This is an old growth forest full of weeds. The sage brush is the weed … … not the bunch grass. Sagebrush is an indigenous plant, but it comes in a bit thickly when […]
When Trees are Weeds
What We Need to Talk About, Darling
The land I live on was an island that crashed into a continent. It buckled and smashed and was pushed up into the air by the collision. The old seabeds of its […]
Who is a Person?
Oh, here’s a person: Your writer says hi. When you get a whole bunch of persons together you get people. Like this: Plateau Men Fishing, Celilo Falls on the Columbia River, c.1950 […]
Of Universities and Love
Universities are the place in which Western societies educate their youth, create knowledge, and pass on social values. I wonder why that doesn’t happen here: The Salmon River Enters the Snake It […]
The Illahie: the Braided Country
Here’s an old word: illahie. Here’s what it looks like to me today: Well, that’s a teeny tiny bit of it. If you look it up in a Chinook Wawa dictionary… …the […]
The Music of Bunch Grass
These are our old growth forests in the Syilx Illahie. Our sequoias, redwoods, Douglas firs, sitka spruce and western red cedars are blue-bunched wheat grass here. Forget the blue blades at the […]
Wetland Renewal and You
Have you loved your wetland today? This one is three years old. Just three! Forget the doom and gloom for a moment. The earth has a capacity for renewal. This wetland is […]
Grass Bison Without Legs
The energy of the land comes forth in certain forms. Here in buffalo country in Montana, it’s up to its old tricks. Grass Bison! I know Montana is outside my homeland, but it’s […]
Microfarming
What if farmers started working with ants the way they do with bees? Would not farming become both herding and the development of the greatest possible ecological diversity? Would that not reverse a great […]
Magpie’s Amazing Disappearing Trick
We all know when we’re being watched. We look up and catch the gaze of the watcher. Magpies like to control that kind of thing. Here’s a magpie being visible. And here […]
Okanagan Okanogan 