The Nooksack River Basin is situated in the steep western slopes of the North Cascade Mountains and low glacial plains of northwest Washington State. The basin drains west from the north and west sides of volcanically active Mount Baker and meets the sea at Bellingham Bay near the southern end of the Strait of Georgia. The dramatic topographic relief of the region is the result of tectonic activity along the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Pleistocene continental and alpine glaciations sculpted and scoured the region, modifying topography and mantling many areas with deposits of tills, outwash and glaciomarine drift.

The Holocene saw the retreat of glaciers, rebounding of land, and the peopling of North America with indigenous cultures and then with Euro-American settlement. The Nooksack Basin has had a long history of cultural occupation as it provided both a transportation corridor and a prolific resource area. Although geomorphologically quiescent since Euro-American settlement, the landscape of the Nooksack Valley has experienced numerous landscape-altering events during the Holocene that very likely impacted, if not dramatically altered, the cultures that were present there. The purpose of this field trip is to show evidence for some Holocene geologic events and to contemplate human culture amidst this lively landscape.