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Spirit in the Grass: The Cariboo Chilcotin’s Forgotten Landscape
Chris Harris is something of a publishing loner. His company at 105 Mile in the Cariboo includes a studio constructed of straw bales.
Over 17 years he's produced ten photography books in his 'British Columbia and Beyond' series; with a focus on his regional landscapes, from the Bowron Lakes to Barkerville and the serpentine BCR line.
Harris is also a skilled outdoor adventure guide with a knack for positioning his camera in interesting places most of us will never get to.
Spirit in the Grass: The Cariboo Chilcotin's Forgotten Landscape (Country Light $39.95) is something else again.
After immersing himself in Cariboo-Chilcotin grasslands for three years, Harris has placed himself near the forefront of a movement to preserve one of B.C.'s most endangered ecosystems.
"I've walked through the grasslands in snow and ice, thunderstorms, rain, wind and fire.
"I've tramped across ancient lichens in heat that turned my skin to leather and have camped on open benchlands to capture the dawn...
"The sound of the meadowlark is now a part of me, and the grasslands now centre my life.";
For Spirit in the Grass, Chris Harris often spent nights camping on the grasslands, camera at the ready as morning light crept into the viewfinder. The first light came quietly, "as if slowly pushing the darkness away.";
In one early morning shot, patches of bunchgrass and sagebrush shimmer like distant galaxies.
Harris also photographed late into the evening where in one shot the setting sun turns Mid-Fraser River Canyon into a molten slash that disappears into black benchlands.
The grasslands were by far the most challenging landscape he has photographed because the land is flatter and the colour palette is muted.
"The grasslands reveal themselves quietly and slowly,"; he says. "They're soft and rolling, the colours pastel, and it's much more difficult to create images that that evoke a response.";
The viewpoints range from sweeping, wide angle perspectives high above a jade green Chilcotin River to tight close-ups that mingle light, form and purple mariposa lilies into something hinting at Monet.
Harris also has an eye for adding drama to wildlife photos: a California Big Horn Sheep defies gravity as it crosses a nearly vertical cliff face so it can nibble on a small green bush.
For this project Harris collaborated with two ecologists from the Grasslands Conservation Council, Ordell Steen, a former research ecologist with the B.C. Forests Service, and Kristi Iverson, a plant ecologist and past chair of the Council.
From these experts we learn the intermountain grasslands are part of the rich tapestry of ecosystems. In the grasslands, only about 30-55 centimetres of precipitation falls each year, less than any other area in the Cariboo-Chilcotin.
"Air temperatures are the highest in the region,"; writes Iverson. "Forests cannot thrive in the grasslands; only plants that hold their moisture against the pull of the dry air, or that can avoid the drought by becoming dormant, survive in the grasslands.";
This climate results in abundant bunchgrasses, sagebrush, cactus, lichens and diverse wildlife, including the largest breeding population of Barrow's goldeneyes in B.C., as well as three species of bats that occur only in the grasslands and ancient sandhill cranes.
Threats to this delicate habitat include our habit for dousing fires at every turn. When fire traditionally swept through, once every seven to fifteen years, it renewed life by keeping the forest in check and fertilizing plants with ash.
"After 1860, the frequency of the fires decreased as cattle grazing removed the fuels necessary to carry fire, First Nations people were penalized for starting fires, and fire suppression reduced the size of wildfires. When the fires stopped, trees and shrubs invaded many cool, moist sites in the grasslands.";
Many areas are now choked with forest. The grasslands are also being seriously eroded by urban development. We need look no further than the Thompson and Okanagan to see what can happen if human habitation isn't adequately curtailed.
Alien plants introduced by humans, can displace native species and animals; over grazing by cattle can "hammer"; the grasslands, and no one knows for certain what global warming will bring.
Poet Harold Rhenisch contributes a brief cultural history of the grasslands, tracing the first nomadic people from almost 10,000 years ago, to more permanent Secwepemc and Tsilhqot'in pit house villages beside the rivers.
White settlement and ranching followed with the gold rush of 1858, and legendary ranches like the Gang Ranch, Alkali Lake Ranch and Empire Valley Ranch sprang from the superb bluebunch wheatgrasses.
Wild horses still run free in the Esketemc, and the Esketemc people migrate each year to "bring the horses and their spirit home, and then to return them again, in this culture that has never been broken.";
Harold Rhenisch concludes: "Because of the continued honour that the Secwepemc and Tsilhqot'in people and ranchers have maintained for the land, the spirit remains in the grass.";
A portion of the profits from the sale of this book will be donated to the Grasslands Conservation Council of British Columbia.
978-0-9685216-8-7
Mark Forsythe is the host of CBC Radio's BC Almanac.
His new book is The Trail of 1858 (Harbour, 2007),
co-authored with Greg Dickson.
