So, here’s the deer, porcupine, snake and coyote trail going up the hill. The bear likes to stay down in the gully to the left. That’s a siya? bush, fruitful with berries […]
Waiting for the Fire in Lake Country
The Role of Poetry in Industrial Development
I showed you some beautiful patterns that poetry was able to read from natural processes. Here are some further patterns, that extend them into useful manipulations. Notice that these, too, are not […]
A New National Park Reserve for the Okanagan Similkameen?
Here’s my grandfather Bruno Leipe, c. 1963, looking down from above Cawston Creek over the middle Similkameen Valley. This area is part of a proposed National Park Reserve, in partnership with the […]
The Power of Stone
It is good to state the obvious. Stones are hard. They are solid. This give them force. When enough of them get together, it gives them gravity, and a tension between […]
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 […]
Reading Balsam Root, Writing Earth, Reading Mind
Here’s a word. Don’t let abstraction fool you. Just be with her for a moment. As you can see, she’s a living creature. Don’t let her dead stalks fool you. Because they’re […]
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 […]
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 […]
Okanagan Okanogan 