# Don Gayton > Ecologist, Writer ## Posts - [The Drunken Staple](https://dongayton.ca/2025/11/04/the-drunken-staple/): The first part of my recent road trip to Kimberley, BC was well-known and humdrum. The real trip started when I got on to Highway 3, in Osoyoos. My trip could be envisioned as a 650 kilometer long staple, with the first leg being the Summerland-to-Osoyoos portion. The real trip started when I connected with … Continue reading → - [Sharpening Elbows: Canadian And American Politics](https://dongayton.ca/2025/09/22/sharpening-elbows-canadian-and-american-politics/): American political news gets more chaotic by the day.  I alternate between watching it obsessively and avoiding it completely, but the gravity of events south of the 49th is making me think seriously about our Canadian values.  As much as Canada and America have in common, linguistically, culturally and economically, there are some profound differences.  … Continue reading → - [Williams Lake](https://dongayton.ca/2025/06/24/williams-lake/): I have taught a Fire Ecology course at Nicola Valley Institute of Technology for a few years now, and I was recently persuaded to teach a compressed, two-week version of the course to a group of Indigenous Rangers from the Chilcotin region. The course was to be held in the town of Williams Lake.   My … Continue reading → - [Memorabilia](https://dongayton.ca/2025/01/23/memorabilia/): As a callow youth, I was on a quest, searching for a unique personal identity. That quest, many decades later, produced two pieces of memorabilia. The first was a meerschaum pipe, acquired while wandering through Istanbul’s crowded outdoor markets. Imagining myself as a kind of late-teenage literary artiste, I splurged on the gorgeous pipe. I … Continue reading → - [Dystopia](https://dongayton.ca/2024/08/17/dystopia/): Late July, and the Okanagan has emerged from a two-week heat dome: afternoons hitting the high 30’s, nights only cooling down to the high 20’s. There is a straightforward meteorological explanation for this: our greenhouse gas emissions warm the atmosphere. The atmospheric warming slows the jet stream, resulting in stalled weather patterns. Warmer water temperatures … Continue reading → - [Red Recovery](https://dongayton.ca/2024/08/02/red-recovery/): Fifteen years ago I started a tiny backyard vineyard, which I named Yippee Calle. With the help of my mentor George, I rooted cuttings of Zweigelt, an Austrian red, and eventually got 55 vines established. For the first few years I climbed a steep learning curve, both in the growing and the winemaking. Over time, … Continue reading → - [Merritt Meditation](https://dongayton.ca/2024/01/29/merritt-meditation/): Currently I am teaching a once-weekly class at a community college in Merritt, BC, which is a 140 kilometer drive from my home. That sounds like a straightforward commute, but there are three minor problems. One. The class starts at 9am in the morning. Two. The term is January to April. Three. To get to … Continue reading → - [The Stoplight Credo](https://dongayton.ca/2024/01/02/the-stoplight-credo/): I am a stoplight. I parse out a significant portion of human life in ninety second intervals. Occasionally I allow left turns. I rule; I am now the central master of your society. Early on your traffic engineers created my timers, my circuits and my lights, but those elements now belong to me.  Or rather, … Continue reading → - [The Viking Funeral](https://dongayton.ca/2023/12/18/the-viking-funeral/): Ok, I must get serious about this ship model I’ve been commissioned to carve.It will have a dragon’s head at the bow, a sail, and it must be combustible.But how big should the ship be? I’ll have to phone a funeral home, to get a weight estimate. But first I better review the instructions. “Mr. … Continue reading → - [Yugoslavia Forever](https://dongayton.ca/2023/11/01/yugoslavia-forever/): October, 1962. Russia threatens to send missiles to Cuba, to fend off a pending US overthrow of Fidel Castro’s government.  