Since I first discovered the story of the heavily dammed international Columbia River back in 1998, I knew it was a really BIG story. When David Moscowitz and the Seattle-based publisher Braided River Press approached me about collaborating on a book, it was easy to say yes. Collaborations are always rich experiences, and sometimes fraught. […]
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Thank you, Charlie Maxfield
Back in the year 2000, I picked up a hitchhiker named Mimi on my way up the Slocan Valley, doing research for The Geography of Memory. Mimi told me I just had to contact Charlie Maxfield, to see his collection of stone tools. The story about how Charlie shaped my research is in the book. […]
A blue-violet miracle
At first glance, the recent discovery of a modest flower in the midst of a wet field of invasive grasses at the north end of Kootenay Lake seems to have no connection to the Columbia River Treaty. But in this era filled with first glances, we need to learn to dig deeper, to understand what […]
Challenging conversations: a unique Stanford symposium on the Columbia River
Last week, Americans and Canadians gathered at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California to discuss the Columbia River Treaty, its proposed agreement in principle, and the uncertain future of the watershed’s cooperative management. For me, it was a trip back to the undergraduate university where I first learned how to think independently and write well. […]
600-Strong: whoever would have thought?
On Tuesday, March 25, the Columbia River Treaty negotiating team and associated politicians held a webinar about the status of the 2024 Agreement in Principle (AIP), which might also be termed the Agreement in Limbo….Since the imagined faucet comment, made by a certain US politician (see my November post), and since the tariff conflicts between […]
Hockey and gravity
This morning, major U.S. news outlets led with a story about Mark Carney winning his bid for the leadership of the Canadian Liberal Party, replacing Justin Trudeau and his sunny ways. Storm clouds have been on the horizon between the two countries for a while now. The wind is picking up. In his acceptance speech, […]