Category: United States

The fight to save Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

I was shocked to read in the New York Times this week in Margret Renkl’s column that the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia, is in danger of being destroyed by, of all things, a strip mine. She reports that there is wide spread opposition to the mine from across the political spectrum in generally […]

Remembering my visit to Florence, Oregon, which inspired the novel Dune

It was forty years ago, in August, 1980, that a friend and I drove from Vancouver, BC, where I was living at the time, to spend a weekend at Florence, Oregon, which inspired Frank Herbert to write the famous novel Dune. Like many at the time, I was entranced by Dune as soon as I […]

Old Burial Ground Cambridge

Harvard Yard in the Boston blizzard of 2003

Boston, like Kitimat, is buried in snow.  I was in Boston, staying in Cambridge for a conference, when the region was hit by a blizzard in December, 2003. According to the Boston Globe, the area has received 196 centimetres of snow so far this winter (77.3 inches).  Kitimat got about 180 centimetres  (70.80) inches during […]