in northern Minnesota, on a lake near Callaway at a strange place called Maplelag Resort with 25 indigenous nation rebuilders…held in a landscape that is turning red as the maples and the oaks show their colours., and reflecting blue in the northern lakes, water pooled on beds of granite, the oldest skin of mother earth…rocks 3 billion years old at our feet and fall coming in…
Istanbul is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, and it’s not surprising why. The city holds so much history of importance to both Europe and Asia that people come from all over to touch it and see it. Although there are lots of Europeans and some North Americans wandering around the Sultanahmet district where we are staying, there are also lots of tourists from Central Asia and Turkey itself visiting during Ramadan. So of course staying in the tourist district it’s hard sometimes to glimpse the important things to local people, but two stood out yesterday. …
I think it’s fair to say that the expression “I’m writing from a rooftop terrace in the old part of Istanbul” has a certain romantic appeal to it. And this is where I am, having travelled on a short red eye flight from Copenhagen last night, to arrive with my family in a lovely hotel in the centre of Istanbul’s most ancient downtown, in the shadow of the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, and with the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara in front of me. It’s a quiet Sunday morning, and the family are all sleeping. We’ve …
I’m at an Open Space conference in Grande Ronde, Oregon which is a summit of Tribal leaders and federal government agencies from around the Pacific Northwest of the USA, and Alaska. The subject of the meeting is improving relations around environmental issues. As we were wrapping up our action planning session this morning, a young man walked into the room who I hadn’t yet met. He apologized for being late. He got delayed on the way in. “No problem,” I said. “What was the delay all about?” “Oh, I live near Nome Alaska and we were out hunting. Got a …
It sometimes boggles my mind, how easy it actually is to cross an entire continent. Yesterday I woke up at 6am in the Beaver Valley, on the shores of Georgian Bay in Ontario where a beautiful crisp spring day greeted me. I set off to Toronto, now knowing what condistions the roasd were in on the high country between Lake Huron and Lake Ontario. In between thos Great Lakes is the Niagara Escarpment and the oak Ridges Moraine, two incredible heights of land that received a lat winter beating this week from a cold front that scoured the whole area. …