The Cascadia Combinatorial Feast Since 1982
SFU participants at the 1985 conference		Elise Mozaffari, Owen Montefisher, Mark Kayll, Richard Hoshino, Jinting Liang, Patrick King, Felix Clemen Simon Fraser University, 2025

The Cascadia Combinatorial Feast (formerly the Combinatorial Potlatch) is an international one-day conference, usually held on the Saturday preceding US Thanksgiving. It has been held for many years at various locations around Puget Sound and southern British Columbia, and is an opportunity for combinatorialists in the region to gather informally for a day of invited talks and conversation. While most who attend work in, or near, the Puget Sound basin, all are welcome. Typically there are three talks given by speakers who are visiting or new to the area, along with breaks for coffee and lunch. Many participants remain for dinner at a local restaurant or pub.

News about the next conference

The next edition of the conference will take place in person at the University of Victoria on Saturday, November 21, 2026. Details will appear here over the summer.

Thanks to Elise Mozaffari, Owen Montefisher, Mark Kayll, Richard Hoshino, Jinting Liang, Patrick King, Felix Clemen, Stefan Trandafir and Caroline Colijn for excellent presentations at the November 2025 meeting, hosted by Simon Fraser University.

Announcements of upcoming conferences

Gary MacGillivray (gmacgill at uvic dot ca) maintains an email list of people interested in receiving announcements of upcoming meetings. Contact him via email to have your name added.

History of the Cascadia Combinatorial Feast

From Pavol Hell: "I came to UBC in the fall of 1972, and met Brian Alspach soon after. It looks like in October we decided to start a joint UBC-UVic-SFU seminar. I knew Don Miller at UVic from earlier times; at McMaster we shared the same supervisor, Gert Sabidussi. Maybe my talk on October 30, 1972, was the first, or one of the first. After I returned to SFU in 1980 (after five years at Rutgers), we still had at least one such meeting, now renamed the B.C. Discrete Mathematics Seminar. It took place at UVic, and it happened that Vic Klee was giving a lecture at UVic on the same day. I think we spoke to Vic after his lecture, one thing led to another, and we decided to expand the scope of our seminar to include the Pacific Northwest, and the rest of Western Canada."

The first Cascadia Combinatorial Feast (then known as the Potlatch) was held in 1982 at the University of Washington. From that time, through 1997, Brian Alspach was the prime mover and organizer. After a few years' hiatus, Nancy Neudauer and Rob Beezer resurrected the tradition in 2002. Amites Sarkar succeeded Rob Beezer for the 2017 edition. There have been at least 42 meetings over the past 43 years. A history, as best as can be reconstructed, is available here.

Photo Archives

Old Conference Photos and Speakers Photos are available also.

Cascadia Combinatorial Feast Web Pages

• Simon Fraser University, November 22, 2025
• University of Victoria, October 26, 2024
• University of Puget Sound, April 26-28, 2024
• Seattle University, November 19, 2022
• University of Victoria, November 20, 2021
• University of Victoria, November 21, 2020
• Western Washington University, November 23, 2019
• Simon Fraser University, November 17, 2018
• University of Victoria, November 18, 2017
• Seattle University, November 19, 2016 [Photo Album]
• University of British Columbia, November 21, 2015 [Photo Album]
• Western Washington University, November 22, 2014 [Photo Album]
• University of Victoria, November 21, 2013 [Photo Album]
• Simon Fraser University, November 17, 2012 [Photo Album]
• Seattle University, November 19, 2011 [Photo Album]
• Western Washington University, December 11, 2010
• Simon Fraser University, November 21, 2009
• University of Puget Sound, November 22, 2008
• University of Victoria, September 29, 2007
• Portland State University, November 11, 2006
• Seattle University, November 19, 2005
• Simon Fraser University, November 20, 2004 (Archived)
• University of Victoria, November 8, 2003 (Archived)
• University of Victoria, November 9, 2002) (Archived)
• University of Puget Sound, February 16, 2002

The Past is a Foreign Country

• Western Washington University, May 21, 1988
• Simon Fraser University, November 28, 1987
• Pacific Lutheran University, May 9, 1987
• University of British Columbia, December 13, 1986
• Western Washington University, April 5, 1986
• University of Washington, December 14, 1985
• Western Washington University, December 1, 1984
• Simon Fraser University, May 19, 1984
• Western Washington University, March 5, 1983
• University of Washington, February 27, 1982

Organizing Committee

This is: http://faculty.wwu.edu/sarkara/ccf_index.html   Last updated: December 16, 2025