When I first moved to Bowen Island back in 2001, there was a very active discussion board of Bowen Island issues called the Bowen Island Phorum. This was a typical late 1990s bulletin board type website. Locals could join and make posts and sometimes the discussions would cascade over four or five pages with replies into the hundreds on especially contentious or important issues to our little community. Although that place drove me crazy with frustration a lot of the time, and I used to issue earnest warnings about the tone of some of our debate, which, probably seemed like …
Sitting here in the Seattle airport in the midst of a very long travel delay. We are working in Anchorage this week and flights there have been delayed and cancelled all day due to a massive windstorm. Our flight was due to leave an hour ago. We have another six hours to wait. All good. Travelling in northern North America in the winter requires endless patience and the occasional bout of creative travel planning. There is nothing better than threading the needle to get the last seat. It’s a much better way to channel energy than getting angry at the …
Our ferry, Queen of Capilano, sailing in Snug Cove back in 2009 before she had her capacity increased. Got word today that BC Ferries is embarking on an initiative to renew their community engagement practices. This is important to me because I rely on BC Ferries to get to and from my home on Bowen Island to te mainland. They are a critical player in coastal life in British Columbia. in 2003 the government of BC, a liberal party who favoured privatization, turned them from a Crown Corporation (and operating entity owned by government to serve the public good) to …
Because I lead a lot meetings, I often get asked to do territorial acknowledgements before the work begins. And because I’ve been a supporter of Squamish language education and fluency through the Sníchim Foundation I’ve been trying to learn how to do that in the Squamish language. The text above is a very basic acknowledgement of territory, that was shared with me by Khelsílem a while ago and I’ve been using it for gatherings held here on Nexwlélexwm (Bowen Island)* * my current blog fonts settings can’t cope with some of the characters in Squamish orthography. I recognize that’s a …
A graph showing cetacean sightings in Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound from 2001-2018 Here in Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound, the return of cetaceans over the past 20 years has been truly incredible. Having been hunted to extirpation from this part of the world in the early 1900s, a single Humpback Whale made a stunning return to our inlet in 2001. Along with the Humpbacks came hope of a renewed and recovered inlet, washed free of the massive pollution problems caused by a century of logging, wood processing and mining. The explosion happened in earnest in 2010 when Pacific Whitesided Dolphins returned to Howe Sound by …