Here’s Kelowna’s explanation of their success at mitigating climate change. See that? 20% of sensitive ecosystem land is protected. Given that sensitive ecosystems make up 28% of Kelowna, and Kelowna covers 214 […]
Kelowna is Funny
Future Memory
I’ve got it! Creativity is the act of settling land. Instead of knowing where you are and planting crops where gravity, sun, rain and snow say to plant them, like the mustard […]
The Fire Deficit and the Depth of Global Warming
For 10,000 years, the people of the grasslands have been living in a fire landscape. For 100 years, they have been living in a fire debt. This landscape: Selah Creek, Yakama Nation […]
The Role of Poetry in Industrial Development
I showed you some beautiful patterns that poetry was able to read from natural processes. Here are some further patterns, that extend them into useful manipulations. Notice that these, too, are not […]
An Agricultural Run-off Solution That Doesn’t Foul Wetlands and Beaches
Wetlands are used in 21st century Canadian society to absorb nitrogen run-off from agriculture, to purify run-off from roads and sidewalks, to strip winter street snow of its road salt (my city […]
Is it a Healthy Environment? Why Words Matter to the World.
A very good question was asked about my neighbourhood: Priest Valley from the Bella Vista Hills My house is hidden by the slope on the right. Or, if not a question, […]
Vertical Lakes, Subsoil Dams and the Bear’s Cold Storage
There was forty centimetres of snow on this draw a couple weeks ago. Don’t think it’s all gone. The shade on the south western slope is keeping it damp in the soil, […]
Practical Ways to Re-Indigenize the Grasslands. Really.
Two days ago, I suggested that the former grassland hillsides of the Okanagan Valley (now large, private expanses of unproductive and water-wasting weeds), an area at least equal to the 100s of […]
Replacing Wild Harvest With Mountain Culture
100 Sustainable Paths for the Okanagan: 19 Currently, agriculture in the Okanagan Valley is industrial, in keeping with colonial models from 1858, when water was diverted through Nlaka’pamux villages in the Fraser […]
Cultural Blindness and Agricultural Practice
Culture is a powerful thing. Here is some earth, laid bare by a plow, in preparation for seeding in the spring. In the past, it has been used to grow tomatoes. This […]
Okanagan Okanogan 