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Up In Smoke
THE MEANING OF FIRE
» Thursday 10 July 2008 | 4:30 pm
» The Bohemian Café, 524 Bernard Avenue
An informal afternoon hour showcasing the people and ideas featured in Okanagan Home. Join us as as we examine, with writer and ecologist Don Gayton, the difficult choices we have to make in order to protect our communities and manage our ecosystems.
» This is a free event. Refreshments will be available at a modest cost.
» Seating is limited, please reserve yours HERE
Getting Out in Front of a Burning Concern
 Every year in North America we spend billions of dollars fighting one of humanity's most ancient foes - wildfires. Yet if anything, the threat seems to get worse.
Ecologist and writer Don Gayton believes the time has come for society to reframe our conversation with forest fires, and he'll explore the issue Thursday, July 10, at 4:30 pm at the Bohemian Café as the Okanagan Institute's Express Series continues with Up In Smoke: The Meaning of Fire.
"Fire is fascinating from a scientific point of view, but it's also interesting from an anthropological point of view because humans and fire have co-evolved: we grew up together," Gayton says.
"Contemporary society has ignored the question of fire, leaving it to the firefighters to solve. We have some of the best firefighters in the world, but the recent intense interface fires are beginning to exceed their capacity to respond. We as a society need to acknowledge we live in a fire-maintained ecosystem, and that total fire suppression is not an option."
 Don Gayton is the author of several award-winning works of creative non-fiction, including Interwoven Wild, which was nominated for the BC Book Prize this past year, Kokanee (New Star, 2003), Landscapes of the Interior (1997) and The Wheatgrass Mechanism (Fifth House, 1990). An ecologist with a speciality in grassland and dry forest ecosystems, he currently lives in Summerland and works for FORREX, a non-profit natural resource extension society.
 Fire on the landscape is full of paradoxes, says Gayton. "Our dry forests evolved under a frequent fire regime, but some of that fire activity was set by lightning, and some by humans. When an ecosystem becomes dependent on a human activity, this challenges our notions about what is "natural," and challenges our notions of the separation between humans and nature."
"The truth is humans and nature are fatally, and fascinatingly, co-mingled. How we sort out that relationship, and deal with the very real threat to life and property that fire presents, is going to be a fascinating debate we will have with ourselves over the next few decades."
Up In Smoke: The Meaning of Fire is a free event, and takes place at the Bohemian Café. This marks the 48th event the Okanagan Institute has held since the Express series got underway in July 2007. Since that time, the series has played host to many Okanagan luminaries, including former deputy secretary general of Amnesty International Derek Evans, artists Lee Claremont and Gary Pearson, BC Book Award nominee Don Gayton, CBC Literary prize winner poet Harold Rhenisch, animator and filmmaker Jim Cliffe, architect Jim Meiklejohn, and others from a variety of creative fields.
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER ONLINE CLICK HERE
Okanagan Institute at the Bohemian Café A hearty feast of lectures, presentations, workshops and showcases celebrating our culture and community. Produced by the Okanagan Institute in association with Wheat King Publishing magazines: Okanagan Arts and Okanagan Home. Express is sponsored in part by the Arts Council of the Central Okanagan, Wood Lake Publishing, UBCO-FCCS, and in support of Project Literacy Kelowna.
The Okanagan Institute is a group of creative professionals that have gathered around the goal of providing events, publications and services of interest to enquiring minds in the Okanagan. We partner with individuals, organizations, institutions and businesses to achieve optimal creative and social impact.
Our mission is to ignite cultural transformation, catalyze collaborative action, build networks and foster sustainable creative enterprises. We invite the participation by all members of the creative community.
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