It’s nearly the equinox, when day and night are equal in length, often called the first day of autumn. For several weeks, creeks in the upper Columbia River region have hosted anadromous sockeye salmon, returning home to spawn and die. Chemical changes transform the silver scales of the adults into vivid red. After they spawn […]
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Fractured Growth
In his compact and fascinating book, Li, Dynamic Form in Nature, the architect David Wade identifies and catalogues repeated patterns found in the natural world. Wade defines Li as something that falls between pattern and principle. Li can be found in wave-washed sand, ice crystals and tree bark, to name only a few. It demonstrates […]
Taking the Leap
February 29th, is one of those breakouts – a rogue day in the standard calendar. The year (as we measure it) has been around, more or less, since Ancient Rome. A far older calendar common to most Indigenous cultures is one based on the cycles of the moon. Every four years, February adds one day, […]
Choosing Beauty
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 […]
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 […]