At first, at Antlers’ Beach this afternoon, that old salmon, deer and berry camp midway up the western shore of Okanagan Lake, I thought, where are the birds? The birds that could […]
A Crop Unpicked, A Chance Missed, An Opportunity Awaiting
Know Your Place
If you were to walk up this draw in the Similkameen, you would meet a few of the Earth’s faces at the toes of these interlocked ridges, pass by them in story, […]
Let the Sun Be Our Guide
The hips of the wild rose are red so that we will see them, pick them, and carry their seeds with us. Other people, like deer and birds, are targeted in the […]
Gathering is “Instinctual”
When picking rose hips… … pick the ones that offer themselves to you. Those are the good ones. You’ll know which ones. The others are just mean. This is actually a syilx […]
Dogwoods Reveal Their Ancient Healing Secrets
The great medicinal being, stektektsxwíIhp, aka red osier dogwood or red willow (be careful with that; more than one plant bears that name), reveals her anti-inflammatory secrets when her leaves stop making […]
Entering the Wild
I tell ya, have a look. Life forms growing wild. Pine, alfalfa, big sage, red dogwood. All tangled. Wild. Or maybe not. Have a gander at the image below. Just a half […]
What the Body Knows in Cold and Light
What is pale and drawn out by light and cold is not dead. The life is within, or, rather, it is concentrated, or distilled. When you walk through the cold, every twig […]
The Best Fruit Growing Land
The image below shows an old síyaʔ (saskatoon berry) gathering ground in the Thompson River Gorge, across the river from an ancient village site. Notice the advantage of growing fruit this way: no […]
The Secret That Everyone Knows
Imagine taking a drum, lifted into the sky at the heart of a people, a place of woman’s power for 800 generations, where women and girls gather bulbs in the spring to see […]
On the Hunt for Wild Asparagus
Hunting for wild asparagus. Down below the old canal. In the place between orchards and sagebrush. Time to pick asparagus for a woman whose husband used to drive her up there. […]
Okanagan Okanogan 