On an exceptional chilly and gloomy late morning of Tuesday, April 16, 1935, Juan, the Portuguese fisherman quietly rowed his 16-foot saltwater dory back through wisps of fog to his home vessel. Home was a two-masted wooden fishing schooner, anchored in nutrient rich waters off Maritime Canada’s Grand Banks, one of the richest cod and […]
Why Dirty Hands Save Our Land
After parking my truck along the curb on a backstreet in Missoula, Montana, I sit and witness a pilgrimage of sorts. My wife had already left on her own personal journey through the tightly packed serpentine aisles of plants placed into a former front yard on Third Street. Yes, there was still a house there, […]
Why Lonesome Larry Can’t Get a Girl
I walk barefoot in the coarse granitic sand and turn back to see what is happening to my footprints. They have vanished, swept away by the incessant waves that pound the beach. I look across the lake. It is a fair-sized lake, 5 to 6 miles long, I think. It is long enough that the […]
Gen Z and the Ecosystem
I still haven’t got enough of the air. I’ll catch myself taking in deep draughts of it, filling my lungs to capacity, and slowly, reluctantly, guardedly, releasing. With it comes the fragrances of fall pasture; of legume flowers on the big meadows at home; red clover and sainfoin. I tell myself I’ll never take the […]
When Wildfire Bends its Knee
In my chest I could feel, rather than hear the pulse of the Helicopter’s rotors as they roared over, slicing through the hot, smoke hazed afternoon air. I was a sitting duck, a lone speck on a huge mountainside. I knew I would likely be spotted from the air. I wrestled the 300 pound motorcycle […]
Life Defined by Fire Part 2
After a long and complicated Monday packing orders this past week, exhausted, we arrived back home in the dark to do chores. But there was a sight in the night that made us halt. We gathered quietly on the patio to watch the fire. Gale force hot winds blasted the high country of our summer […]