A year and a half ago, fire raced through the mountains of the Similkameen, but it did not take every tree, as you can see here above Chopaka.

What it took was the trees that grew in the wind. It was not a fire event, so much as a wind event, even when the wind is made (in part) by the fire. Look at the spirit faces the fire revealed, as well, especially the bear on the right and the human figure on the left, facing it. These too are creatures dependent on fire. The triangular slope in the middle, however, has even more power over fire: it is not taken by it. Yet, it is revealed by it, nonetheless. Turning our back to this story…

… we find water’s face, from when this whole valley was a lake. Note the hill in the foreground, and how trees grow on its left and right faces (although more thickly the left). These are aspects of snowfall, sun aspect and drying wind, or, in other words, heat. And heat is fire. With that in mind, turnabout again:

The grassy ridge in the foreground was underwater in the lake that made the hoodoos behind you. It is plain to see here in the northeastern ramparts of the Cascades how the mountains are made out of line after line of uplifted ridges, sheared off and tilted by incredible force. In this kind of country, fire is at home. It does not, as you can see, take everything. It’s more like it carefully tills the land in its own image. As for the water, let’s just back up a bit.

Can you see how the whole valley bottom, once a lakebed, and a riverbed as well, is now full with deep gravels that take the mountain’s perspective away by laying what was once vertical, and fire’s breath, flat. If fire comes through here, it is the wet leaves of trees that will slow its desire to rise. That power, the trees keep to themselves.