--review by Mark Forsythe
[BCBW 2007]
Over 17 years he's produced ten photography books in his 'British Columbia and Beyond' series; with a focus on his regional landscapes, from the Bowron Lakes to Barkerville and the serpentine BCR line.
Harris is also a skilled outdoor adventure guide with a knack for positioning his camera in interesting places most of us will never get to.
Spirit in the Grass: The Cariboo Chilcotin's Forgotten Landscape (Country Light $39.95) is something else again.
After immersing himself in Cariboo-Chilcotin grasslands for three years, Harris has placed himself near the forefront of a movement to preserve one of B.C.'s most endangered ecosystems.
"I've walked through the grasslands in snow and ice, thunderstorms, rain, wind and fire.
"I've tramped across ancient lichens in heat that turned my skin to leather and have camped on open benchlands to capture the dawn...
"The sound of the meadowlark is now a part of me, and the grasslands now centre my life.";
For Spirit in the Grass, Chris Harris often spent nights camping on the grasslands, camera at the ready as morning light crept into the viewfinder. The first light came quietly, "as if slowly pushing the darkness away.";
In one early morning shot, patches of bunchgrass and sagebrush shimmer like distant galaxies.
Harris also photographed late into the evening where in one shot the setting sun turns Mid-Fraser River Canyon into a molten slash that disappears into black benchlands.
The grasslands were by far the most challenging landscape he has photographed because the land is flatter and the colour palette is muted.
"The grasslands reveal themselves quietly and slowly,"; he says. "They're soft and rolling, the colours pastel, and it's much more difficult to create images that that evoke a response.";
The viewpoints range from sweeping, wide angle perspectives high above a jade green Chilcotin River to tight close-ups that mingle light, form and purple mariposa lilies into something hinting at Monet.
Harris also has an eye for adding drama to wildlife photos: a California Big Horn Sheep defies gravity as it crosses a nearly vertical cliff face so it can nibble on a small green bush.
For this project Harris collaborated with two ecologists from the Grasslands Conservation Council, Ordell Steen, a former research ecologist with the B.C. Forests Service, and Kristi Iverson, a plant ecologist and past chair of the Council.
From these experts we learn the intermountain grasslands are part of the rich tapestry of ecosystems. In the grasslands, only about 30-55 centimetres of precipitation falls each year, less than any other area in the Cariboo-Chilcotin.
"Air temperatures are the highest in the region,"; writes Iverson. "Forests cannot thrive in the grasslands; only plants that hold their moisture against the pull of the dry air, or that can avoid the drought by becoming dormant, survive in the grasslands.";
This climate results in abundant bunchgrasses, sagebrush, cactus, lichens and diverse wildlife, including the largest breeding population of Barrow's goldeneyes in B.C., as well as three species of bats that occur only in the grasslands and ancient sandhill cranes.
Threats to this delicate habitat include our habit for dousing fires at every turn. When fire traditionally swept through, once every seven to fifteen years, it renewed life by keeping the forest in check and fertilizing plants with ash.
"After 1860, the frequency of the fires decreased as cattle grazing removed the fuels necessary to carry fire, First Nations people were penalized for starting fires, and fire suppression reduced the size of wildfires. When the fires stopped, trees and shrubs invaded many cool, moist sites in the grasslands.";
Many areas are now choked with forest. The grasslands are also being seriously eroded by urban development. We need look no further than the Thompson and Okanagan to see what can happen if human habitation isn't adequately curtailed.
Alien plants introduced by humans, can displace native species and animals; over grazing by cattle can "hammer"; the grasslands, and no one knows for certain what global warming will bring.
Poet Harold Rhenisch contributes a brief cultural history of the grasslands, tracing the first nomadic people from almost 10,000 years ago, to more permanent Secwepemc and Tsilhqot'in pit house villages beside the rivers.
White settlement and ranching followed with the gold rush of 1858, and legendary ranches like the Gang Ranch, Alkali Lake Ranch and Empire Valley Ranch sprang from the superb bluebunch wheatgrasses.
Wild horses still run free in the Esketemc, and the Esketemc people migrate each year to "bring the horses and their spirit home, and then to return them again, in this culture that has never been broken.";
Harold Rhenisch concludes: "Because of the continued honour that the Secwepemc and Tsilhqot'in people and ranchers have maintained for the land, the spirit remains in the grass.";
A portion of the profits from the sale of this book will be donated to the Grasslands Conservation Council of British Columbia.
978-0-9685216-8-7
Mark Forsythe is the host of CBC Radio's BC Almanac.
His new book is The Trail of 1858 (Harbour, 2007),
co-authored with Greg Dickson.
--review by Mark Forsythe
[BCBW 2007]
Submitted on November 22, 2007 in By David.
