Last week, I travelled south of the international boundary, to Kettle Falls, Washington. Standing on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River, I watched the reservoir pool around a land mass exposed by low water. The indigenous word for this place is ksunkw, “island.” Sinixt and Skoyelpi fishermen, their families and the Salmon Chief once spent […]
Upper Columbia River Region
Boundary Dam
This dam is just below the international boundary between Canada and the U.S., in a tucked-away corner. Pacific Northwest dams are often in tucked-away corners…..though they share water’s power with millions of people living in cities like Vancouver and Seattle.
Spokane River Shell
I found this shell in a sand bank on the Spokane River. It is this sort of noticing that opens up water’s mystery for me.
Liking Lichens
Sometimes, on a drippy, early spring day, there is little else to notice in the woods than lichens. This was from one walk in a fairly dry, rocky woods at the edge of Slocan Lake. I collected a piece of each one that I could find on the short walk.
Slocan Pool Trail
It is hard to explain how and why certain small details of the landscape speak to me. Sometimes it is colour. Others texture. Others still a sort of curiosity about what something is, how it got there. In this case, it was the sheer visual beauty of the colours of the bark, only vaguely […]
Mark Creek near Kimberley, B.C.
An afternoon walking along Mark Creek in Kimberly, B.C. Everything was rusted by a late-autumn season. I gathered the rusted pieces up and taped them onto the page.