Winter has chased me south to the Pacific Coast near Los Angeles as 2016 draws to a close. Here, I encounter the bright light etched across my childhood memories. Everything looks bleached and a little faded, except for the magical bougainvillia vine, spilling magenta and blood red blooms across chain-link fences and cement walls. On […]
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River Love, Part 2
My map of the Incomappleux basin here, with help from my imagination. What this map cannot record is the quantity and persistence of the rain that fell during my trip into the heart of the valley to see the old trees. What the map does record is the relative amount of remaining, untouched […]
River Love, Part 1
The importance of wild rivers hits home to me again on a rainy September weekend as I explore my way deep into a notch valley of the Incomappleux River. I am searching for one of the last remaining stands of old growth cedar and hemlock in the upper Columbia Basin. It’s the last stop on […]
In search of Springbank Clover
Phase II of my 6,000 mile search for beauty took me on another road trip last week – to the Broughton Archipelago. This smattering of rocky islands between the west coast of British Columbia and Vancouver Island has been home to the Kwakwaka’wakw indigenous tribe for thousands of years. I was drawn to feel for […]
A Gypsy-sort-of-Garden
Some of you know that I have landed back in south-eastern B.C. after a winter of exploration across the west. Soon after I arrived, I was thrown a curve ball that resulted in the continuation of my gypsy life in a community I have called home for 22 years. While there have been challenges, I’ve […]
Finding the headwaters
I cross into Montana and head west, drawn by the allure of Headwaters State Park, about 30 miles west of Bozeman, Montana. The second-longest river in North America begins here, tucked into a wetland east of the Rocky Mountain divide. Every river begins differently. The Missouri’s alpha is actually the confluence of two rivers, the […]