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. […]
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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, […]
Salmon and Columbia River Treaty flood control
If you haven’t listened to Wide Open, an audio series about the 1973 US Endangered Species Act by Montana journalist Nick Mott, it’s worth a listen. His episode about the Tennessee Valley Authority and the small fish that almost stopped a dam being completed made me think of the Columbia River salmon populations. Before dams, […]