By Lisa Bland The time has come to say, “So long, friends…” The winds of change and transformation are blowing. This final issue of The Green Gazette is #58, and it marks ten years since publishing my first issue in the summer of 2012. The Green Gazette has no doubt been a labour of love, involving many friends, individuals, and organizations in communities across the Cariboo Region and beyond. The core concept behind The Green Gazette has always been caring—caring about the natural world around us, our communities, and ourselves, and striving toward healthier and Greener ways of living that…
Author: thegreengazette
As summer gets into full swing, Caitlin Press has a wonderful line-up of books to choose from for your summer reading list. Visit caitlin-press.com, or buy our books from independent bookstores in the Cariboo, including The Open Book in Williams Lake, Nuthatch Books in 100 Mile House, and Books and Company in Quesnel. LotBy Sarah de Leeuw In Lot, award-winning poet and essayist Sarah de Leeuw returns to the landscape of her early girlhood to consider the racial complexities of colonial violence in those spaces. Following loosely as a companion to Skeena (Caitlin Press, 2015), Lot is written entirely of…
By Jessica Kirby When I started with issue #1 of The Green Gazette, my children were six and two years old. We played in the woods, baked wholesome treats, and spent rainy days snuggled in on the couch watching movies. Now, they are 16 and 12. We still play in the woods and bake wholesome treats, but rainy days are often spent differently, one doing art or tinkering, the other fuelled by the teenager drive for privacy. I sure miss those snuggles, but this is the independence we have fostered all along. We’ve also taught them to be their own…
By Jessica Kirby If you’re taking tech into nature, here are the tops picks for making your learning experience the best it can be. Outdoors lovers may all agree on the beauty and benefits of nature’s playground, but opinions vary on whether taking tech into nature enhances the experience or is a distraction from the authentic experience. Advocates say the more we know, learn, and share about our natural world, the more connected to it we feel and more likely we are to protect it. Nay-sayers say screens are a distraction from experiencing nature’s full beauty and taking it all…
Fundraiser for Ukrainian refugees at the Zbraslav shelter in Prague, Czech Republic – By Sandra Kelly Klassen – A woman hitches a ride with a Ukrainian driver who stayed in the country to volunteer to drive Ukrainians fleeing the country to safety. The passenger is accompanied by her own child and two of her neighbour’s children, their parents recently killed in the Russian bombing. Along the way, the passenger spots a small girl sitting on the curb with a small backpack. The child is clearly traumatized, hunkered down in despair. “Stop!” shouts the passenger, who rushes to the girl’s side…
Summer observing! Stargazing has its solitary phase—just you and the stars, and its social phase—fellow observers, groups, and star parties. Both aspects feed the other. In a group, it’s great to have another observer who can find something worth looking at, while you hunt up something new. The covid thing has really put a crimp into the social side. I look up at the familiar constellations and now I see “the mask” and “the syringe” and occasionally catch a glimpse of a “convoy” of dreaded Starlink satellites. Fortunately, the stars are far away from my creative license. My father once…
By Guy Dauncey – All around the world, people on the cruel side of the housing crisis are in need of help. Something has to be done to help the millions who have become homeless, who struggle to pay sky-high rents, who are living in cars, who are burdened by enormous mortgages, who are forced to live far from their places of work, or for whom the hope of ever owning a home has gone. The financialized economy, bereft of kindness and applied to housing, is creating misery for millions. For investors, rental housing has become an asset class, ripe…
By Angela Gutzer – The question of when to say goodbye to your pet is one of the most difficult questions to navigate. When you are with your veterinarian, they may ask you about the quality of life for this member of your family. Are they eating or drinking? Are they in pain? When I had to make the decision for my beloved dog friend, Chloe, it boiled down to one single moment. She became suddenly sick while I was away for a veterinary conference and went downhill quickly. By the time I got to the clinic, she had already…
By Amy Quarry As we work our way through these unusually challenging times, I have been reflecting on community, small business, capitalism, struggle, and how it all fits together. I have been thinking especially about my business buddies here in Quesnel. It’s been a tough season for most of us this past year, for many complex reasons, and I just wanted to show them a little extra love and gratitude. My journey as a business owner has been supported every single step of the way by other entrepreneurs in this town—they were my first advertising clients, had grace as I…
Submitted by Long Table Grocery Ingredients350 g (2 1/3 cups) very ripe avocado195 g (1 cup) coconut sugar175 g (7/8 of a cup) cocoa powder4 eggs2 t baking soda175 g (1 cup) chocolate chips Method In a stand mixer, cream together the avocado and coconut sugar. Add the cocoa powder, eggs, and baking soda. Continue to mix until a smooth dough forms. Fold in the chocolate chips.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. For large cookies, use a tablespoon to divide the dough into approximately 24 cookies. Drop the scoops of dough onto the cookie sheet lined with parchment. Use…
