With notoriously bad eyesight, forest elephants tend to follow their trunks, using the appendage as a blind person might use fingertips on a stranger’s face–to identify, visualize, gather clues, communicate. From infancy, elephants entwine their trunks in play, establishing bonds of kinship while storing vital information–from smells and texture to the muscular strength of their […] Read more

Bonding over the mineral-rich mud in the hole at their feet, an older female places her trunk into a juvenile’s mouth. Elephants dig relentlessly with their tusks and trunks in the muck at Dzanga Bai, mining the substrata for salt and other minerals to supplement their diet of leaves, bark, grasses, and fruit […] Read more

A young elephant takes it’s first wobbly steps after birth in the heartland of Kilimanjaro, named after it’s majestic mountain, also the highest peak in all of Africa. This little elephant will enjoy all that the region has to offer, including semi-arid savannas and wetlands, growing up amidst several diverse ecosystems that connect the circle […] Read more

[SFX: waves, seagulls, ukulele music] ELF: Ah…tropical Christmas. We elves aren’t used to this. Normally we’re stuck in Santa’s workshop. But this year, he’s giving Northern Quest gift cards to all the grown-up boys and girls, good for luxury rooms, La Rive Spa, 1898 Public House – even Kalispel Golf and Country Club! It really […] Read more

POETRY (1806 – 1861) I I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, […] Read more

With thousands of other desperate Irish Catholic immigrants, Nellie Cashman came to Boston with her mother and sister about 1860. They then moved west, making their home in San Francisco in 1869. It was there that Nellie and her mother contracted mining fever and they soon left for the silver camps of Nevada, stopping in […] Read more

Nellie Cashman came to Boston with her mother, sister, and thousands of other Irish Catholic immigrants around 1860. After moving to San Francisco a few years later, she and her mother developed a fever for mining and traveled to the silver camps of Nevada. They opened the Miner’s Boarding House in Pioche to support her […] Read more

“Movies, boys, choosing matching shirts and skirts. Is this all they think about? It’s crazy.” said Ellie. Joel responded, “Get up; we’re leaving. Let’s go.” Sitting down emphatically, Ellie says, “What if I say no?” “Do you understand how important your life is, do you? You can’t run off that way and put yourself at […] Read more

From 1892 to 1954, over twelve million immigrants entered the United States through the portal of Ellis Island, a small island in New York Harbor. Ellis Island is located in the upper bay just off the New Jersey coast, within the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. Through the years, this gateway to the new […] Read more