Okanagan Okanogan

Reclaiming the Art of Living on the Earth

Thursday, December 25th, 2025|
Twitter

Menu

  • Home
  • Sustainability
  • About
  • The Okanagan in History

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,266 other subscribers
Follow Okanagan Okanogan on WordPress.com
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?

Bunch Grass Doesn’t Stabilize Slopes

By Harold Rhenisch on January 7, 2021 • ( 2 Comments )

Blue bunch wheatgrass has been used to stabilize slopes in The Rise subdivision here in Vernon. The goal was to do so in an environmentally-friendly manner, to compensate for irreplaceable habitat lost […]

Mutant Apples

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

Mutation is not a bad thing. A lot of the flavour of apples is in the skin. The skin changes, subtly changing the flavour. The yellow on the Royal Gala apple below […]

Whole Worlds Hidden from the Settler Gaze

By Harold Rhenisch on January 5, 2021 • ( 2 Comments )

Under the snow, it’s spring. Under stone, it’s the same. Where the sun intensifies and molten water collects, it’s spring. This is when the rock is mined for nutrients that feed the […]

The Dance of the Deer and the Pines

By Harold Rhenisch on January 4, 2021 • ( 1 Comment )

Oyama Not only is every ponderosa pine here a vertical column, rather than a star of branches as it appears to human eyes, and not only does it create a zone under […]

Birth on New Year’s Day

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

In an age of humanism, centered on the concept of humans as discrete physical beings, birth is a simple enough process: an infant gestates in a mother’s womb, comes out, breathes on […]

A New Year’s Lesson

By Harold Rhenisch on December 31, 2020 • ( Leave a comment )

During the year the birds did not come back, a quiet year by any account, siya?, or saskatoon as she is also called, still created berries and offered them. May we all […]

Green Onions for New Year’s

By Harold Rhenisch on December 29, 2020 • ( Leave a comment )

Got your Welsh onions yet? The know no seasons. They push living out of the dead Earth. Which is, accordingly, not dead. Very Celtic, that!

Poison Ripens at Yuletide

By Harold Rhenisch on December 24, 2020 • ( Leave a comment )

Really. Look at the deadly nightshade, all festive, like. It’s the time of year for power, and for choices. May we all now choose well.

Pigeons and Dates under the Rising Sun

By Harold Rhenisch on December 23, 2020 • ( 2 Comments )

Blessings. The darkness is falling back now. The sun is coming back. Look who showed up today in Penticton. What ancient symbols of renewal! A pigeon and Russian Olives (a kind of […]

Winter Tomatoes Make the Best Sauce

By Harold Rhenisch on December 18, 2020 • ( Leave a comment )

Two months ago, we picked these beauties. They were all very green then. I deviated from Ricardo’s instructions and flavoured it with a red onion, a red clove of garlic, Winter Savoury, […]

Posts navigation

‹ Newer 1 … 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 … 313 Older ›

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

Archive

  • December 2025
  • November 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • April 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011

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.
  • Top categories: Nature Photography spring
  • Social links:
    Twitter
Blog at WordPress.com. |
  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Okanagan Okanogan
    • Join 1,266 other subscribers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Okanagan Okanogan
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...