Article and Photos by Terri Smith – When Lisa first approached me in 2012 to ask if I would write for The Green Gazette, I was a market gardener with a literature degree, owner of Road’s End Vegetable Company, and the surrogate mother of a ridiculous little bottle goat named Amadeus, who was the reason she asked me to write for her in the first place. For ten years now, I have shared my thoughts, farm tales, and love for Amadeus with more people than I probably even realize. Readers have told me that I have made them laugh, and…
By Venta Rutkauskas To commit to a place, a community, or a landscape, there comes a time when we are called to stand up and defend it—to act in accordance with our values and reciprocate support. From this place where I write, in Northern Secwepemcúl’ecw, I have recognized a call to learn, to understand what it is to be a responsible visitor to the territory. Part of this action involves social justice and equity movements that advocate for the wellness of our community with a focus on anti-racism study. Deeply supportive and transformational educators recognize that sensory awareness and an…
By Jim Cooperman The most common narrative about the future is dystopian, one that is feared and that most people avoid thinking about. This is because, despite continued warnings by world scientists, some politicians, and environmental activists like David Suzuki and Greta Thunberg, greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, forests continue to be devastated, farming practices continue to add to the problems, and feedback mechanisms are spewing out exponentially more carbon and methane. A more promising approach would be to imagine a best-case scenario future, one where the planet is continuing to warm up but where society has…
By Jenny Howell, Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society Water Wise has been around for a while now in Williams Lake. Since 2006, thousands upon thousands of kids have learned about where City water comes from and goes, dressed up as water molecules, and seen how water travels underground using a working model. They have been on field trips to see the City water and sewage system, tested the Williams Lake creek water quality, painted yellow fish by storm drains, and learned about trees and water in the Community Forest. As someone delivering these programs, there is always an underlying question as…
By Nicola Finch – If you care about the health of the planet, then what happens to your body once you are dead matters. It’s called disposition. Our disposition options in British Columbia are limited. We currently have only two choices. Flame cremation or burial. Conventional burial is what most municipal cemeteries offer. Your city’s website will have a cemetery section that lists the bylaws and current pricing for burial plots, along with fees for opening and closing the plot, optional headstone placement fees, a fee for the grave liner or vault (required by bylaw in municipal cemeteries), and, in…
By Ron Young When Leonard Cohen sang: “Everybody knows that the boat is leaking” it wasn’t hard to understand his meaning. When Johnny Cash sang: “The whirlwind is in the thorn tree” you didn’t have to be religious to understand the concept. Somehow these songs come to mind in recent days. In just two years we’ve had climate emergencies; enduring floods and fires with the resultant loss of habitat; livelihood and food security scares; an on-going pandemic; a war in the civilized world that at this writing still has an uncertain and potentially catastrophic outcome; and an impending recession.Some simple…
Using the creative process to ease anticipatory anxiety and calm the nervous system – By Tanya North-Shymko – We’ve all felt it… The anticipatory excitement of good things to come. The electric feeling that courses through us when we are filled with positivity and hope. The motivation to dream big and set high expectations as our dopamine and adrenalin levels increase with our excitement. We have been craving these feelings for the past two years as the entire human race has been waiting for the global pandemic to run its course so that we can return to “normal”. Now that…
Sage Birchwater launches new book of stories on the Cariboo-Chilcotin In his latest book, Talking to the Storykeepers (Caitlin Press), writer and journalist Sage Birchwater gathers dozens of stories spanning decades from Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities throughout the Cariboo-Chilcotin. He offers an image of a changing landscape and reclamation of culture, identifying the quiet stories swept aside by colonization. Here, side characters and unidentified faces in old photos are brought to life. “In school, the one subject I detested was history,” Birchwater says. “However, hearing stories around the kitchen tables of the Chilcotin brought history alive for me. Stories put…
By Oliver Berger Some people grow food, others raise animals, this self-appointed ‘composteur’ focuses on the smaller things in the agricultural world: worms, centipedes, pill bugs, fungus, beneficial bacteria—all the macro and microorganisms. His livestock grazes on mountains of leftovers from our modern world. With substantial food scraps and ample yard waste the perfect paddock is created, and these little buggers love it. The living conditions are excellent: they’ve got food, they’ve got warmth, they’ve got oxygen, and they’ve begun making more of themselves. That is when things start to get a little heated.As consumption and reproduction ramp up, thus…