I have worked here since 2011 telling stories of the Earth as preparation for a history of the Intermontane Grasslands of Central Cascadia and the rainswept coast that keeps them windy and dry. Now I am presenting this history, step by step, as I have learned it, often from the land itself. The history of this region includes the Canadian colonial space “The Okanagan Valley”, which lies over the land I live in above Canim Bay. The story stretches deep into the American West, into the US Civil War, the War of 1812, and the Louisiana Purchase, as well into the history of the Columbia District of the Hudson’s Bay Company. In all, the story spans the Chilcotin and Columbia volcanic plateaus and the basins that surround them. In this vast watershed lie homelands as old as 13,200 years (Sequim) and 16,200 years (Salmon River.) That’s how far we are walking together here, who are all the land speaking.
Okanagan Okanogan 
oh wow. I dont think of wee critters in the deep snow..
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They have lovely tunnel networks under the snow, lit with glorious diamond light from above, and all very warm and protected. A very marvellous winter life. I grew wheat. I was going to make a cupcake like the Little Red Hen, but I was going to share it. I planted the wheat, with poppies for colour, and then, just before I was going to scythe it down, the mice came and felled it, like loggers. They cut the stalks at the base, then stacked them in perfect piles, with all the heads in the same direction. The next morning, they had pulled them all down into their underground world. And then when you can see frozen mouth breath around a mouse hole in the winter, now, that’s very fine. Such lovely white mouse breath lace!
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