Fresh Water Matters

I’m sitting in a room with large windows.  Outside fresh water tumbles by, higher on the banks of Rock Creek than usual for August.  There’s been way more snow and rain this year than is ever expected for this arid region of Montana.  Regardless of the reason and in spite of some of the local folks’ complaints, the water doesn’t miss a beat.  Constancy is its nature. Today, Matt Damon did the… Read More

High Summer & Highways – Solar Power in Action

  It’s hot.  It’s summer. Weather in the world has been, as we all know, weird.  Some people continue to spin this weirdness as normal, of no concern — circumstances that require no response on the part of the humans who live it. My friends Jon Waterhouse and Mary Marshall spend a good deal of time with indigenous people who live climactic weirdness.  The Elders among them have been noting alarming changes… Read More

Wasp stings are annoying — The crashing unpredictability of severe weather is deadly

Ok — From Fracking the past two weeks to wasps.  Tipping my hand here:  I find myself thinking of the former at the causal edge of ongoing climate degradation while the latter live on the continuous curve of the climate’s changes.  That, of course, places wasps in the company of all breathing and otherwise animate things (like people, rivers, pine cones, lentils …). In particular, wasps have been on my mind because… Read More

Mayo Summit – Listen to These People

Galena, Alaska was at 39 below zero four days before Christmas in 1997.  At 40 below, the airport closes. Air travel is the most reasonable way to get into Galena in winter.  The other ways are by snow machine or dog sled.  A hand full of tribal leaders from the Yukon River basin were gathering on that day because they had become acutely concerned for the health of the river.  Toxic dump… Read More

Notes from Mayo – “My water’s talking to your water.”

Harold Gattensby lives at the headwaters of southern lakes in Yukon Territory, Canada.  He is one of the tribal leaders attending the summit here in Mayo, Yukon. The leaders are from the 72 member tribes composing an alliance that was established a few days before Christmas 1997 in Galena, Alaska — at 40 below freezing.  The alliance brings into collaboration Alaska Tribes and Canada First Nations in the Yukon River Basin for… Read More

Listening to Rivers

Last week I had the chance to catch up with a friend, Antone Minthorn (Cayuse), former Chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR).  He told me a story of the Umatilla River.  The focus of the story was Salmon – the fact that Salmon were not able to make it up the Columbia as far as the Umatilla River for more than 70 years while the combination of… Read More