I parked La Tortue beside the pristine Smith River in Jedediah Smith State Park last night, a preserve of old and second-growth redwood trees. Today, I walked in a grove where fire had swept through hundreds of years ago; many of the oldest trees were scarred by the flames, but continued to adapt and even […]
Reaching (for) the Pacific Ocean
January 19, 2016: I woke this morning to rain pelting on the roof of the Rialta van — thankfully, I was dry as a bone inside. A powerful El Nino storm has swept in from the Pacific Ocean. Given my location at Bullard’s Beach State Park in coastal Oregon, nothing stands in the way of […]
La Tortue and my hero Neil
Neil is my mechanic for the vehicle that will power my trip to the redwood forests beginning next week. The 1996 Rialta 21 ft. camper van needed a little work, including a multi-function switch. Too bad Neil can’t install one in my writer’s brain: it’s a challenge to remember all the small packing details […]
Sending more green to our eyes
This is the Arrow Lakes Reservoir, where Columbia River water is collected and held in Canada under the Columbia River Treaty, for use downstream in the U.S. One of the tell-tale signs of a reservoir is trees having fallen like soldiers along the unstable shoreline from the raising and lowering of the water for hydro-power […]
A remarkable encounter
I came across this bear skull set on a cedar stump in a selectively logged forest in July, 2015. Over a foot long, the skull’s front fangs are gone. The back molars, made for chewing up berries, grubs and vegetation, confirm the jaw of an omnivore. The stump and the skeleton may both be […]
Have dog, will travel
A golden afternoon on the Slocan River in late June, paddling a prototype of the traditional Sinixt sturgeon-nosed canoe with my dog Dellie in pursuit. In the evening, I spoke to a bi-national group of students from Hamilton College in upstate New York and our local Selkirk College about the Columbia River Treaty. They are […]