In thickness, there is a way through. Plum thicket. In the darkness, there is light. Plum thicket. Even the darkness is light. Plum thicket. Even the light is darkness. Russian olive. Even […]
Dancing the New Year Home
Mallard Ducks Flowing Downstream
What a spirited pair! Vernon Creek I think I will never see a duck in the same way again. Here’s the happy pair a second later, old style. Quack! Quack! Quack!
39. The Beginnings and Ends of History
Euroamerican histories do not tell the story of the Pacific Northwest. Not really. A story of colonial cultures set in native space. This is the story of the Canadian province called British […]
Cedars Dancing in the Snow
Forget any thoughts of darkness. These are days of such light. The light was fading in the cedar forest on Rose Swanson Mountain in Splatsin Territory this afternoon. There was too little […]
38. Raven’s Prophecies, The War of 1812 and the Old Northwest
The War of 1812 saw Britain, Indigenous peoples and the United States fight on both sides of the Great Lakes over independence and expansion: US independence to trade with Napoleonic France, recognition […]
36. Alliances and the Mountains: War by Other Means, Part 3.
To understand why the Hudson Bay Company might have wanted to destroy the stock of beavers in the Snake River country, it’s helpful to go back to 1809, when John Jacob Astor, […]
35. The Long Arm of New France: War By Other Means, Part 2
In the previous post, I showed how even the simplest concepts of property and individuality from the settlement era in the Pacific Northwest (180 years ago) have determined much of the world […]
34. War by Other Means, Part 1
In my last post https://okanaganokanogan.com/2022/11/22/39-you-say-skaha-i-say-sqexeʔ/, number 33 in this series, I pointe out that even the simple concepts that determine human relationships to land today, things universally dispersed or at least fought […]
33. You Say Skaha, I say Sqexeʔ
The Okanagan Valley, a European space since 1859, hasn’t shed its colonial roots. Becoming a part of Canada in 1871 didn’t do a whole lot about that, partly because when you colonize […]
Two Views of the Heart
Well, you can take an old ranch and make a state park. That’s one thing you can wear your heart on your sleeve. Columbia Hills, Washington That’s Oregon in the distance. Or […]
Okanagan Okanogan 