and the broader East Valley, where the LDS population is substantial — finds Deseret's governance model more congenial than either Cascalifornia's imperial progressivism or the remaining US's accelerating dysfunction.
Phoenix joins Deseret. Tucson hesitates (university towns always hesitate) then follows. The Grand Canyon, previously a Cascalifornia tourist destination requiring a transit visa, is now a Deseret asset. Deseret gains its most spectacular landmark. Cascalifornia retains water leverage. A treaty is negotiated governing both.
Doug Fir attends the Grand Canyon treaty signing. He was not invited. He surveys the canyon rim geology. He says: "The water table here is interesting." Both delegations turn to look at him. He has a Dutch Brothers. He does not elaborate.
Ted Wheeler served as Mayor of Portland through some of the most chaotic years in the city's recent history. He was tear-gassed at his own protest. He presided over a city that simultaneously voted to defund the police and voted him out for not defunding the police fast enough. His approval rating at the end of his tenure was a number best left unexamined.
Shortly after leaving office, something clicked for him. He acquired a red robe — not a hiking robe, not an outdoor technical garment, but a robe, the kind associated with medieval monasteries or the more serious kind of wizard — and a six-foot hardwood staff that he uses exclusively as a walking implement, never for anything else. He began walking the Pacific Crest Trail northbound from the Mexican border.
The goats were not planned. They appeared, one by one, over the first three weeks. By the Sierra Nevada he had seven goats. By Oregon he had eleven. They follow him without instruction. They are calm. They are loyal in a way that goats — which are famously, constitutionally disloyal — simply are not supposed to be. No explanation has been offered. None has been requested.
Assigned by the PCT hiking community without discussion. Wheeler accepted it without comment. He does not discuss Portland. He discusses the goats extensively. Each goat has a documented personality he can describe at length. The goats do not discuss Portland either.
A journalist intercepts him near Crater Lake. Wheeler gives a 45-minute interview entirely about the goats. When asked about Portland, he says: "The goats don't have opinions about Portland." This is the most quoted sentence of his post-mayoral life. It appears on a mural in the Pearl District. He has not seen it.
Emperor Newsom has issued no statement on Wheeler's walk. Sal Inferno has issued no statement. The Imperial Council has not discussed it on the record. The Cascalifornia Department of Trails and Natural Corridors has noted that an individual matching Wheeler's description has been observed on the PCT in good health with a healthy goat herd and represents no permitting concern.
Doug Fir was observed on the PCT near Ashland, Oregon, on a date that overlaps with Wheeler's estimated position. He was walking alone. He was not with the goat herd. He was heading south. He had a Dutch Brothers. It is unclear where he obtained it. The nearest Dutch Brothers location is 34 miles from that section of trail.
Wheeler and Doug Fir have not confirmed or denied meeting on the trail. The goats have offered no comment.
silent investorPortland Boring Works LLC
Founder: Doug Fir (flannel, Dutch Brothers, says little). Initial contract: SR-217 Forest Park Tunnel, proof of concept. South Pasadena Tunnel: Boeing brings Portland Boring Works to LA. Dante's acquires SoCal infrastructure stake. The Landings construction contracts follow. Naming rights: Dante's Tunnel Portal, SR-217, Portland end.
Vancouver suppressedHollywood deal
Hollywood sweetheart deal: undisclosed parties, undisclosed terms, undisclosed date. Vernon Studio District: silent investment. Landings Studios: silent investment. Oregon location exemption: all productions may film here (Dante's receives location fees). The deal was brokered at Dante's South, ocean at Sal Inferno's back.
Portland originalThe LandingsVancouver
Dante's Portland: original location, Keep Portland Weird sign, active. Dante's South (The Landings): lagoon and ocean views, Dutch Brothers bar program, Voodoo Donuts late-night, Screen Door brunch Sundays, ocean at Sal Inferno's back. Dante's Inferno Vancouver: opened Year 5, most popular nightclub in the city, maximum irony.
Jefferson-ColumbiaCascalifornia annexes
Dante's brokered BC's secession from Canada. Ted Cruz's hotel room package: provenance unconfirmed. Dante's appears in three classified annexes of the Cascalifornia constitution. Nowhere else. Sal Inferno proposed the title "Emperor" for Newsom. This meeting has not been officially confirmed.