Here in the mountains, the bears are coming down from the high ground.
Every August it’s the same thing.
I was in a street gang once. It was a long time ago and I was 17.
There were 10 of us and we were called the Freaks.
I am a victim of Canada’s residential schools.
When I say victim, I mean something far different from ‘survivor.
Here in the mountains we limit our trips to town.
It’s a 25-kilometre jaunt and while the drive is wonderful, the landscape shifting from…
As an off-reserve First Nations person it can sometimes feel as though Indians are like policemen. They’re never around when you need one.
When I was small, they called me Itchybum.
It was my part of our favourite neighbourhood game called Cowboys and Itchybums.
Here in the mountains of the BC Interior, time assumes a different quality.
Where we live there’s a community of us spread along the north…
Here in the mountains time becomes a lesser commodity.
We live a half-hour drive from the nearest stop light and there is no commerce anywhere…
Where the highway spills out of the backcountry there’s a view of the river valley that stretches three directions here.
I watched the US Democratic presidential nomination race with great interest.
Normally I’m blasé about US politics.
When I heard the prime minister of my country say the words, ‘I’m sorry,’ for the debacle of the Indian residential school system…
The government of Australia has apologized to the Aborigine population.
On February 13, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered a four-minute apology in…
I’ve learned to walk differently. It’s happened gradually, and as the dog and I made our way around the loop that leads by the lake this…
When the morning sun breaks over the mountain, the air seems to magnify everything.
Standing on the rock at the edge of the lake, the tree-pocked…
I played organized hockey for the first time in 1965. I was 10.
My adopted family lived in Orangeville, Ontario, and I was registered for the minor…
Isotropic. It’s a 1,000-pound word that refers to the experience of having everything look the same in each direction.
Astronomers invented it.
The birds are on the move. By the lake they’re flocked around the bushes and saplings.
They’re travellers and migrants, called by…
In 1966 I was 11 years old. My adopted family moved that summer to a rented farmhouse in Bruce County in southwestern Ontario.
Here in the mountains radio reception is an iffy proposition at best.
On clear nights it sometimes seems like the world is at my fingers.
You could not dream this place. In the hard glint of early morning everything is over-exposure and shadow.