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
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” […]
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 […]
An Agricultural Run-off Solution That Doesn’t Foul Wetlands and Beaches
Wetlands are used in 21st century Canadian society to absorb nitrogen run-off from agriculture, to purify run-off from roads and sidewalks, to strip winter street snow of its road salt (my city […]
Deer at Work
A stack of criss-cross bones … … goes walking in the weeds, trot, trip, trit, trop. Et voilà! A trail in the shape of their bones. Not just that, but bunchgrass […]
The Future Depends on Randomness: A Stroll Among the Zinnias
Oh, seed companies, books and contemporary institutions all aim for testing, quality control and uniformity, but these zinnias, with seed randomly selected for over thirty years now … … know a thing […]
Power Generation from Leaves and Trees
The leaf that lies on the ground catches the ground frost at night. Unlike the ground around it, it remains chill when the sun comes up, and retains its frost. Unlike the […]
Cultural Evolution in a Post-Canadian Landscape
Today, sober reflection. Tomorrow, a celebration. Kind of a small difference, eh. When the 5,000-year-old rattlesnake den on the hill was blasted away to make room for the luxury view homes the […]
The First Net Maker is the Sea
Floats and everything. Human creativity is often only an act of environmental-belonging, like a grouse hiding its chicks in grass. It is the act of using the eyes as fingers for the […]
No Mulch or Tillage on This Soil, Please
A living skin, however, is what the climate of the grasslands east of the coastal stratovolcanoes calls for. Anything else is quite the ongoing struggle. Whew. Save your back, eh!