The situation worsens; global nuclear war is imminent. As an American teenager, this Cuban Missile Crisis gives free rein to my adolescent angst. Should I continue my literary fascination with Russian authors–Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky–or should … Continue reading → - [The Haynes Count](https://dongayton.ca/2023/07/04/the-haynes-count/): I stand in a tiny, pathetic remnant of Canada’s hottest, driest ecosystem, surrounded by two excellent wineries. The loose, sandy soil of the Haynes Lease Ecological Reserve moves easily underfoot. There are patches of Antelopbrush here and there, and cactus is everywhere. I am seeing the usual invasive suspects: Bulbous Bluegrass, Alfalfa, Baby’s Breath. A … Continue reading → - [A Mountain and a Digital Departure](https://dongayton.ca/2023/04/11/a-mountain-and-a-digital-departure/): I find joy in unexpected connections. Call them daisy chains, serendipities, Vulcan mindmelds or whatever, they offer momentary celebrations of life’s connectedness.  I had one of these random events while searching for the Indigenous name of a mountain in the Chopaka country, west of Osoyoos in southern BC. “Black Mountain” is it’s settler appelation, which … Continue reading → - [A Book for the New Year](https://dongayton.ca/2023/02/21/a-book-for-the-new-year/): After a protracted literary dry spell, a new book of mine is out: The Sky and the Patio (New Star Books, Vancouver). In this collection of 25 essays, I use our backyard patio as a springboard to delve into our human relationship with nature. The essays are rooted in the Okanagan, and embrace such diverse … Continue reading → - [Victoria Musings And Meanders](https://dongayton.ca/2022/08/22/victoria-musings-and-meanders/): This pathway is narrow, completely enclosed by a towering canopy of trees. My bike moves me silently over the bark mulch path. Emerging into sunlight again, on the eastern edge of Beacon Hill Park, I ride through a quiet and tree-lined neighborhood of Victorian homes, and then back to our temporary residence. A working vacation … Continue reading → - [Shevchenko and Babel](https://dongayton.ca/2022/04/25/shevchenko-and-babel/): A few weeks ago we organized a benefit fundraiser for the people of Ukraine. I wanted the money to go for the purchase of weapons but I was voted down in favor of humanitarian support. The evening event was hastily organized but very successful; we raised over four thousand dollars. Event participants got to enjoy … Continue reading → - [Bringing the Wind Home](https://dongayton.ca/2022/04/06/bringing-the-wind-home/): Back in 1984 I was assessing agricultural land in southern Saskatchewan. This was the beginning of the era of “suitcase farming,” where operators left their rural homes and moved to nearby cities. My work often took me by these abandoned farmsteads. Passing one, I noticed a curious rusty metal box in a refuse pile. It … Continue reading → - [The Bubba Demographic](https://dongayton.ca/2022/02/07/the-bubba-demographic/): I have had my suspicions all along, but the Convoy has forced us to acknowledge it: Canada has Bubbas. Not just a few, but a whole demographic. The Bubbas are anti-vaxxers, they are comfortable with falsehoods, they are racist and their conception of personal rights and freedoms extends no further than their own selfish selves. … Continue reading → - [The Kelowna Savanna](https://dongayton.ca/2021/12/31/the-kelowna-savanna/): The gentle curve of the hillside draws me forward. Maybe it’s a guy thing, being attracted to curves, but with each step I see more of this grassland, and more of Okanagan Lake’s northern reach. Then come subtle ecological changes, as the hill’s aspect gently shifts from southwest to northwest. Here I am, just twenty … Continue reading → - [Save Sickle Point Tempest Theatre](https://dongayton.ca/2021/12/23/save-sickle-point-tempest-theatre/): Don Gayton speaks about Sickle Point - [Fire in the Dry Forest: A Pilgrim’s Progress](https://dongayton.ca/2021/12/16/fire-in-the-dry-forest-a-pilgrims-progress/): Keynote Speaker, Consulting Ecologist and Writer) presents Fire in the Dry Forest: A Pilgrim’s Progress. Crown Managers Partnership. Fire in the Crown of the Continent Forum - [Arts Matter Online: Don Gayton reads The Bookshelf](https://dongayton.ca/2021/12/09/arts-matter-online-don-gayton-reads-the-bookshelf/) - [The Great Grasslands of BC's Southern Interior](https://dongayton.ca/2021/12/02/the-great-grasslands-of-bcs-southern-interior/): Don Gayton is interviewed in a new mini-documentary video about the amazing grasslands of the Interior Valleys in British Columbia. - [Homage to Jane](https://dongayton.ca/2021/11/25/homage-to-jane/): I don’t remember precisely when I encountered Jane. I would have been an