Author Archives: Kevin Van Tighem
Loving One’s Water Mother
“The windy forests of the high foothills and Front Ranges are the birthplace of rivers: rivers like the Oldman, beside whom I sit most evenings on what I’ve come to know as the whiskey chair. Sometimes, I hold a glass of ice cubes flavored with a bit of whiskey, other times, a cup of warm […]
Hermit Song
“Back in the late 1970s, I landed what seemed the perfect job for one who likes himself better when hanging out with wild things in wild places than when with others of his own species. That wildlife inventory work took me into remote corners of Jasper National Park, alone, for days on end. More often […]
A Conversation with Leaves
“And what the leaves told me, now that I was listening, was that I have it all wrong. Leaves are not part of the trees and shrubs that grow them. They only live there for a while. The willows and alders waken in the spring and their buds break and the leaves emerge, but it’s […]
Forgetting the Names of Things
“I knew these plants better now than I ever did back in those botanical days of looking things up and labeling them. I know them as friends, as members of my community, as fellow inhabitants of the good green places I’ve now inhabited for so many years. How many springs had Gail and I pointed […]