What a diminished world, a shadow. Not the Earth, but the world. There is beauty here, but despite the sense of intimacy and closeness that a world gives, it is at a […]
Sacred Water
New Land Use Regulations for Okanagan Grassland Communities
Communities include grass and flowers, animals, insects, birds, trees, water, gravity, people, sun, rock, dust, soil and wind. Each contributes to maintaining a community balance. ANew communities built in the grasslands need […]
Back to the Fire
The west shore of Okanagan Lake burnt last summer, amidst the burns of years before. It was a terrible time last summer, but now that the year is in its last hours, […]
Trees of Ritual, Renewal and Grace
The tree is a ritual that grounds history at the heart of family life, revealing the duration of time, not its passing. The photograph is a ritual that grounds history at the […]
Totem-Land
In 1951, there was a move to brand British Columbia, that wandering northern chunk of Cascadia, as “Totem-Land.” Maybe it was a cunning move: to get everyone interested in Indigenous family trees […]
Minding the Earth
To look at the water is to look into the mind. Really. Look. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, it’s Dihydrogen Oxide in a liquid state, with some weeds growing in it, lightly […]
Orchard Lies and Out of Touch Journalists and Your Lunch
This is a story about truth and reconciliation. The headline says it all. Many Okanagan Apple Farmers Are Facing This Year’s Harvest Short Handed, You know, I remember a time, long before […]
Should British Columbia Change Its Name?
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is asking this question. They illustrate it like this: There’s been a national reckoning on place names and the people they’re named after — and some say that […]
The Only Hope for the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys in a Culture of Fire
I hate to say it, but the dream that has kept my family tied to the land for 91 years in this trough in the Columbia Plateau is over. Instead of a […]
Global Warming in Lytton, A Long View
We are all grieving, for people lost, lives damaged, and a beautiful town vanished from Cascadia. The scorching temperatures in Lytton this last week, and the horrible loss of the entire town […]
Okanagan Okanogan 