impressionable young hippie at the time. Many of those youthful impressions have faded, but not those from The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, which I first read at some point in the late 1960’s. As a young … Continue reading → - [Arts Matter Online: Don Gayton reads Trout Creek](https://dongayton.ca/2021/11/17/arts-matter-online-don-gayton-reads-trout-creek/): Penticton Arts Council – Ecologist and writer Don Gayton as he takes us to Trout Creek near Penticton, BC, where he reads to us from Touching Rock. - [Vietnam Canada and the Draft 2](https://dongayton.ca/2021/11/17/vietnam-canada-and-the-draft-2/): From Fred Danenhower, Summerland BC My oldest brother drew a lottery number of 29 on his 18th birthday in March of 1968. I was 13, 5’1” and playing sports all the time. As a family we didn’t really have a religion but my father had been raised a Quaker and was a CO during WW2. … Continue reading → - [Vietnam, The Draft, Resistance And Racism](https://dongayton.ca/2021/08/22/vietnam-the-draft-resistance-and-racism/): This is the first part of a discussion triggered by The Girl in the Kent State Photo. From Corky Evans, Winlaw, BC I was raised in a white, middle class town. It was an enclave of Oakland, California called Piedmont. It was made into a legal entity (I figure) by rich white people who did … Continue reading → - [A Nagging Wish for the Divine](https://dongayton.ca/2021/01/26/a-nagging-wish-for-the-divine/): Local history intersects with world history, resulting in entanglements. As a resident of our small town of Summerland, I was casually aware of the family surname Logie, as in Logie Road, which winds through an industrial area and some adjacent vineyards. But then I stumbled on to mention of one Jack Logie, and his highly … Continue reading → - [American Tragedy, Canadian Mandate](https://dongayton.ca/2020/12/14/american-tragedy-canadian-mandate/): Events surrounding the recent American presidential election prompt a number of adjectives-- despicable, ludicrous, pathological and so on. But the word that comes to my mind, as one who spent the first 28 years of his life in that country, is tragic. - [Derailleuring](https://dongayton.ca/2020/11/25/derailleuring/): My history with bicycles goes back to about 1954, beginning with a Schwinn pedal-brake one-speed, fat-tired bomber. My next iteration, a few years after that, was a road bike with the amazing Sturmey-Archer 3-speed shifter, which sat right up on the handlebars. That was indeed revolutionary: I distinctly remember the satisfying click the shifter made … Continue reading → - [Democracy, Defacement and Domestic Terrorism](https://dongayton.ca/2020/11/02/democracy-defacement-and-domestic-terrorism/): During our recent Provincial election, two highway campaign signs were defaced with graffiti near our home. I am not averse to public protest: if this were Belarus, I might tolerate or even approve of defacing Mr. Lukashenko’s billboards. But this is contemporary British Columbia, where a centre-right party is politely duking it out against a centre-left party, and individual democratic rights are not at stake. Defacing a political campaign sign here in BC is a craven act of cowardice and stupidity. - [The Opposite of Racism](https://dongayton.ca/2020/08/02/the-opposite-of-racism/): The opposite of racism is not tolerance or passive acceptance. I was given an example of this as an adolescent, even though it was years later that it became clear to me. Junior High School, Fullerton, California, 1959. A packed classroom, of thirty students. There are a dozen of us white kids, and we all … Continue reading → - [Biodiversity Ranch](https://dongayton.ca/2020/06/24/biodiversity-ranch/): (Note: this is the text of a letter sent to The Nature Trust of British Columbia, by myself and colleague Fred Marshall, in regards to livestock management in the White Lake Basin, an important ecological area in the South Okanagan.) In a recent visit (May 8, 2020) to the Nature Trust’s White Lake Biodiversity Ranch, … Continue reading → - [Wolfgang Von Goethe and Bee Balm](https://dongayton.ca/2019/09/03/wolfgang-von-goethe-and-bee-balm/): This wooden bench sits under the shade of a sumac, part of a native plant garden bordering the sidewalk at our town’s library. I am sitting here, preparing to follow the instructions of Wolfgang Von Goethe. The auto parts store is next to the library, and as I dither, I begin to recognize a pattern … Continue reading → - [Eocene Walk](https://dongayton.ca/2019/07/05/eocene-walk/): A short walk through a tony Kelowna neighborhood has particular meaning for me. This walk is one taken by our fellowship of Cancer Center patients too cheap to pay parkade fees, and who don’t mind the three-block walk for free neighborhood parking.  