Short Story Breathing in Siberia… She had pictures tacked on her wall, some of Mark in fishing gear at Summit Lake and some of him outside the mill when it was still standing. Lately, she’d added news photos from Afghanistan, ripped from magazines and hanging from pushpins. When she drifted off to sleep with the […]Read Post ›
Archaeological sites expose layers of deposits buried through geologic eras. The cultural artifacts and natural sediments that form each level or strata offer a snapshot of a single place through changing time. But what about our own strata of past experience? What if the adventures, sorrows and trials we encounter as we move through our […]Read Post ›
I learned over a decade to appreciate the subtle beauty of British Columbia’s more northern interior regions. But arriving on the coast recently is a little like landing in the middle of Beethoven’s Victory symphony at its crashing height. The landscape here commands attention; expects reverence. Coming to a standstill with the shorebirds on the […]Read Post ›
I have a little clay pot from Zimbabwe, from a quiet farm north of Harare where I long ago strolled through the trees among stone statues carved by Henry. The farm was called Tengenenge – “The Beginning of the Beginning” – and it happened to be located on the ‘Great Dyke,” the source of a […]Read Post ›
I saw a recent post by a New Yorker who had made a vow to take a photograph every day for the rest of his life. I found something compelling about that thought. Not so much the bravado of setting himself a rigid task – and being so public about it – but because: why […]Read Post ›
It’s considered one of the top 25 toughest running competitions in North America. The knee knacker takes 200 runners across nearly 50 kilometres of the North Shore mountains – and frog marches them through 16,000 feet of elevation gains and losses. Karl, a lifelong runner, is entered for the upcoming July 7 race; his name […]Read Post ›
When you round the corner at Cariboo Dam on Burnaby Lake, as my sister and I typically do on our early morning weekend walks, you come to lilipad land where the ducks dabble and the water’s face is covered as by a veil of lace…It’s a delight to see. But when the patterns are repeated […]Read Post ›
Sand and tidal flats and the feeling you can walk forever. That’s the Fraser River Estuary at Boundary Bay in Delta, glittery with afternoon post-winter light this past weekend. The city shimmered in the first heat of the season as herons stood in the still water and waited, poised like an endlessly held breath. I […]Read Post ›
We are on an evening walk at Stanley Park, accompanied by buffleheads and goldeneye, herons and mergansers, seals and and otter, and even the occasional human. By the time we round Lost Lagoon after 8 p.m., a beaver is swimming beside the path as bats dart in the falling dark; two mute swans are milling […]Read Post ›
