I have been following the story of the development of the Pacific Northwest as a local story. That’s to say, one that includes all of the region’s people. It’s who we are […]
56. Missionary Failures in the Pacific Northwest
31. Humans and Bears and History
As I hope my post yesterday made clear, traditional Indigenous cultures are as dynamic as European ones and European ones are as constant as traditional Indigenous ones. We can have a sentence […]
27. Manipulating the French in the Northwest
The last time we were together, I spoke as a land of grass and rocks, enslaved to inter-human relations west of the Rocky Mountains. There’s a story out this way, that people […]
Race and Apples 4: The Survival of the Confederate State in Washington’s Apple Industry
One of the consequences of settlement of the Columbia Basin is that this land in the North is actually in the South. It’s kind of a continuation of the US Civil War, […]
This Spiritual Land
The land is beautiful and sacred in these parts. It makes us want to enter it. John Day Painted Hills That’s because we are a migratory, hunting species, that responds both to […]
The Art of Finding Art
It’s a beautiful thing when humans make art. But let’s be honest: it’s a beautiful thing when they don’t. The patterning that art presents can be done without being a portrait of […]
This is How You Make Bread and French Fries
First, you take the shrub steppe of the lower Snake River. Then you add petroleum-based fertilizer (white tank) and water (six deep well pumps). This combination makes bread. It’ll be seeded again in […]
Northern Oregon and the Cold War
Here’s a map of Oregon from 1846. The line that divides it in half is the proposed border along the 49th parallel, that became law twelve years later and separated British and […]
A Year of Walking and Learning, Part 4
This is the fourth post in which I unravel a year long walkabout into threads, in preparation for weaving them together into book form, not to mention a presentation next week for […]
Okanagan Okanogan 