“To the resident of New York, Paris or London, the word death is never pronounced because it burns the lips. The Mexican, on the other hand, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it; it is one of his favourite games and his most steadfast love.” — Octavio Paz Mexico City is aquatic. The…

This article originally appeared in Ricochet. https://ricochet.media/en/1778/when-it-comes-to-stopping-kinder-morgan-tofino-means-business Coastal communities are on the front lines of climate change. For those who live on the narrow peninsula that leads to Tofino on the west coast of B.C.’s Vancouver Island, the prospect of rising sea levels has an immediacy that tends to incite action. That’s one reason why the…

With Helen Knott. On September 12, 2016, the Federal Court of Appeal in Montreal heard Treaty 8’s legal challenge to the massive Site C hydroelectric dam already under construction on Treaty 8 territory in northeast British Columbia. First Nations community members from Treaty 8 travelled 4,500 kilometres to be there. This is the story of…

It’s the mine that won’t die. For twenty years Taseko Mines Limited has tried to get approval for a low-grade, open-pit copper and gold mine at Teztan Biny (Fish Lake.) The federal government rejected the project twice after independent expert panels delivered two of the most scathing environmental assessment reports in Canadian history – in…

(Published in Ricochet, January 2015) Grace Islet is a victory for protecting Indigenous gravesites, but work remains Grace Islet rests just a few meters off the shore of Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. Formerly part of an ancient village known in the Hul’qumi’numlanguages as Shiyahwt, its harbour was a hub for Aboriginal fishing families from…

(Published in Aqua Magazine, 2011) The Beautiful Laundress: Redressing Fashion It’s the house your Bohemian great-aunt would have lived in had she lived by the sea on Canada’s wet coast. The ocean glints out the front windows, while fir trees and berry bushes cluster around the side yard, inviting grazing deer. Inside, vivid hues and rich textures abound.…

(Published Gulf Islands Driftwood, July 16, 2014) Sometimes you just have to draw a line. Salt Spring Islanders came out on Saturday to do just that: hundreds of people took advantage of the lowest tide of the year to walk over to Grace Islet. Together, mothers, fathers, children, and elders worked to string a line of…

(Published in West Coast Native News, July 2014) I live on Salt Spring Island. The adjective most used to describe this little dot in the archipelago sprawling across Canada’s Pacific coast is ‘bucolic’. Organic farms, yoga centres, pastures roamed by grazing lambs, grinning hippies on bicycles: get the picture? There’s a great deal of giving…