Dearest humans of the wilds,
We welcome you to the first-ever issue of Wild Thickets, a monthly invite-only inbox publication which compiles living traces of rewilding across so-called Vancouver1.
The setup is simple: Each month, 20 or so curators come together to deliver digital parcels which build a lovingly-gathered compendium of feral encounters and artifacts.
These tales do not view wilderness as a mythical place where nature is separate from everything else. We've been there before, and we know all too well where it leads.
Instead, our wanders take us across a city's rapidly-disappearing DIY, grassroots and experimental spaces of wildish repair and celebration, where more-than-human networks meet. Along these terrains, an archive is emerging. Let’s move with care.
The traces below have been gathered by multiple hands, each with their own style. Have a response to a Beacon 📡, or want to suggest one of your own? Tell us here.
🗺️ Experiences
An invitation to join the Vancouver Queer Birders group, all welcome…
Delight in @eastvan_blvd_gardens, where you can meet the lovely neighbours that keep your boulevards verdant and lush. Perhaps a future Beacon tour? 🌿
Keep warm and get wild at this intimate Naga x Low Indigo night, secret location, on Nov 18 with SIM, Destrata, and Michael Red b2b IHA.
Follow @Larios309 and @GabrielCapatoz on IG, and reach out for info on upcoming impromptu DJ sets of the German techno variety. In the summer they can be found sometimes at Sunset Beach. In the offseason, moreso indoor venues.
The rosa rugosa plant species has the most delicious edible rose hips. They are all over the city, including SE False Creek Seawall by Olympic Village right now. Nibble the outer fruit, avoid the prickly seeds inside.
You might never have set foot in Burnaby… but if you did, low-key Hythe Park drops a view at 154 meters above sea level.
A free film screening of “Stitching Palestine'' is happening on Nov 2, hosted by From the River to the Sea, Vivo Media Arts and MENA Film Festival, in support of the cancelled Palestine Days Screening in Ramallah.
Modulus Late Night on Nov 3 with local legends Sick Boss, album release event, for a good palate cleanse.
Soulful chants: The Vancouver chapter of Art of Living presents Divine Echoes: A Kirtan Concert & Satsang, Nov 4th, Terry Fox Theatre in Port Coquitlam.
An excuse to ferry yourself to a small bay on a large island in late November: The Rock Bay Square Open House. Not actually a bay, but you might find some rocks.
🥥 Artifacts
This article in Scientific American with a (eerily lifelike) photo of a whale eye-to-eye, which explores how artificial intelligence might help humans communicate with, and learn from, the worlds of other creatures…
An article on the Miyawaki theory of intentional urban rewilding through diverse forest communities, applied in Paris and now in New Westminster…
A beautiful multimedia piece in Emergence Magazine, ‘They carry us with them’, which follows communities across the US who are helping tree populations ‘move’ in response to rapidly-shifting climate patterns...
A new album from Forest Swords. Deeply textured downtempo soundscapes covered in layers of rust, moss, and dust.
Or, have you heard of East Forest? If you haven’t yet melted into his soundscapes, you are in for an auditory apogee… extra bonus for us meditators, as he’s put sound to some of Ram Dass’ mediations.
Love to ramble the coastal places, tiptoe through tidal waterways? Download the amazing app Tideschart.
An archival photograph of settlers skating on Trout Lake / John Hendry Park in 1905, hemlock forest still intact…
Grey herons, barn owls, hawks…some of the feathered friends we know and love in B.C. can also be found on the shores of Palestine: Birds of the Gaza Strip.
Stumbled upon these sonic echoes from Prince Shima whilst sipping a small cup of tea in a courtyard. A tasty pairing. And featuring artwork by Victoria-based artist Erik Volet on Strange Aloha, no less.
📡 Beacons
Kit would like to meet a local bat expert 🦇 (know any?) to go on a sunset walk with, and meet some of the locals…
Help Mo locate the rake mob sightings across Vancouver, or create one yourselves!
The Learnary needs you to identify these beautiful and beguiling curiosities…
Anyone else want to learn the ancient art of visible mending? The sashiko technique, for example, is hundreds of years old from Japan - here it is in the Craft Atlas. Can’t find any workshops for it in Vancouver, so maybe we can create one? We can start with these (deeply soothing) 5min video tutorials...
Hunting along misty coastlines for this issue, we looked to the present. At the same time, we also found ourselves looking into the past, and to many possible futures.
As Robert Penn Warren put it: "You live through that little piece of time that is yours, but that piece of time is not only your own life. It is the summing-up of all the other lives that are simultaneous with yours… what you are is an expression of history."
Thanks for sharing this slice of wildish time with us. We’ll see you in the thickets...
Love,
DrKitKat with Alex, Arman, Gala, GM, Janet, Jocelle, Mo, Sam and Terryis 🪶
