From Understory:  An Ecologist’s Memoir of Loss & Hope

“From where I sit, the water comes into sight up by the big midstream rock, swamper of canoes. It tumbles out of a long, boulder strewn riffle, piles up in a big eddy near a sandstone cliff, and then sorts itself out before coursing down a long run to where I watch. It’s constantly arriving, bringing stories from farther upstream where some of its waters rested in beaver ponds or spilled off mountain walls while other tributary streams carved slot-like shadows into conglomerate cliffs or wide, curving sensuosities through green fen meadows.”—Kevin Van Tighem

Book Excerpt

By Dr. Kevin Van Tighem

“In making war with nature, there was risk of loss in winning.”―John McPhee, from The Control of Nature (1989)

(Editor’s Note: What follows is an excerpt from Van Tighem’s forthcoming book, Understory: An Ecologist’s Memoir of Loss & Hope, expected in October 2025 from Rocky Mountain Books.)

HIGH RIVER, ALBERTA Canada—(Hubris)—May 2025―There is more than one way to lose one’s hearing. When the sounds of life vanish on their own, that’s the worst. Gordon Ruddy, a Jasper friend, wrote me a note one day: “I’m getting old enough to see that there are a lot of birds just missing. That some birds were plentiful but are rare now. I try very hard not to get down. It’s hard.”

I know that grief. It’s how I felt as I watched my mother’s final breaths; the same sorrow washes over me sometimes even now when fishing one of Dad’s old streams. The difference is this: we expected them to go, but we expected the world that made them to carry on. Now we grieve a far greater loss.

Still, there is that yellow warbler who feeds busily in the sandbar willows across from my evening chair. He breaks into song from time to time, taking me back to the first time I heard that cheerful tune in the backyard of a long-ago Calgary home. Cedar waxwings perch on tilted trees at the edge of the river cliff and dart out over the water to pluck mayflies out of the breeze. Their soft voices offer a promise of continuity that I hope will be kept. Robins sing lustily; they seem more abundant than ever.

And the river still flows. For all that it’s a living thing, it’s also a metaphor. If one’s life experiences are lived stories about the meaning of things, a river is more than running water. It’s where the stories and spirits in the land come together and find their voice. Especially, perhaps, this river: the Old Man’s river―Napi’s river.

From where I sit, the water comes into sight up by the big midstream rock, swamper of canoes. It tumbles out of a long, boulder strewn riffle, piles up in a big eddy near a sandstone cliff, and then sorts itself out before coursing down a long run to where I watch. It’s constantly arriving, bringing stories from farther upstream where some of its waters rested in beaver ponds or spilled off mountain walls while other tributary streams carved slot-like shadows into conglomerate cliffs or wide, curving sensuosities through green fen meadows. It arrives confident in its knowledge of where it’s been and busy with purpose, carrying those gathered waters, stories, and spirits down from the mountains where, even now, its waters are still in the process of being born.

Passing my chair, chuckling and whispering in the way that rivers do, the water pushes against the near bank before spilling into a downstream riffle and, a few dozen meters further, sweeping in against another sandstone cliff. The evening sun is golden there, unlike the shadows that enfold me. At the last, only the sparkling tops of waves show briefly through willows before the river is gone. That river must have endless faith, because those waters have no knowledge of where they are going, yet they flow unquestioningly towards that unknown destiny.

The river is always arriving and always departing, yet it’s always there. We sit together each warm evening, and become part of the same moment, for all that we both have different ways of being. It’s a relationship that only one of us thinks about. Perhaps I should think less, but that’s my contribution. The river’s contribution is faith.

(Editor’s Note: Keep up with Van Tighem’s current writing via his blog.)

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