Category Archives: Nature

(Click to start Cedar Sister by Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson.) In the Haida worldview, the cedar tree is known as “every woman’s sister”, providing for and sustaining our existence. This ancient sister lies at the root of Haida culture. She permeates every facet of Haida life, beginning in the cradle and continuing to the grave and finally, […]

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We were in the doldrums. Quite literally. For three days, we chugged along slowly, never much more than a few degrees off the equator. Our last stop in ‘civilization’ had been in the village of Kwatisore on Cenderawasih Bay (see: Kwatisore Bay and Village). Fortunately, unlike the ancient mariners of poems, tales, and old history […]

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There is magic in the rocks and trees of Haida Gwaii in Canada’s British Columbia (BC). The people of the Haida Nation have lived here for at least 13,000 years – although ninety percent of the population died in the 1800s from smallpox, thanks to the first European contact in 1774. The islands were important […]

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Litchfield National Park is an ancient landscape shaped by water. It features numerous stunning waterfalls that cascade from the sandstone plateau of the Tabletop Range. So says the official Northern Territory (NT) Fact Sheet. I hadn’t been in Australia’s expansive – and sparsely populated – central-northern regions for a long time (see: Colours in the […]

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There is something very special about Haida Gwaii. It might be the fresh air and abundance of old-growth and second-growth forests; it might be knowing that the Indigenous people here have spiritual and family connections to the land going back more than 13,000 years; it might be the breathtaking natural beauty. Whatever it is, these […]

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