Newhalem, Washington
| Newhalem, Washington | |
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| Unincorporated community | |
Newhalem from nearby Trappers Peak, North Cascades National Park
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 Newhalem, Washington
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| Coordinates: 48°40′25″N 121°14′50″W / 48.67361°N 121.24722°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Washington |
| County | Whatcom |
| Elevation | 515 ft (157 m) |
| Time zone | Pacific (PST) (UTC-8) |
| • Summer (DST) | PDT (UTC-7) |
| Area code(s) | 360 |
| GNIS feature ID | 1523641 |
| Highways |
 SR 20
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Newhalem is a small unincorporated community in northwestern Washington, United States, located in the western foothills of the North Cascades 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 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. Newhalem does not have an assigned US Postal Service zip code and thus, for postal purposes, is considered part of Rockport (98283). The name Newhalem has its roots in a local American Indian language as meaning 'Goat Snare'.
Elementary school students come to camp at Newhalem and learn about the ecosystem of the upper Skagit River, the other place being the Upper Baker Dam.
In pre-Colonial times, the site was inhabited by members of the Upper Skagits.
Newhalem has plentiful rainfall year-round, but with significantly less rainfall in the summer months than in winter. According to the Köppen climate classification, Newhalem has an Oceanic climate (Cfb).
The writer Tobias Wolff lived in Newhalem 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. 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."
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