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The Sun Rises on a New Farming Year
Ancient River
By These Fish We Take Our Measure
Why Does the Biggest Fir Tree Matter?
The Story of the Spirit of the Okanagan
53. Pierre's Hole 5: The War of 1812 in the Far West
Illusions of Water Create Realities of Drought
A Hungry Day
The Mind of a Thistle
What Does Rural British Columbia Need?

The Sacred Mountain of the North Okanagan

By Harold Rhenisch on March 15, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

I went down to the lake to read the news. Terrace Mountain was pretty free with it. This old stratovolcano showed me a bird feeding something, or about to devour something. Note […]

Organic Brick Making

By Harold Rhenisch on March 12, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

Computers are made out of sand. So are river beds, and horsetails. These ancient plants of the Similkameen Valley, metabolize the silicon of the sand they root in, then lay it down […]

The Artwork that is the Similkameen Valley

By Harold Rhenisch on March 11, 2021 • ( 1 Comment )

The cliff above Keremeos, which burned 2 years ago, is showing faces, long-hidden, watching over the valley. K-Mountain in Mid-Afternoon Light Not to mention a mysterious rock fall among the burn patterns. […]

When Language Fails Us

By Harold Rhenisch on March 10, 2021 • ( 2 Comments )

The word ‘tree´simply doesn’t describe a ponderosa pine. It doesn’t even come close. In fact, to use the word “tree” for a creature like this is insulting. This English language has some […]

Moonrise at Sunrise Over Okanagan Lake

By Harold Rhenisch on March 9, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

Okanagan Mountain at 6 a.m. Perhaps you can see the western wall of the valley, to the right, tip nearly vertically as it moves east and collides with the westward-moving mountain coming […]

Art for the People and the Similkameen River

By Harold Rhenisch on March 8, 2021 • ( 2 Comments )

Down on the Similkameen River, there are rocks. It means that we can’t speak either. This is called “balanced management.” It is a great silencing of what, in British Columbian culture is […]

Grassland Education: Reducing Climate Risk 8

By Harold Rhenisch on March 4, 2021 • ( 2 Comments )

The Okanagan Valley is home to a nearly extirpated grassland ecosystem, that exists only in a few endangered pockets. Even so, it is a key grassland area for studying the effects of […]

Becoming History in the Okanagan

By Harold Rhenisch on March 2, 2021 • ( 3 Comments )

When the rail line along Kalamalka Lake was decommissioned, communities along the trail came together to purchase the land and turn it into a four-season lake-side trail. Preparation work included ripping out […]

Hunger: Climate Change in the Okanagan, 7

By Harold Rhenisch on March 1, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

Here’s one of last year’s fawns looking thin as all get out. Well, yeah. Mule deer browse on willows and Douglas fir in the winter, out of the snow. Here, that means […]

Climate Change in the North Okanagan 6: A Tale of Two Orchards

By Harold Rhenisch on February 26, 2021 • ( 4 Comments )

This is an old apple tree. The government has paid for it to be replaced. Best read that again. The government has paid to have almost all of these trees replaced. Up […]

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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 Sun Rises on a New Farming Year
  • Ancient River
  • By These Fish We Take Our Measure
  • Why Does the Biggest Fir Tree Matter?
  • The Story of the Spirit of the Okanagan
  • 53. Pierre's Hole 5: The War of 1812 in the Far West
  • Illusions of Water Create Realities of Drought
  • A Hungry Day
  • The Mind of a Thistle
  • What Does Rural British Columbia Need?

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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