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Reclaiming the Art of Living on the Earth

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The Colours of the Okanagan
Getting Grounded in the Okanagan
Hefted and Haunted and Home
There is No Such Thing as Wilderness (Unless We Make it So)
The Sun at Work
The Memory of Water
Thank You, Clematis
30. Weaponizing the West: Part 2
The Okanagan's Missing Water
The End of the Earth or Reconciliation? The Choice is Ours.

How People Learned to Stay Still: a Story Old and New

By Harold Rhenisch on May 6, 2021 • ( 2 Comments )

From many, one. From one, many. Just not all at once. Here is Siya? blooming: a cluster of white-petalled flowers catching the eye because so many are close together. Not all bloom […]

Active Space and Negative Space

By Harold Rhenisch on May 5, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

The sagebrush on the Bella Vista Hills in the North Okanagan creates an active space, which defines the space around it as negative space, or space without sagebrush! It is quite pushy […]

The Strange Little Man of the North Okanagan

By Harold Rhenisch on May 4, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

A small white explorer discovering a vast, unknown land. And staying in that moment forever, while below him, people camp out in the remains of a wetland squeezed now between two highways. […]

Nice Teeth, Bullsnake

By Harold Rhenisch on May 3, 2021 • ( 1 Comment )

OK, so, not teeth, but a great bluff. Look how the eye markings extend the size of the eye as well, and make the eye appear to look to the back of […]

The Karma of Deer

By Harold Rhenisch on April 30, 2021 • ( 1 Comment )

Whatever else 12 foot tall fences are for, they are not to keep deer out of orchards. Here, you can see that the goal is to keep the neighbours out. With their […]

The Best Wine Takes Finesse

By Harold Rhenisch on April 29, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

Grapes have the ability to deliver nutrients, water and sugar to any point in the plant at which they are needed. It’s not just a matter of raising the vines into the […]

Settler Culture = Terroir

By Harold Rhenisch on April 28, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

Here’s the grape terroir in the Similkameen Valley. That’s right. There are no grape plants. They would die here. Should one plant them (and someone has across the road behind us), one […]

Dancing in a Fur Coat

By Harold Rhenisch on April 27, 2021 • ( 1 Comment )

Sure, the picture is not precisely in focus, but what the heck. The bee is the star here. Look at her answer the call of the balsam root. Look at the balsam […]

New Apple Varieties Under Lights

By Harold Rhenisch on April 24, 2021 • ( 1 Comment )

Here they are. Hanging out with the sweet peppers. I have my eye on that little Spigold. She has such a giant mother, twice as big as anyone, yet is so tiny. […]

Of Wine, War and Peace

By Harold Rhenisch on April 23, 2021 • ( 4 Comments )

Wine is largely made in laboratories. What is grown in the field is grapes. The result is a decreased ability for the plant to distribute potassium where needed. The additional remove of […]

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The Okanagan in History: Table of Contents

This is a Blog about People in Place

I have worked here since 2011 telling stories of the Earth as preparation for a history of the Intermontane Grasslands of Central Cascadia and the rainswept coast that keeps them windy and dry. Now I am presenting this history, step by step, as I have learned it, often from the land itself. The history of this region includes the Canadian colonial space “The Okanagan Valley”, which lies over the land I live in above Canim Bay. The story stretches deep into the American West, into the US Civil War, the War of 1812, and the Louisiana Purchase, as well into the history of the Columbia District of the Hudson’s Bay Company. In all, the story spans the Chilcotin and Columbia volcanic plateaus and the basins that surround them. In this vast watershed lie homelands as old as 13,200 years (Sequim) and 16,200 years (Salmon River.) That’s how far we are walking together here, who are all the land speaking.

https://okanaganokanogan.com/harold-rhenischs-shop/ Click to buy my new book The Tree Whisperer, an extension of Thoreau's Wild Apples and a book about learning to write poetry by pruning fruit trees. Only Olaf Hauge, from Norway, and I have followed such a path.
  • The Colours of the Okanagan
  • Getting Grounded in the Okanagan
  • Hefted and Haunted and Home
  • There is No Such Thing as Wilderness (Unless We Make it So)
  • The Sun at Work
  • The Memory of Water
  • Thank You, Clematis
  • 30. Weaponizing the West: Part 2
  • The Okanagan's Missing Water
  • The End of the Earth or Reconciliation? The Choice is Ours.

Jesmond Mountain, Where the Coast and the Grasslands Meet

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This is a blog about living in place.

News, politics, art, literature, commentary, and happenings of importance to the watershed and path of the Okanagan River, no matter how far it flows.
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