Still strong enough to fly, although not very willing, but that wounded foot is going to make it hard to hunt. I hope it heals quickly. It’s not a reprieve for the rodents, […]
Marsh Hawk in Trouble
Beautiful Biscuit Root
High above Kalamalka Lake, it is gathering time. Biscuit Root In this old garden of sacred stone (I found an elderly Syilx couple sitting in their car, staring at this, reading […]
The Future of Okanagan Okanogan
We have been on a journey together for three-and-a-half years. In that time, I finished up this blog as a book (twice!), but then I was reading up on a lynching in Conconully, Washington […]
How to Find a Story on the Columbia Plateau
Note the grove of firs in the background here, between the Sinlahekin and Okanogan valleys (well, stories) of Washington. If you walk one way, they are the bristly children a toad is carrying […]
A Bee for Every Flower?
Like all sunflowers, balsam roots bloom in rings, from the outside in, like this. Here’s a bumblebee showing her technique for working this kind of flower. Here’s the brown bee […]
Of Mice and Men
Under the snowdrifts, mice ate between the thorns. On the Columbia River, men try to catch their salmon in the same way. In the second image, however, you can see […]
Why Do Some Fire Hydrants Play Cowboys and Mexicans?
Russian thistle was one of the first weeds from the Russian steppes to destroy the grasslands of the North American West. It became one of the dominant characters in Country & Western music, […]
When Volcanoes Crumble Flowers Come
When the earth is spoken of in its own terms it becomes poetry and is a language for spirit, like this… When rock catches sun and snow, lupins sprout and sagebrush buttercups and […]
How the West Was Won and Lost
Oh, here we are in the Hanford Reach, where we find a bit of Canadian Water going home. No, wait, it’s American water. No, wait, it’s everyone’s water! Oh, heck, just look… […]
Why We Need Treaties
I live in a place that illegally occupied land, and signed no treaties for it. Here we are at an old village site on the Commonage Claim above Kalamalka Lake. A parking lot! […]
Okanagan Okanogan 