The expanding social competition among vintners to be super-elite seems to be at blame. This will be one of the few balsam roots you’ll see this year above Okanagan Landing, some 5,000 […]
It’s Either Wine or Sunflowers, Eh
Grassland Education: Reducing Climate Risk 8
The Okanagan Valley is home to a nearly extirpated grassland ecosystem, that exists only in a few endangered pockets. Even so, it is a key grassland area for studying the effects of […]
Becoming History in the Okanagan
When the rail line along Kalamalka Lake was decommissioned, communities along the trail came together to purchase the land and turn it into a four-season lake-side trail. Preparation work included ripping out […]
Murdering Geese for Tourists. It’s What We Do.
These geese. Come June, they will be herded with kayaks, put on a truck, killed, and dumped in the landfill. These geese: On a beach that has silted in with road sand […]
The Gift Culture of the Grasslands
Flax is beautiful. The seeds grow heavy and lower the seed to the ground. Mice eat the seed there. And then it lifts up again, through the snow! These aren’t seeds that […]
Rototilling 101
First, plant some flowers. Watch them grow. Nice, eh! Bees will burrow into the soil and lay their eggs. Nicer yet! Voles will come and root around, as voles will do. By […]
Bunch Grass Doesn’t Stabilize Slopes
Blue bunch wheatgrass has been used to stabilize slopes in The Rise subdivision here in Vernon. The goal was to do so in an environmentally-friendly manner, to compensate for irreplaceable habitat lost […]
Whole Worlds Hidden from the Settler Gaze
Under the snow, it’s spring. Under stone, it’s the same. Where the sun intensifies and molten water collects, it’s spring. This is when the rock is mined for nutrients that feed the […]
The Dance of the Deer and the Pines
Oyama Not only is every ponderosa pine here a vertical column, rather than a star of branches as it appears to human eyes, and not only does it create a zone under […]
Pigeons and Dates under the Rising Sun
Blessings. The darkness is falling back now. The sun is coming back. Look who showed up today in Penticton. What ancient symbols of renewal! A pigeon and Russian Olives (a kind of […]
Okanagan Okanogan 