Trying to convey the experience of living in a desert to those who’ve known only moister climates often feels futile. It’s simply mindboggling, especially as you move away from the insulation of modern conveniences like air conditioning, automobiles, or even sunglasses. In its raw nature, this terrain is often life-threatening.

I’ve regretted not having a camera to record what I observed there, but one colleague from those years – another Ohio flatlander who relocated to the wet side of the Cascades after our journalist team was forced to scatter – has captured its essence better than anyone else I’ve come across.

Here are some of Kurt E. Smith’s images over the years of the land I call Katonkah Country. He has much more on his Seeing Small blog, which comes highly recommended. What he captures is sometimes enormous.

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