Chapters

Chapter One: Seeing Ghosts

The Spokane River slinks away from the northern tip of Coeur d’Alene Lake like an introverted guest at a party. If you stood on the shore, you would see no perceptible difference between the lake and the outlet to the river: it’s all flat and still. But if you looked closely, you might see how the lake pulls to the west, becoming a bay that squeezes into a lane the size of a suburban street. Disguised as such, the river paves a smooth, liquid road for thirteen miles, reaching a cul-de-sac at Post Falls Dam. Only once it is past the dam does the Spokane assume the likeness of a river.

In Rewilding the Urban Frontier: River Conservation in the Anthropocene, edited by Greg Gordon, August 2024 (print only).

Now You Don't

A few summers ago, I went looking for Spirit Creek. I had consulted a map and knew exactly where to find it: inside a large culvert on the north end of Spirit Lake. But when I crouched inside the empty culvert, I found nothing but a dry footprint of water flowing over sand. I followed the footprint through the underbrush for a few hundred yards, until, to my astonished delight, all traces of the creek vanished entirely...

Allegheny - The Allegory Ridge Nonfiction Anthology, November 2023 (print only)