After the bold statement, the exploration. Canada is a colony and its poetry, science, transportation structures and administration are colonial. OK, that’s the statement. Now for the niggly bits. They concern themselves […]
The Beach at Dusk
Let’s Not Be Too Romantic Now
The Okanagan Valley in which I live is sold as a place of beauty and purity in the midst of a wilderness. This project has been underway for about 125 years. The […]
Shadows, Holes, Poetry and the Art of Speaking as the Earth
Last night I wrote a post and then deleted it by trying to save some notes for today, which seemed clever, but was just, well, not. Let’s have a look state of […]
Magpie’s Thoughts on Land Claims
Middle Class Country: an American pop culture project. Dude Ranch Country: an older American pop culture project. Spiritual Country: a Chinese-European folk cultural project. Artistic Country: an American cultural export installation. […]
How to Make a City Indigenous, Even if You’re Lazy, Eh
Let’s go downtown as if we lived here. Let’s look at Canada through the lens of the story it tells in the Syilx illahie (illahie is Pacific Slope trade jargon for “story” […]
A Home In the Earth and the Sun: The Beginnings of an Urban Blueprint
I’ve been staring at this beaver lodge for years. Big Bar Creek I thought at first, well, yes, it’s a good model for a house. And sure enough, the Secwepemc who are this land […]
Dryland Wetland: Holding Water in Plain Sight
Every year 383 millimetres of water fall on this stretch of the Thompson River. Every year 383 millimetres of water fall on this land above it. That’s a third of a metre. That’s […]
Getting Used to Living in Time (The Intimate Lives of Rocks and Grass)
Let’s read a common thing … … in its context. Grass. It’s green and blows in the wind. It bends and sways, this one. It… clumps. West Arrowstone Deer wander through it. […]
Towards an Indigenous Agriculture: Land Reform for British Columbia (and beyond)
Yesterday, I showed how an aspen copse … … could be used as both a living and an agricultural space by farming both its edges and its shade. Here’s that post. Today, I’d […]
Learning to Live in Time: A Journey into Indigenous Agriculture
It is an intriguing question that sits in my house today: What does agriculture look like when conducted in “time” rather than in “space”. To show you how hard this is, here […]
Okanagan Okanogan 