I hate to say it, but the dream that has kept my family tied to the land for 91 years in this trough in the Columbia Plateau is over. Instead of a […]
The Only Hope for the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys in a Culture of Fire
I’m Glad I Never Called Myself a Garden Expert, Whew
For an up-close peek at the inner workings of Canadian culture, have a look at what the Rona Hardware store is offering children to buy their Dads for Father’s Day. I chose […]
Gardening is Not Real
In an image-driven culture, gardening is symbolic. It fills the social role of display. Like clothing or a tan or a tattoo. The key is to fill the social role while protecting […]
Getting Grounded in the Okanagan
Huckleberries are nature. The old benches at Bridgeport, their sage, orchards, cheatgrass and windbreaks, are all nature, as is the controlled Columbia River. The abandoned orchard in Grand Coulee below, and its […]
Beauty and the Feast
The mountains have bloomed for Easter. Beautiful Arrow-leafed Balsam Root! Beats me why the whole city doesn’t shut down and take to the hills. And yet, for all that gorgeous display, the […]
Towards a New Cartography, Part 2: Canada is not the Land…yet
The land has stories. To say “Hawk hunting chickadees on the edge of The Vineyard at the Rise in Vernon” is not the land’s story. That is the story of a mapped […]
When Trees are Weeds: Truth and Reconciliation from the Ground Up
Yesterday I started a meditation on classicism, and how the cultures within Canada have some choices, given German experience with the power, failure and abuse of classical models as a means of […]
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 […]
Truth and Reconciliation in the Thompson and Okanagan Valleys, One Camp Stool at a Time
What simpler way to celebrate the most enduring of Canadian values: coming face-to-face with the Earth, the Universe and Everything, alone, and for the first time, and the first time again tomorrow, […]
A Canadian Education
Canada is a big country. Here’s a tiny piece of it in the west. What you’re looking at is a bit of a collision between a volcano and a seabed off the […]
Okanagan Okanogan 