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Seattle’s Maple Leaf neighborhood: “So far north it might as well be in Canada.” That was the joke then. Back when you could take a train from “Seattle” to the wilds of Woodland Park and Green Lake. Back when there were working lumber mills in the neighborhood – the Maple Saw Mill just east on Lake Washington, and the Green Lake Mill near what is now Northgate Mall. Back then Maple Leaf – roughly the neighborhood that today sits between Interstate 5 and Lake City Way, Northgate Way and 80th Street – had a lot of Maple Leaf trees, a plant nursery and at least one orchard. Originally the neighborhood was platted (in the 1890s) as the Maple Leaf Addition to the Green Lake Tract, but that connection was severed in the 1960s when Interstate 5 was built. Today Maple Leaf is a community on the hilltop – the third highest in Seattle, at 466 feet, according to the city Department of Transportation. The summit is Northeast 92nd Street and Roosevelt Way Northeast, but the most visible landmark – seen from much of Seattle – is the Maple Leaf water tower. It boasts a thriving business district, a plethora of restaurants and coffee houses, a strong community council, an amazing number of dog walkers and, overhead, a flock of gaudy, and very loud, feral scarlet-fronted parakeets. About Maple Leaf Life Launched in January 2010, Maple Leaf Life is a community site dedicated to news and events in the neighborhood. It’s part of the Next Door Media network and is edited by two professional journalists who live right here in Maple Leaf. Mai Ling Slaughter, who narrowly missed the closure of the King County Journal daily newspaper, only to watch the ink dry as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ended its print edition, has since taken her talents online as a blogger for MSN Real Estate. She has lived in Maple Leaf since 2004. Mike Ullmann is a career newsman who has lived in the neighborhood for the past decade (and in Green Lake before that). He most recently was the managing editor of the King County Journal, covering King County outside Seattle.