I have another personally meaningful walk in the White Lake Basin, an hour … Continue reading → - [Naming the Nameless](https://dongayton.ca/2019/04/15/naming-the-nameless/): The object caught my attention immediately. It sat on a shelf in the “men’s section” of our local Thrift Shop, along with the usual old trowels, jars of rusty bolts and random door hinges. Made of strong gray and black plastic, the thing consisted of two interacting screw clamps mounted atop fluted cylinders, with a … Continue reading → - [A Canadian Adventure](https://dongayton.ca/2019/02/19/a-canadian-adventure/): A major rockslide recently blocked Highway 97, just north of where we live. This 97, the longest highway in North America, starts in Weed, California and ends somewhere in the Yukon, no one knows exactly where. In this, British Columbia’s steep and narrow Okanagan Valley, the 97 is the only viable north-south travel corridor. The … Continue reading → - [Do we need a national park reserve?](https://dongayton.ca/2019/02/19/do-we-need-a-national-park-reserve/): A new video produced by the South Okanagan Similkameen National Park Network, local community leaders and scientists share how they think the proposed South Okanagan-Similkameen National Park Reserve might affect the economy and local job situation. For more info also see http://yesnationalpark.com/. - [The Mechanics of Warmth](https://dongayton.ca/2019/02/11/the-mechanics-of-warmth/): A house enjoys both physical and emotional warmth, but in a Canadian winter cold snap, it is the physical component occupies our attention. Visible heat, in the form of a woodstove, always seems more gratifying than the anonymity of gas or electric heat.   There are two parts to the physical warmth of a house: the … Continue reading → - [An Antidote for America's Illness](https://dongayton.ca/2018/12/01/an-antidote-for-americas-illness/): Re-read Walt Whitman (1819-1892). (If you aren’t familiar with his work, you are in for a treat.) He is celebratory, and pansexual. An Everyman, and solitary poet/thinker. An American patriot and passionate internationalist. Critical thinker and Dionysian hedonist. Naturalist and urbanite. A pacifist, and an unabashed feminist. Devoted to personal freedoms and to empathy. And … Continue reading → - [From Sagebrush to Politics: Leonard Marchand](https://dongayton.ca/2018/08/04/from-sagebrush-to-politics-leonard-marchand/): Reading scientific literature can be like a treasure hunt. You read one research paper, and then you read that paper’s references. That leads you to another related paper, and on to its references, and so on down an unexpected daisy chain of research.  Mostly you simply finish up with a better understanding of some narrow … Continue reading → - [Kinder Morgan Meditation](https://dongayton.ca/2018/06/10/kinder-morgan-meditation/): So we have bought a heavy oil pipeline. No Canadian analogy comes to mind, so I’ll go with the Brooklyn Bridge, or those fantastic real estate deals on Florida waterfront. With this purchase, our Federal Government has emphatically stated that petroleum trumps everything. Or, in the words of Alberta’s premier, petroleum is Canada’s lifeblood. How … Continue reading → - [Ponderosa Contemplation](https://dongayton.ca/2018/04/23/ponderosa-contemplation/): A long, low ridge borders our neighborhood, about a kilometer distant. Dry and grassy, with scattered pines here and there, it is fortunately too steep to build houses on. From the leisurely perspective of a backyard evening I scan this hillside, and speculate on a fundamental duality of Okanagan nature: trees and grass. Forest and … Continue reading → - [The Natural History of the Bookshelf](https://dongayton.ca/2018/03/05/the-natural-history-of-the-bookshelf/): I decided to organize my books. The origin of this impulse is obscure, but since I’ve been acquiring books for about fifty years, this seemed like a decent interval. I own more than a hundred titles, but probably less than a thousand. It seems crass to