It is three hundred kilometres north from the Granny Smith apple orchards at the mouth of the Okanagan at Brewster, Washington, to the valley’s last orchard, above Swan Lake, north of Vernon, […]
Telling Time with Apples
Looking for Intelligent Life in the Universe
The Okanagan is at the cutting edge of scientific research. Even the search for intelligent life and the origins of the universe is actively pursued here, on both sides of the border. […]
The Time of Starting Over
Now that economies are struggling, it’s a good idea to look at some previous collapses. Hundreds of orchards, for one, have disappeared in northern Washington in the last dozen years. At first […]
Metal People in the Rust Belt
I think reality has become a fantasy and the true story of our time is written in science fiction. Here, for example, is a man holding up a salmon in praise, on […]
Waiting for Winter
The Canadian Okanagan is the deep south. At its farthest south, Osoyoos boasts Spanish architecture and is famed for desert sun and vineyards. Grapes are planted here on old orchard land, impossibly […]
Learning from the South
Images of people change with time. Here is John Chukuaskin Ashnola’s grave from Upper Keremeos. He became chief of the Ashnola people in 1866, until his death some fifty years later. He […]
The Living Dead
Halloween is an ancient ritual, played out on October 31, the old New Year’s Eve. In the English version of these ceremonies, which the Canadian Okanagan inherited, children dress up as lost […]
Before the Crush
It is always exciting to taste a new vine as it pours out of the press into an enamel cup. Behind the sweetness, a hint of the wine tantalizes the mouth, like […]
Feral Agriculture
Consider what happens when our plants escape our fences: Feral Grapes Growing Without Water Who says grapes need to be grown in monocultured vineyards, on expensive wires, with bird guns driving the […]
Telling Time
John Keats called this time a year the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.” He did so in one of the most beautiful poems in the language. Here in our volcanic rocks […]
Okanagan Okanogan 