Whatdya think, winter’s coming? Fog rolling over the land? Fog drinking the last of the heat? Nope. It’s spring. December 1. Sagebrush buttercups. Doing their thing. Happy spring, everyone!
December is Springtime in the Okanagan
Reading Penn Kemp and the World: The Role of Poetry in Civic Planning
Let’s follow a word from the world, as it moves into our bodies and then through them into our social lives. Here is a well. A well, yes. It is a hole […]
In and Out of Colonial Canada on the Path of the Gulls
The gulls, eh. Restless at dusk. Maybe they can show us a path away from the colonial mapped and fenced landscape. They do circle around, don’t they! Imagine the interlocking fields of […]
The Beach at Dusk
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 […]
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 […]
Okanagan Okanogan 