actually count them. The books are contained in eight … Continue reading → - [Fire Ecology in B.C.’s Southern Interior](https://dongayton.ca/2018/02/08/fire-ecology-in-b-c-s-southern-interior/): Okanagan Ecologist Don Gayton explains the role of fire in the life cycle of a forest. - [Cowboy Dreams](https://dongayton.ca/2018/01/18/cowboy-dreams/): As a kid, I wanted to be a cowboy. That seems desperately old-fashioned, but as a suburban adolescent I yearned for that simple and passionate life, riding rimrock country on a trusted horse, amongst sagebrush and arroyo. While my contemporaries built youthful fantasies around Superman and GI Joe, mine were drawn from my father’s bookshelf, … Continue reading → - [Army of 500](https://dongayton.ca/2017/12/04/army-of-500/): The Bald Range is an open, grassy mountainside tucked in among the pine forests of the central Okanagan. Elegant bunchgrasses and hardy balsamroots abound. Native bees and other insects attend the flowers while overhead, solitary raptors work the thermals. The Bald Range is a landscape well suited to epiphany, but its humble beauty has been … Continue reading → - [Bottling the 2015](https://dongayton.ca/2017/11/11/bottling-the-2015/): “We’ve been making wine for 3,000 years, how hard can it be?” George, my vinicultural Jedi master, was fond of repeating that deceptive statement. For several years, George and I batched our separate Zweigelt grape harvests together, and then he would do the technical vinting part. I would be around to help with the crush, … Continue reading → - [Okanagan Wetands: A Historical Perspective](https://dongayton.ca/2017/07/21/okanagan-wetands-a-historical-perspective/): Ecologist Don Gayton, wetlands coordinator for the Okanagan Basin Water Board, describes the Okanagan Wetlands from a historical perspective. His specialties include: grassland vegetation monitoring, fire ecology, ecosystem restoration & science extension. - [Okanagan Odyssey Trailer](https://dongayton.ca/2010/04/09/okanagan-odyssey-trailer/) - [Overdrawn at the Bank of Environment](https://dongayton.ca/2009/07/28/overdrawn-at-the-bank-of-environment/): Part of the 4th National Stewardship Conference “Strengthening Stewardship – Investing at Every Step” hosted in Calgary in 2009. ## Pages - [The Sky and the Patio](https://dongayton.ca/collected-works/the-sky-and-the-patio/): Don Gayton fuses ecology and deeply personal insights as he portrays his Okanagan Valley homeland–and beyond. In 25 engaging essays, Summerland writer Don Gayton fuses the personal with the ecological to portray the geography and the natural and human history of his adopted Okanagan Valley homeland. Draft resister and professional ecologist by training, Don Gayton … Continue reading → - [Collected Works](https://dongayton.ca/collected-works/) - [Don Gayton](https://dongayton.ca/): Welcome to the electronic abode of a writer who works in the vineyard of nonfiction, but often leans over the creative fence. Photo by Stephanie Seaton. A few random quotes, from my books: “The buffalo pounds, the tapered wing, the urgency of travel, the confusion of newness with significance. We will study the prototype. Many versions will be called … Continue reading → - [Work in Progress](https://dongayton.ca/work-in-progress/): Columbia Son A lifelong fan of fiction, I am belatedly turning my hand to it. The manuscript, working title Columbia Son, attempts to capture the life and times of Ranald MacDonald (1824-1894) in the form of a historical novel. MacDonald is a fascinating, enigmatic and little- known figure in the history of British Columbia and … Continue reading → - [Photo Gallery](https://dongayton.ca/photo-gallery/) - [Video](https://dongayton.ca/video-clips/): 2023 2021 2019 2018 2017 2010 2009 - [Reviews](https://dongayton.ca/reviews/): Praise for Don Gayton’s Work “Don Gayton is one of Canada’s most acclaimed nature writers.” — David Boyd, ed. Northern Wild: Best Canadian Nature Writing “[Gayton] gives us a new place to start, and new tools to use, in our contemplation of the thorny problem of the human relationship to nature.” — Sharon Butala, author … Continue reading → - [Literary Recognition](https://dongayton.ca/literary-recognition/): Winner, The Lake literary non-fiction contest Shortlisted twice for BC Book Awards, non-fiction category Winner, Saskatchewan Writers Guild Non-fiction prize Winner, US National Outdoor