A small white explorer discovering a vast, unknown land. And staying in that moment forever, while below him, people camp out in the remains of a wetland squeezed now between two highways. […]
The Strange Little Man of the North Okanagan
Settler Culture = Terroir
Here’s the grape terroir in the Similkameen Valley. That’s right. There are no grape plants. They would die here. Should one plant them (and someone has across the road behind us), one […]
Let’s Cancel Christmas
I mean, really. A holiday that sees people putting spiritual wreathes on their doors, made out of the woven limbs of bushes in a prayer for coming spring, that sees them tossed […]
It’s Either Wine or Sunflowers, Eh
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 […]
The Lesson of the Starlings: How to Be a Good Member of a Flock
As the starlings show, it’s not necessary that everybody do the same thing at the same time. You’re still a member of the flock. Even distance from each other is negotiable. There […]
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 […]
Who Can Take the Cold, or Is It Really Climate Change?
Here’s the Vineyard at the Rise, frozen with grapes on the vine. And here is the picking team. And the administration… I’m all for feeding the birds, but it would have been […]
Canadian Safe Boating Rules
Because Canadians are excellent swimmers… Common Loon, the Quintessential Canadian … they need no lifejackets. They just impede the freedom of the swimming wings. Commoner Loon, the Quintessentialer Canadian Plus, sitting prevents […]
Beyond Settlement: Energy, Cascadia and the Portland Protests
Let’s look at energy by getting going. There is a way forward. You did not make it. No human made it, yet humans have followed it for, perhaps, 10,000 years. Deer made […]
Fate, Race and Populism in the Third Reich and Cascadia, Part 5 of 5
For a week now, I’ve been presenting a view of how time and land have a social dimension. Sometimes Being Social Means Backing Away That was my yesterday. Today, I will conclude […]
