This field of swiss grain above Lake Constance is a good example of the kind of conversations humans have with the earth. This represents technology brought from Asia to Europe and used […]
Nature and the Grave
Nature is a grave. That is an important point of Christianity, but not of the intermontane cultures of the North American West. What is in the grave is another matter. That is […]
A Short History of Whiteness in Cascadia
It’s not a physical thing. Apricot in Her White Gown White is a tricky, racial word. Here’s a small piece of a meditation on it from my book in progress, Commonage: The […]
We Are Not At War
When you live on the earth, in the earth and with the earth, culture is shared between creatures, their spirits and their energies, in a relationship built of balancing energy flows, always […]
Post-Racial Geography, an Introduction
This is not indigenous land. This is one of the main spiritual centres of my country, the Similkameen Valley. To call it indigenous, or native, land, is to adopt the words that […]
Cowboys and Indians
In 1847, it was the Cayuse on the ridgeline, with the lightning flaring from their appaloosa’s eyes and their water monsters painted on their bodies, and early American settlers on the flats […]
Gardening in the Petro State…Is that Possible?
How do we save the planet? By planting rocks in our gardens to “prevent global warming?” Isn’t that murder? Or by planting rhubarb? The second garden is mine, across the road from […]
Gardening in the Land of Peak Oil
How do we save the planet? By planting rocks in our gardens to “prevent global warming?” Isn’t that murder? Or by planting rhubarb? The second garden is mine, across the road from […]
Gardening in the Okanagan in 2017
Some things are sobering. Here’s a cold frame (a glassed-in seedbed, for early growing) from 1978, updated for the new Okanagan in the age of vineyardization. Before 1978, this was an orchard, […]
These Drops Will Not Fall
Here in the depressurized zone east of the Coast Mountains, they will soon be absorbed back into the air. They have only alighted for a moment on these cottonwoods, like birds.
Okanagan Okanogan 