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Terra Firma

Colorado Public Radio

Terra Firma is a podcast about the outdoors, the sounds of the natural world and our place in it. Each episode runs about 5-10 minutes and pairs reflections on nature with gorgeous soundscapes captured in wild places.

Terra Firma unites stories and musings by CMarie Fuhrman, a Colorado-born, Indigenous poet and writer, with audio captured by outdoor sound recordist Jacob Job.

2023 Colorado Public Radio

Terra Firma is a podcast about the outdoors, the sounds of the natural world and our place in it. Each episode runs about 5-10 minutes and pairs reflections on nature with gorgeous soundscapes captured in wild places.

Terra Firma unites stories and musings by CMarie Fuhrman, a Colorado-born, Indigenous poet and writer, with audio captured by outdoor sound recordist Jacob Job.

2023 Colorado Public Radio
2hr 24min
Thumbnail for "Welcome to Terra Firma".
Terra Firma is a new podcast that combines writing about nature with the sounds of the outdoors.
January 5, 20234min 43sec
Thumbnail for "Elk Song (Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado)".
On a late afternoon in autumn, when the sun bends the shadows and gives a gold tip to the crowns of Doug fir and lodgepole, CMarie Fuhrman walks into the forest with her cello.
January 25, 20238min 58sec
Thumbnail for "Healing a Wounded Wilderness (Payette National Forest, Idaho)".
On a trail thousands of years old, CMarie sits among the wildflowers near the South Fork Salmon River and watches a tractor cover a fifty-year-old logging road
February 1, 20239min 16sec
Thumbnail for "Robin's Home Song (Big Thompson Canyon, Colorado)".
In the birthplace of the Colorado River in Rocky Mountain National Park, CMarie remembers an early-morning robin song from her childhood.
February 8, 20235min 57sec
Thumbnail for "Miracles Everywhere (Payette River, Idaho)".
Returning to the river to witness the annual kokanee salmon migration, CMarie starts to see the seasonal red of the fish everywhere.
February 15, 20237min 15sec
Thumbnail for "A Silvery Cold (Rawah Wilderness, Colorado)".
CMarie listens to the wind over the lichens and reflects on the word "rawah," which her ancestors, the Ute, spoke: "wild place."
February 22, 20237min 21sec
Thumbnail for "Snowy Starry Horse Ride (Collegiate Peaks, Colorado)".
Late at night, after a long day of emails and meetings, CMarie rides her horse into a frozen meadow under snowcapped peaks.
March 1, 20239min 15sec
Thumbnail for "The Eyes of Ancestors (Payette National Forest, Idaho)".
Leaning against a ponderosa on a ridgeline, CMarie watches a storm roll in.
March 8, 20238min 57sec
Thumbnail for "Greeting a New Decade (Comb Ridge, Utah)".
At sunset on the eve of her 50th birthday, CMarie hikes up a slickrock ridge with her dog Carhartt.
March 15, 20238min 1sec
Thumbnail for "Welcome Back to Terra Firma".
Season 2 offers a chance for us to see the ways in which nature allows our wildness.
January 31, 20242min 45sec
Thumbnail for "The Damning Silence (Mount Zirkel Wilderness, Colorado)".
All night, camped near a mountain stream, CMarie lies awake listening for the sound of wolves.
February 14, 20246min 43sec
Thumbnail for "The Human Element (Near Payette Lake, Idaho)".
On a bright morning at her mountain cabin, CMarie greets each of the beings around her, and considers her own species' place among this citizenry.
February 21, 20247min 35sec
Thumbnail for "Beauty in the Burn (Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado)".
CMarie finds a recent ruin beautiful. And she wonders if maybe fire has something to teach us about beauty.
February 28, 20248min 31sec
Thumbnail for "Sounds of Mountain Water (Powderhorn Wilderness, Colorado)".
High in a mountain meadow, CMarie wonders what the world would be like if we could make more space for the simplest of sounds.
March 6, 20248min 15sec
Thumbnail for "The Dark (Masonville, Colorado)".
CMarie lies on the lawn of the house she grew up in, and considers the stars.
March 13, 20246min 15sec
Thumbnail for "The Sandhills (Bear Valley, Idaho)".
CMarie wonders what sandhill cranes would make of her, if they wrote poetry.
March 20, 20247min 37sec
Thumbnail for "Autumn Road (A forgotten Forest Service road in Idaho)".
Hiking up a forgotten Forest Service road, CMarie stumbles upon a strange discovery that causes her to reflect on grace.
March 27, 20247min 16sec
Thumbnail for "Carhartt Creek (Payette National Forest, Idaho)".
CMarie and her 17-year-old dog, Carhartt, camp together for the last time.
April 3, 202410min 9sec
Thumbnail for "This Bend in the River (Gunnison River, Colorado)".
CMarie visits a river that brings things, and the river carries things away.
April 10, 20249min 17sec

The Damning Silence (Mount Zirkel Wilderness, Colorado)

Thumbnail for "The Damning Silence (Mount Zirkel Wilderness, Colorado)".
February 14, 20246min 43sec

All night, camped near a mountain stream, CMarie lies awake listening. She's hoping to hear a sound she hasn't heard in a long time: a wolf howl. And as she waits, she considers the ways each of us howls -- and how sometimes, when we don't, the silence aches.

This episode takes place on Eastern Shoshone and Ute homelands.

Host and Writer: CMarie Fuhrman
Field Recordist: Jacob Job
Outdoor audio recorded in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Editor: Erin Jones
Producers: Rebekah Romberg, Kibwe Cooper
Engineer: Luis Antonio Perez
Art: Maria Juliana Pinzón
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Additional Editorial Support: Jo Erickson, Emily Williams
Thanks also to Jodi Gersh, Clara Shelton, Arielle Wilson, Brittany Werges, Martin Skavish, Justin Peacock and Jon Pinnow

Terra Firma is a production of Colorado Public Radio's Audio Innovations Studio.