Recently, I stumbled across an astonishing place, one where beauty has emerged from a surprising source. In the Los Angeles basin, where water is ever a precious resource, a traditional Japanese garden filled with ponds and streams takes as its source sewage from hundreds of thousands of households. In the 1980s, Donald C. Tillman, an […]
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The Submerged Canoe
The Sinixt, or Arrow Lakes Tribe, have been in the news lately. After a decade of legal battles over the right to hunt in the Canadian portion of their territory, their case will be heard at the Supreme Court of Canada. It’s hard to imagine why, in an era of cultural reconciliation for Indigenous people, […]
Nothing that is big or grand starts out that way
In the past month, I have twice threaded my way east through the Selkirk and Purcell mountains to travel across the mysterious landscape of river-beginnings. In the Rocky Mountain Trench, the Kootenay River starts on the West Slope of the Rockies, tumbling down to wind along the broad valley. Here, too, begins the great Columbia […]
A reluctant spring
It has been a reluctant transition to spring in the mountains of the upper Columbia Basin. Those who have been here all winter have been tearing their hair out. I have merely been staring at the unmelted snow with astonishment, since I returned several weeks ago. In my garden, a statue of Kuan Yin has […]
From Sea to Source
Yesterday found me speaking at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, Oregon. It was a fulfilling moment – sharing the story of the impact of Columbia River Treaty storage dams located in the headwaters region, with people who live at its mouth. After my talk, I drove out to the edge of the continent, […]
Beauty and Airport Landscapes
In my transition from North America to Europe last week, my appetite for natural beauty was satisfied in unusual ways. On a flight from Charlotte North Carolina to Philidelphia, Pennsylvania, I found a channel on my seat-back monitor called “foggy running water.” Sure enough, I was able to hear and be soothed by a river’s […]