Book Award Winner, Canadian Science Writers Award Winner, Peace Corps Travel Book Award - [Contact](https://dongayton.ca/contact/) - [The Wheatgrass Mechanism](https://dongayton.ca/collected-works/the-wheatgrass-mechanism/): Don Gayton’s collection of beautifully written and passionate essays has earned him many enthusiastic fans since its first publication in 1990. In The Wheatgrass Mechanism, he writes about the industrialization of our western landscapes and the exploitation of our resources, and tells how the North American prairie has become the most extensively altered biome on … Continue reading → - [Okanagan Odyssey](https://dongayton.ca/collected-works/okanagan-odyssey/): Okanagan Odyssey is a quirky and lyrical examination of British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. Sticking to the backroads and byways, Gayton gently pokes and prods local ecosystems, histories, vineyards and people. From Osoyoos in the south to Armstrong at the head of the Valley, the author revels in the biological and social diversity while sampling local … Continue reading → - [Man Facing West](https://dongayton.ca/collected-works/man-facing-west/): Man Facing West is a moving story of personal commitment to the causes of peace, rural development, and ecology. Author Don Gayton chronicles an American childhood infused with guns, Republican politics, and political dissent. Joining the Peace Corps spawns his enduring interest in small-scale agriculture and rural values. Later, Gayton comes home to confront the … Continue reading → - [Landscapes of the Interior](https://dongayton.ca/collected-works/landscapes-of-the-interior/): “Don Gayton….offers us a true voyage of exploration. This is one of those books that enlarges the world.” –Paul Gruchow, The Necessity of Empty Places Don gives us a new place to start, and new tools to use, in our contemplation of the thorny problem of the human relationship with nature.” — Sharon Butala, The … Continue reading → - [Kokanee – The Redfish and the Kootenay Bioregion](https://dongayton.ca/collected-works/kokanee-the-redfish-and-the-kootenay-bioregion/): The Kootenays — a region of rivers, lakes and mountains in southeastern British Columbia — is home to the kokanee. This landlocked sibling of the sockeye salmon is an extravagant gift from the Pacific Ocean, an elusive flash of molten silver, a lustful reproductive torrent of fire–engine red, a marvel of interior adaptation, an icon of regional culture, and … Continue reading → - [Interwoven Wild](https://dongayton.ca/collected-works/interwoven-wild/): Nationally-known field ecologist Don Gayton brings his wealth of experience to show us how nature and ecology perform their magic right in our gardens and home landscapes. Engaging the reader with real – and occasionally hilarious — gardening experiences, Gayton marries the joys of gardening to the fascinations of ecology. In charming and lyrical prose, … Continue reading → - [Resume of Writing](https://dongayton.ca/resume-of-writing/): Personal info: born, 1946, Canadian citizen. B.Sc, (Agronomy) Washington State Univ., M.Sc (Plant Ecology) Univ. of Sask. Profession: ecologist and writer. Blogs Man Facing West – Peace Corps Worldwide Literary Works 2013: Documenting Fire History on a British Columbia Ecological Reserve. Journal of Ecosystems and Management (JEM) 14(1): 1-10. 2012: Impact of Biological Control on Two Knapweed … Continue reading → - [Publishers](https://dongayton.ca/publishers/): Man Facing West, Interwoven Wild Thistledown Press 118 – 20th Street West Saskatoon, SK S7M 0W6 T: 306-244-1722 F: 306-244-1762 http://www.thistledownpress.com/ Okanagan Odyssey Rocky Mountain Books 406 13 Avenue NE Calgary, AB T2E 1C2 T. 403.271.3145 nationalsales@hgdistribution.com http://www.rmbooks.com/ The Wheatgrass Mechanism Fifth House Publishers (distributed by): Fitzhenry & Whiteside 195 Allstate Parkway Markham, ON L3R … Continue reading → - [About the Author](https://dongayton.ca/about-the-author/): I’ve reached a stage in life where writing is a distinct pleasure, and I use it to indulge a series of personal fascinations. The evolution of landscape painting. The aerodynamic mysteries of the airplane wing. Rural development, the ecology of natural grasslands, the geology of the Great Spokane Flood. And more of that ilk. I … Continue reading → [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)