ABOUT ME

 

My current home, Langley, WA rests on the ancestral homelands of the Coastal Salish Peoples—Tscha-kole-chy in Lushootseed—who include the lower sqaǰətabš (Skagit), dxʷlilap (Tulalip), swədəbš (Swinomish), sduhubš (Snohomish), stuləkʷabš (Stillaguamish), and suq̓ ʷabš (Suquamish). I respect the sovereignty and right to self-determination of the Coast Salish Peoples who, for thousands of years, fostered an ethic of care and sacred connection with the lands and waters who nourished them. Langley, a town on Whidbey Island in the Salish Sea Basin sits on land occupied land the Treaty of Point Elliott signed by 82 tribes in Múckl-te-óh (Mukilteo) on January 22, 1855.*

 

A Canadian with South African roots and American citizenship, I grew up in Alberta on the Canadian prairies and lived in Ontario, British Columbia, South Africa, Oregon, and Washington.  I went to veterinary school in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and during my first on-call night shift, I assisted a resident performing a cesarian on a cow.  Twenty-three years later,  I spent my final night in our veterinary hospital removing an infected lung lobe from a critically ill dog. Right to the end, I gave the companion animals and families I had the honor to serve everything I had.

 

One day, I couldn't do it anymore, and I left. In the transition years, I leaned hard on rock climbing and studied Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. My father introduced me to climbing when I was still in college, and I was hooked almost immediately. Years later, my husband Steve introduced me to mountaineering, and we climbed a lot of mountains together when I wasn’t working or on call. Our bodies got tired, and now we kayak more than climb but, although my surgical equipment and textbooks are gone, the climbing gear still waits in the garage. 

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This website explores my transition away from veterinary surgery and toward whatever might be next. The artwork here is my own. The photos that aren't mine belong to either my beloved husband, Steve Smith, or my father, Conrad Walker.   The images of the Pacific Northwest probably belong to Steve, and the Southern African ones, Dad.  Anywhere else—you decide! This page is from a 2022 whale-watching trip in Iceland, where Steve and I watched a pod of orca surfing waves next to our boat.  

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​ These days, I volunteer as a librarian for the C. G. Jung Institute of Seattle and host a monthly Dream Council which I started in 2017 with Rite of Passage Journeys.​

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*I'm grateful to the South Whidbey School District for their land acknowledgment making this information easily accessible.